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I think what Nick's said hits the nail on the head - I have noticed a lot of similar questions popping up, and it'd be nice to see a database that people could be pointed to to help them out!
Similar to what Nick said too, perhaps people who regularly use different components could write up their experiences with them all to outline which ones to buy and which to avoid? By no means would it cover anything and everything, but it'd certainly help the less experienced builders among us!
Might be helpful too to have some articles on the more dangerous things, be it a full tutorial on how they're done or just the theory behind it - personally from a safety point of view, I think it'd be better for people to hear the ins and outs from an expert so that they know what they're doing before attempting setups such as pneumatics instead of seeing another tutorial that may not be suitable for this application, but the bottom line is they're not to be messed with unless you're really prepared anyway!
As Harry Hills said though, the tutorials are already out there so I suppose really (if it's alright with the creators of these guides) we just need an index set up and fill in the blanks - anyone who can contribute anything new would be welcome to do so! I'd imagine that might be easily done on a sub-forum level (just adding a 'tutorials' section under bot building, as I think has been mentioned already) and then have an announcement or sticky topic at the top of the page for the Index, and anyone who wanted to add a tutorial would then just post it into the sub forum, link would be added to the index by an admin or moderator and then you get the bonus of being able to ask/respond to questions on the individual tutorials too?
Though to debate with myself on that (I do that sometimes, bit weird but it gets results) I do worry as to whether it'd make the individual weight category boards a slight bit obsolete, since they're generally the hub for questions relating to their weight class, I'd be worried that the majority of questions would find their way into the tutorial board and make the others relatively barren. Of course, you could always have individual indexes for tutorials within each individual weight category (with the ones that can apply to multiple being posted in each one they're suited for) but I don't know whether that's getting a bit too convoluted for its own good...
My basic line of thought for this idea (which I should have mentioned earlier, admittedly) was the 'How to make an antweight' topic in the antweight board by Laser which is a very solid tutorial for first-time builders and gives them a nudge in the right direction towards building a full machine. I don't think it suppresses the creativity, just gives someone the basics they need to get started since it can seem like quite a huge task initially, especially if you've never worked with any RC gear before. Again, just a thought on the matter! Can definitely see both sides to it though...
(Sorry, just felt like posting an entire novel there, apparently...)
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"I'd be worried that the majority of questions would find their way into the tutorial board and make the others relatively barren."
It would be better and much easier to just publish HTML pages on a separate web site and have discussions on the FRA board. If the tutorials are in a board format, the original material will soon be lost in all the chatter. With a separate site, the admin has more creative control organise and edit the material that is submitted.
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I think one potential issue is that a lot of roboteers can't really be bothered to make a video tutorial or are even unsure how to do so. There is only a select few who would probably bother.
There is already a media section, with a section titled "how to's and guides"- currently there is only 1 video in there! I'd suggest trying to get more videos in there first then perhaps think about making a separate site for them.
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That's the elephant in the room, finding enough builders who are both motivated and knowledgeable enough to create some guides. They don't all have to be videos though, written articles are probably better for theory and product reviews.
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It's not really about people being motivated to write new stuff, it's just that the info is already kicking about so why duplicate stuff that's already out there.
