If I join a forum I've never used before, the first thing I do is read the bit at the top which says "Please read this before posting".
So, what I do is read that post first, knowing that if I don't, I am going to be jumped on pretty quick if I start posting stupid questions!
There's a similar system here - with pretty green arrows highlighting the posts in question.
When
some newcomers come onto here for the first time, they have one mindset. Let me describe one of them...
He has DB and is going to create the next Half-Life 2 and no-one is going to stop him.
He (or his mum and dad) has bought DB so he is entitled to come on here and demand to be told how to do something and can't be doing with farting around actually learning how to do any of it himself.
He can barely spell or string a coherent sentence together and expects you to not only post the code for him to paste into his program, but also figure out what question he is actually asking as well.
You explain politely where he is going wrong, so he ignores your advice, rephrases his question and then asks it again on a different board.
You point him at tutorials you know answer his questions, but he always says that the tutorials 'didn't help' and can someone show him.
He doesn't sit and read any of the existing posts which in 99.9% of cases would give him the answers he wanted. Neither does he see that apparently invisible 'Search' box in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Is the word 'lamer' still relevant these days?
This sort of newcomer I have little sympathy for and although I don't condone it when some users hit them with a flaming stick, I can understand it. It does become very tiresome repeating it over and over and over again...
Hopefully, the shock may get them thinking to themselves "crikey - what did I do to deserve that then"? And then try again.
I try to treat all newcomers with civility, but advice often falls on deaf ears. After all, they are always right, and who the hell am I to tell them what to do anyway?...
If a bit of common sense was used by first posters they wouldn't have the problem. After all, LOTS of first posters do things properly and have no problems.
There ought to be a way for newcomers the first time they join to only be able to see the stickies on each board until they have read them and agree to adhere to them.
But what chance is there of that from newcomers when there are stickies like in Code Snippets which ask posters to put what version of DB their snippet is for in the post title. Many veteran forum users ignore that, so what chance is there of getting newcomers to do it.
TDK_Man
