Dilemma: how much general info about the web?

Whole day I was struggling with this question: how much general information regarding the WWW should I include in the introductory chapters?
I am fully aware there is a huge amount of information out there, even with a simple search anybody could find it. But in the WordPress Support Forums I have had to answer question like:

OK, I downloaded the WP files, they are on my Desktop, now what? I don’t understand what all that blabla is about server and config file. Where should I upload it? Do I need a domain? How do I upload the files. I am completely new to this, so be gentle…

You can imagine the desperation of any helper when seeing a question like this. Where to start? What should I explain first? - and the same questions are very valid even in the case of a book that is targeting the non-technical beginners.

Do they have any basic understanding how the web works? Have they ever heard at least the “word” html?
Strictly speaking, you don’t need to understand how a static HTML web page works as opposed to the database driven dynamic web sites. On the other hand, if you do know the difference - you will never end up in the Forum saying “I saved all the files from my old host/server and installed it on my new server/domain but my blog is empty! HELP, pleeeeease…”

Those are the idiots who never realized that nothing is stored in their files. Except your customized theme you can throw out all your files. You can find them anywhere, no need for them. Really. Everything that is dear to you - is in the database. Therefore I ended up with a brief comparison of the traditional HTML sites and the database driven dynamic sites using PHP. I could understand this basic concepts when my programmer son explained to me the first time… even without understanding one line of PHP code. I think my readers are not dumber, so they will understand it as well.

The many, many hours spent in the Forum gave me this enormous advantage: I know precisely what kind of mistakes to expect from a newbie. If you see the same mistake repeated by hundreds of users, you know there must be a problem, so better address it to help them.

Yes, I know, it also means there is a problem with the documentation, which is mainly written by geeks for geeks - with a few exceptions. Let’s leave that for a future post…

This article has 2 comments so far!

Vera says —
(On Oct 28th, 2007 at 12:31 pm)
If I were reading your book a month ago, or writing it, I’d make a short chapter somewhere of the things I might have to know about, even if the newbie never ends up needing them.

By list, I actually mean a kind of glossary, so many terms (such as htaccess, encoding, etc.) would be explained in one paragraph, short or longer, each. The codex is pretty awesome, but finding other resources such as Ask Apache took me further in grasping how to mod. The biggest frustration is not knowing what to search for information on, which a dense little glossary, written with the idea that it might be used as a source of search terms, might help with.

This one might sound dopey, but I wish someone had pinned a thread that suggested extracting and searching snippets from error messages. We non-tech people have a self-annoying tendency to look for help in ‘human’ first.

Vera
The Author says —
(On Oct 28th, 2007 at 1:01 pm)
Hi Vera,

Thanks for your comment and the suggestion.
Actually, I did plan to have a kind of Glossary and will try to make it as non-geeky as possible.