too many chiefs not enough indians

seamus

Ludo wrote: »

I know it is tough repeating the same old stuff all the time to newbies but that goes with the territory in a feedback/help desk type area.

It's expected that someone has familiarised themselves with how the place works before they actually attempt to provide feedback. But that's not always the case.

The wonder of this text-based medium is that there is no requirement to repeat oneself. Once you said it once, theoretically you should never have to say it again, because it's there for everyone to read for ever and ever.

All of the information which you say that people don't know, is available. It's written there, available to be read. So it's not secret insider information which you need to hang around here to find out.

However, dissemination of that information to new users is something which needs to be addressed. How are they to know that you go into the wiki to find these things out?

You also have to expect a certain bedding-in period. In any kind of social group, if you attempt to give feedback immediately after joining, or without being familiar with the situation in that group, you're going to come against resistance. There's no way to prevent this and I don't think it should be prevented. Sure they'll come out a little singed at the edges, but they'll have learned a valuable social lesson, which isn't applicable only to boards - make sure you know what you're talking about before you open your mouth.

It's worth noting that there are very few of us who didn't make a complete arse of ourselves when we first started using online interaction in a big way, and most boards regulars will remember a time when they were a newbie, asked a dumb question and got laughed at for it.

Boards is at a size now where it's harder to shrug these episodes off and the forums themselves can't handle being spammed with hundreds of stupid questions. Which is why newbies seem to get a severe grilling when they appear.

Of course, it's impossible to completely prevent people doing it, but focussing on getting the relevant "need to knows" out there to the new sign-ups is probably an area which needs focussing on.

Nevyn

Well I am still sloggng throught that monsterous FAQ
and there is the newbie/FAQ forum.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=98

If people ask they do get thier questions answered,
not spoon fed mind.

Overheal

Thaedydal wrote: »

Well I am still sloggng throught that monsterous FAQ
and there is the newbie/FAQ forum.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=98

If people ask they do get thier questions answered,
not spoon fed mind.

Im a stickler for Ease of use, so I made my own addition to the FAQ forum: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055461510

That will also instantly adress the chiefs and indians issue for any newcomers. Assuming they read that bit. Im hoping the pretty pictures will keep them enthralled.

Steve

Overheal wrote: »

Im a stickler for Ease of use, so I made my own addition to the FAQ forum: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055461510

I was going to reply in that thread but as I typed I felt the comments might be better here rather than drag it off topic.

Firstly, fair play to you Overheal. Great effort!

Just some small suggestions though, "Orientation 101" is a bit American and would probably not be apparent to most what this thread is about.
Maybe "Beginners Guide to boards.ie" would be more suitable.

One other thing, as boards is in a constant state of flux (and therefore the rules are always changing so to speak), a thread like this should be locked and maintained as a defacto guide by a forum mod who, unlike us, is not time limited when it comes to editing posts. I had thought about doing a similar thread to this in the past but didn't for those reasons.

Maybe this should be a wiki entry instead of a thread, at least then it could be maintained by all as a single up-to-date source and edited as new features are added / removed from Vb (e.g. the thanks system or the visitor message system).

Don't get me wrong, your guide is excellent but will it still be valid in 6 months? maybe. If it's not then you can't edit it and so may be misleading.

I don't think it's fair to a new member to have to wade through a 2 year old thread full of updated changes either, they'll just give up and be as confused as when they started.

Just my 2c on the matter.

Overheal

Well Cloud's opening post was pretty redundant within 4 years but even while an admin it just never got around to being changed. Its just as much to me to have to repost it 6 months or 2 years from now given I can just quote of the text and edit it that way, assuming its left unlocked, or I become a mod (ha)

I thought of a biki page but ugh - PHP is second nature to me; wiki Formatting is definitely not. It would have taken me forever. Besides you dont want to have the newbie get navigated away from the message board like that if it can be avoided. Better to keep them in the place youre trying to acquaint them.

seamus

Yeah, good work Overheal, very nice.

I too would be in favour of wikifying it so that it can be amended as needs be.

I'm also probably more of an Ease of use stickler than you are, I would be in favour of something even shorter, with links off to the relevant content.

But that's just me.

Steve

Overheal wrote: »

Its just as much to me to have to repost it 6 months or 2 years from now given I can just quote of the text and edit it that way, assuming its left unlocked, or I become a mod (ha)

Good idea, I'd be willing to but a bit of effort into it if that could work.
I know Ruu did a bit of a clean up recently but there's still a lot to read wheras a single locked sticky would be a lot easier to read and be more informative for a newbie.
If there were substantial change required then maybe a suggestion thread for that or a pm asking the mod to do it would suffice.

