Putting new forum members in a Catch 22

[CDNSushi]

In principle, I agree with Streetcar's sentiments. However, I also do think some onus of responsibility is on the newcomer to "look before he leaps" so to speak.

One of the cardinal rules of forum posting, for instance, is to LURK first. Netiquette guides differ as to the amount of time that a newbie should lurk on a forum before posting their first thread, but I think the general consensus is: long enough to get a feel for the culture, customs, conventions and aura (for lack of better word) of the community.

As for zombie threads, well, again -- I think it's a bit of a matter of netiquette and learning whether or not thread necromancy is socially acceptable on the forum you happen to be on. I've been on some forums where it's SO taboo, that ALL (as in 100%) threads get LOCKED after a given time of activity (like 2 weeks or so). Again, each group has its own subculture and conventions.

Reading the rules is only step 1. There are many unwritten rules that, when broken, do not result in banination, but do result in being scorned by the locals.

One of the forums I used to hang out in was far, far, FAR quicker to tell newbies to shut up and use the search function before proceeding. Whether it's right or wrong, I won't say. But I WILL say that it never was effective in cutting down on the number of questions that were asked cyclically (like once a week) but it did make answering the questions more efficient.

If anything, I would suggest a technique that combines: being friendly and welcoming (first and foremost), helpful (answer the question, even if it's a quick one-liner), and educational (refer the person to where they could get more information, including the famous "search function" all without being elitist, snarky or condescending.

When I was active on another (kilt-unrelated) forum, I had a fairly standard stock reply that I could cut and paste from previous answers. I don't think we need to be snarky to the new members, but getting them to learn how to operate the forum buttons isn't a bad idea either.

My standard reply went something like this:

Hi there <Newb's name>,

I noticed you were new here on the forum. Just wanted to say "hey" and welcome here. We're a pretty friendly and helpful group so I hope you stay for a while.

Anyway, to answer your question, <quick,1-2 sentence answer>. That's just the quick n' dirty answer though. This has actually gets brought up fairly frequently (so much so that there's a sticky about it at the top of the page)...

If you need more detail that the answer I wrote, use the Search function (It's on the top-right of the page). It it doesn't work for you, put up a question in the "tech support" forum so the mods can look into it.

In fact, I just did a search for <newb's question> for you, and here's some off the hits I got.

<link>
<link>
<link>

But there's a few more than that too that are quite relevant to what you're looking for. I encourage you to look them up too.

Cheers,

Jim

[Heming]

Being a new member, I thought I'd chip in:

I actually find the search function quite inadequate. That might of course be me, but I can never seem to find anything. And I'm usually quite good at ferreting out information from the abysses of neverwas (I'm an archivist / records manager professionally).

Apart from that, I have noticed the same thing as the original poster - if you're new (in any forum), you're still pretty much expected to know the entire thread history of the forum, and then shut up about it and carry on. I find xmarks better than many other forums on this point, but have also noticed that xmarks is very intolerant of thread resurrection - unless done by an old and respected member...

[RamsayClanCommish]

I must agree with the original poster. Though it isn't confined to only this board. Also, I find it irritating to have a thread that after a few days of being opened is met with "We'll I think we've discussed this as much as possible", "Nothing new here", or "I think we can see where this is going so I am locking this down" and the thread is closed.

To my mind, this is a forum for discussion so let us discuss. If you don't like a particular topic or don't like the way a thread is turning...don't read/don/t post. I do not encourage flame wars. But I think we are all reasonable adults who can carry on spirited debate and who despite topics being repeated CAN find new things to add.