Hey Franki, kick ass thread. And I am honered u placed my Lake Mead Experiment on it. I know
my nick/ID name is wrong but i have big fingers and the keyboard is small...ha ha. But Kudos to ya,
TCO
Hey Franki, kick ass thread. And I am honered u placed my Lake Mead Experiment on it. I know
my nick/ID name is wrong but i have big fingers and the keyboard is small...ha ha. But Kudos to ya,
TCO
Mods,
Having noticed
continuing repetition in thread topics, some of which have been discussed many times, I'm gona re-suggest my
previous suggestion. I think there should be a newbie FAQ section somewhere (possibly in the Pherolibrary). All it
would take is for people to copy and paste some current and past newbie questions and responces, perhaps with links
to good threads. I started doing this, and got as far as one question
Thoughts?
CptKipling,
I think the problem
is, that no matter how many things we can put anywhere, whether that be here in the newbie thread, in a Newbie FAQ,
or in the Reference Library, there are going to be people who are not willing to read anything!
That's a big part
of the problem. The people who are coming in and expecting us to start rewriting the whole forum just for them,
simply aren't WILLING to go back and read ANY of what is already available. And the more information that we make
available, the more we are wasting our time!
Of course there are different aspects of this problem. It is
obvious sometimes that the people posting these redundant threads are simply trying to accumulate points. In that
case there is a solution that every forum member can exercise; that is, giving the thread poster a negative
reputation hit.
If the poster is in fact whoring for points, he'll soon realize that the points that are
subtracted by his receiving a negative reputation hit will FAR outweigh any points he may have hoped to gain by
posting the thread.
This is one solution that the moderators have discussed.
But in the case of someone
innocently postng something that has been discussed, even many times before, this can be an unduly harsh
punishment.
We would also like to avoid the possibility of recipients of negative reputation hits trying to
retaliate against those who dealt them those hits by giving negative hits in return. Such behavior would be dealt
with even more harshly. Anyone who receives a negative reputation hit that they feel they didn't deserve should
contact a moderator.
I used to subscribe to the theory that, "There are no stupid questions.....", and I still
do to some extent. But when I see this same question being asked two or three times in the course of a one or two
week period, I come to realize that the people asking these questions must not know how to use the search function.
I was never much for answering a question with "Try doing a search!", but I'm becoming more inclined to go that
route.
But there are some questions that I don't feel deserve to be answered AT ALL, because they are just
such obvious examples of laziness or points whoring!
So another one of the options that has been discussed is to
simply delete these threads! And then, after keeping track of who has been posting frivolous threads, banning or
otherwise punishing the offender if the behavior persists.
It's a safe bet that there will always be green
newbies coming in and asking questions that have been asked hundreds of times before. I think that the large
majority of these questions can be answered by using the search function or reading the various reference sources
that SHOULD be obvious to anyone.
We've just always tended to be nice to newbies, and haven't said things like,
"Use the *&$%#$%@ SEARCH ENGINE YOU &%$#$& !!!!!
Maybe that doesn't have to change. Perhaps we can still be
nice to the TRULY green newbies. But the guys who have been around here for a few weeks, or a month or more, who
STILL seem to be posting redundant or frivolous crap, deserve to be b!tch-slapped.
And if that doesn't stop them,
harsher measures can be taken.
Believe me, I read each and every post, and if I see a member who is posting
frivolous or redundant garbage AFTER being warned, whether that warning came from a member or a moderator, I will
not hesitate to bring the hammer down!
Oscar
Last edited by oscar; 12-25-2004 at 05:02 AM.
Cap'n,Originally Posted by CptKipling
(Not that I'm a moderator or anything...)
I think we do need to have some
sort of centralized system for important posts. My idea was to have a forum specifically for
hits/testimonials/products/whatever, while having one thread for each product. I see the 'posting rules' section,
so I know you could make a product forum and have a moderator or forum vet 'specializing' in that product post a
thread for every L-S product and then close the forum from posting new threads. That way, you could simply direct
people to the main thread if they have a question about a particular product. That might cut down on a lot of
'lazy' posts.
Another suggestion would be to centralize basic information such as "How much do I use?" and
"What's the best product for ______?" or whatever. Then, veterans who are tired of answering simple questions
could just post a link to that section for their reference. Coincidentally, I actually do this for a living
(research questions that have been asked before and provide links to the solutions).
Anyway, that's just my 2
cents. You'd never have to really write "do a search" if you could just copy and paste a link to general questions
and save yourself and others the trouble.
Maybe it should be, "there are
no stupid questions, only ones that have been discussed to death and are now boring".
Despite the frustration
being caused by laziness/point whoring, it is too crude a judgement to frown upon every rubbish thread,
simply because it could end up being bad for Bruce when we are unduely harsh to newbies. In my opinion, we should
make sure there is no excuse not to notice the newbie information, and make the forum very newbie friendly by trying
to cater as much as possible to the unimformed. I like Pancho's idea about having as much per product information
as possible, but perhaps such things should be in the pherolibrary. I have some pretty good information on a few of
the products already copy/pasted away, maybe we should do this for all of them and update the newbie material. Also,
whether it comes to anything or not, I'll start logging basic newbie questions.
Slightly off topic, I think
the current use of the rep system is way out of balance. Hardly anyone gives bad rep; it seems to be the case that
people give good rep in the hope of getting it returned. Case in point: all of the newbies with very high reps, some
of them with only a couple of posts! There are people who deserve good rep, but so many poeple have such high rep
it's a bit silly.
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