zombe on 2/6/2004 at 14:34

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Not directly a TTLG forums thing ... but, anyway.

Not reading the FAQ seems to be a common problem in forums - waiting for the day someone modifies the forum software so that a new user has to enable his posting rights by reading the FAQ.

I think all new member problems would disappear when:
New user can make a post in a forum when all _Important_(aka. Stiky / etc) threads in that forum are visited. Failing that would point to forums main FAQ where it is noted WHY they can't post (preferably at the end of the FAQ :ebil:).
Making a new post would ask the title first and run it trough search and confront the user with the results ... and at the bottom would be the box to enter your post. This behaviour would be the _default_ behavoiur => and stay so forever if the user doesn't do something about it. --- IN the forums main FAQ (if the user is logged in) would be the choice to turn that behaviour off.

It wouldn't change a thing for a good new user, but would be prety good against bad-kind-of-noobs - until they see their error ...

So, what you ppl think - would it work?

Have you ever seen something similar used somewhere?

David on 2/6/2004 at 16:35

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Acceptance of the guidelines is already part of the signup process.

Gingerbread Man on 2/6/2004 at 16:54

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I am a mean, mean, and petty person (in that black-candles-and-giggling-maniacally way that all the girls swoon over), and once I found the BEST registration process ever at a forum...
Before your registration was submitted, there was a QUIZ on acceptable forum use. Simple things like

"You have a question regarding a technical difficulty with X. Do you post it in a) The general forum, b) the scripting forum, c) the technical forum, d) all of the above, for maximum coverage"

"How should you title this thread? a) HELP! b) Question for So-andso c) Technical help needed, d) (brief description of the problem)"

"Someone replied to your question, but they didn't quite give the answer you were looking for. Should you: a) Post another thread with the same question in it, to make some other people read it, b)Post a reply in the original thread explaining what exactly you were after"

Rather than being snobbish or patronising, it is all actually explained beforehand as being important to keeping the forums running smoothly and with minimum hassle. People who don't fare well on the quiz are encouraged to browse the forums as a guest for a while longer, re-read the FAQ and Usage Guidelines, etc and then have another crack at the Quiz.

Oh, but I can think of some important questions... Yes, I can.

>:D

Hemebond on 2/6/2004 at 21:15

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That sounds good. Then the mods would have a great reason to just delete posts that don't follow the rules.

mopgoblin on 2/6/2004 at 22:11

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As Wuggles said, just because they load the FAQ page doesn't mean they actually read anything that's on there. In fact, I'd say it's less likely that they'll read it if you try to force them to, since it gets in the way of what they're actually trying to do at the time.


So whenever something gets "stickied" in a forum, everyone has to visit it before they can keep posting, even if it's something specialised which will be of no use to many people?


The end of the FAQ would be about the worst place, since that's just making it difficult for the user to get at the information they're after.


I'm assuming you mean a new threads rather than all posts (since "Hey, here are a bunch of other threads on how to use &lt;some sort of DromEd thing&gt;" is just an annoyance to someone who already knows the answer, and is replying to a question by someone else). The major problem I see with this is that the user may have read the FAQ <i>before</i> registering, and just skipped it if it's thrown at them during the actual registration process. If so, they'll think they know exactly what's in there, especially is the FAQ would be a very unusual place for options to be changed, and isn't something you'd expect to look different to guests. So they'll go to post a thread asking what the deal is with the auto-search things, and if they're attempting to get rid of them, they might well have taken a "piss off, autosearch" attitude, and won't look at the any previous threads it gives them. Like those banner ad things which no one ever looks at anymore, because they're automatically considered an annoyance that gets in the way of something else.