Not having had a single source of helpful mentoring, I became jealous while reading your post. Having skilled people around to ask the stupid questions, without the political or social fears that go with asking some of those questions, is really desirable.

There are many reasons why I haven't and don't have that, not pertinent really, but I've begun to substitute PM and a couple of other places for that. It isn't the same, but it's as close as I'll probably get.

Then as I read this thread and found George_Sherston's reply and it's sub-thread, it dawned on me that having a mentor or someone to review or help me - who couldn't communicate with me in ways that were useful for me - would be useless, regardless of their ability level. I feel the same way about doctors, my CPA, lawyers, etc... Maybe someday I would be competent enough to not need things to be 'dumbed down' for me, but hey.

It's that need for clear, antagonism-free explanations that keeps me here at PM, and keeps me lobbying for easy-to-experience answers.

We're all different, and the level of 'dumbing-down', or the simplicity of the language, will be different for all of us. Interesting problem, and an interesting experiment for those learning to explain things in written form. (I wish I could vote on the clarity or usefulness of some module documentation for this reason...:)