CBMatt, Mr. Hope is still a work in progress, not a small task and with me bouncing around from one thing to another takes awhile. 
However, I definitely welcome any scenarios or FAQ's that are not already answered. The beat (updated a month or so after originally posting) is still up at:
http://www.computerhope.com/cgi-bin/mrhope/mrhope.cgi
Not sure how he could be implemented into the forums (as far as users doing it before posting). But a log or things he's stepped them through could definitely be logged or even better sent to the forums. But good idea, something maybe for the future once it's more complete.
My only problem with filling out specs upon creating an account is where to store the data, unfortunately I'm not that great with PHP and new to SMF so implementing something like that would unfortunately take me personally a lot of time if at all possible.
I definitely sympathize when it comes to Mr. Hope. It's obviously a BIG task, and it will take a long time to get him to the point of actually being truly helpful. Although I like the idea of using him in conjunction with the board somehow, we probably won't be doing that anytime soon, even if we were all working on it. I still like the idea, though.
As for the system specs...like Zylstra suggests, I bet you could find some solutions on the SMF forums. There has to be someone who has done something very similar to this and could make it a lot easier for you. I understand that your abilities and time are limited, but the work may have already been done for you. With some luck, you may only have to follow some simple steps.
And there's something else I'm wondering. Many forums have a tooltips feature that lets you preview the content of a post by overing over the subject line. Do you know if SMF supports this? This could help cut down on a lot of wasted time and we wouldn't have to get sucked into so many posts with generic and/or misleading titles. Just a thought.
Example of user using this new feature.
http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,36120.0.html
If you happen to see a post where the users did not list their OS information but should of that has been made late today or any time in the future mention it, let's see if this helps as far as getting more users to at least post their os information.
Although not major, that is a step in the right direction. Do you think it would be possible to have some textareas show up after clicking on that link? Kinda like the Additional Options link...when you click on that, you're presented with some checkboxes and options. Perhaps clicking on the "Click here" link could present the poster with several textareas asking for certain specs. I don't like this as much as the registration, but perhaps it would be easier? Or would it actually be harder?
I'd like to thank you for attention on this matter so far, Nathan. I appreciate you looking over our suggestiongs and trying to address this with us. He'll never say it, but Raptor appreciates it too. I swear, he's a big ol' softie on the inside. Heh.
Do you think it would be a good idea or a bad idea to sometimes redirect a user to the Mr. Hope BETA to see what they get?
This could really go either way, I think. If we did use Mr. Hope, perhaps it would be best to keep it optional, as I'm sure some people might get confused or frustrated. However, it could help give someone an idea of what information to provide. Even if it's just something like "I tried Mr. Hope and he told me to do this, this, and this but none of it worked."
However, It would get terribly annoying if we were constantly going to look at their profiles.
I agree. But perhaps the information could be included on the side underneath the avatar and user quote. Wherever it is, it should be easily accessible. Maybe the information could be hidden and then activated by clicking on a link (much like when clicking on the Additional Options link). The information will load with the rest of the page, but it can be concealed/revealed by using javascript. Perhaps it could be included in the signature somehow. From the beginning, I have had my computer specs in my signature because I knew that whenever I had a problem, the information would be asked for, and I didn't want to have to keep posting it.
When registering for
GeeksToGo, you are asked to provide your OS and it is displayed underneath your avatar. We can surely do something like this on a slightly larger scale. It would be a lot nicer, I think, if we could save info for multiple computers, but I know there's only so much we can do. And if storage/space is an issue, we could look into my above suggestion to Nathan.