Overheal

seamus wrote: »

Yeah, good work Overheal, very nice.

I too would be in favour of wikifying it so that it can be amended as needs be.

I'm also probably more of an Ease of use stickler than you are, I would be in favour of something even shorter, with links off to the relevant content.

But that's just me.

It would be nice to have the Wiki Version and the condensed/simplified version that gets issued as a Welcome PM to new members. Give a Welcome, then a brief outline which would contain the links to more information.

I mean I could have just linked to the different Mod/SMod/Admin pages but theyre not really all that wikified - most of them are filled with subective information. The hosted forums page was good so I just off-linked to that, like. I might go ahead later and amend those pages to be a bit more approachable for beginners.

Wheres Nerin? He's supposedly good with wiki formatting..

Wibbs

Bloody hell! fair play to overheal.

DeVore

One of the things I intend to task the Community Manager with will be rewriting the welcome mail to point out all the resources and also to link to content which "orients" them as newbies too.

DeV.

Xavi6

Thaedydal wrote: »

Boards users are not 'the public'.

So where do they come from then?

There was no one to teach me when I first wandered on to the precuser of the web over
15 years ago and I had to learn to find my own way around usenet.

Those were different times. There weren't as many internet savvy people back then. I can't believe that just because you got no help you are in turn going to apply the same attitude to other people.

Yes there is a learning curve, no I don't think people are stupid, I think they are well
capable of figuring it out themselves if they put a bit of time and effort in.
Sure they may bite off a bit more then they can chew at first but they will learn better
that way then if everything is premasticated for them.

I really hope that you don't ever have to go into a job or an organisation where everyone either looks down on you or turns their back altogether due to you not being able to grasp what's going on immediately, because that's exactly what you're advocating here.

Beruthiel

Overheal wrote: »

Im a stickler for Ease of use, so I made my own addition to the FAQ forum: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055461510

Great work Overheal, I just had to sticky it.

DeVore

There was a time when we would have said "if they cant work out that there is a link in the welcome mail, then we dont want them here". In a sense we still do, as we assign a very low priority to people who write to us and say "I cant log in" when the log in page has a big red lettered statement saying if they cant log in they probably havent clicked the link in the welcome mail we told them we were going to send them.

However, the site is changing and has changed, we're now a major publisher in Ireland and also a major centre for communication. People who are coming on to talk about DIY need not be computer literate. We still like them to be smart enough to know that they need to breathe regularly but we are also changing, ourselves.

Part of the impending introduction of "staff" (how weird is that word in conjunction with us) is that we are taking Boards more seriously and going to tidy up and improve the things we already know we do badly and to be more "professional" about dealing with issues (not least of which is Smod and Mod support from the admins).

Change is the only constant really...

DeV.

Shiminay

You have to learn how to drive a car to get a licence. You don't need to know the mechanics of how an engine works, but it probably helps (as a driver) if you do.

The dumbing down of the operation of computers means all sorts of people can now find the internet. You cannot deny that making things less complicated for people means they get too lazy to use their brain on a regular basis. This means we do get all sorts of users who have no history of learning things and no inclination to do so. They've become too used to things being spoon-fed to them instead of having to learn how to do it properly. I joined the internet when it was starting to become more user friendly (about 12 years ago) and have seen massive changes since then.

However, like a car, I don't think it's too much to expect people to at least acknowledge that they need to *learn* how boards works. I don't think we're (the site, the mods, the other users) helping them properly in this regard. We (the mods) have become so jaded by trolls and re-reg's that we jump. We also have cases of inconsistency in application of "rules" despite them being different from board to board (and despite our best efforts to explain this to people). New users don't get that and re-regging banned users don't care.

Lots of mods "hang out" on Feedback through natural curiosity or a desire to make sure there's no one slating them. I suggested before on the Mods forum before that we all should think about stepping back from Feedback and leave it to the non-mod users. Even if we tried it for a month, just to see what'd happen, we'll at least have an idea of how that might work. It's difficult to not join in on a discussion when you see someone's wrong or when you think you can tell them why they're banned etc, and also when you see one of your friends getting abused. Lots of us are friends. I'm sorry that people seem to have a problem with us being social with one another, but in fairness, GTFO! Back to my point, mods posting here doesn't seem to be helping, especially this week.

I am away for the evening now, but will check back when I get home - I trust nothing I've said is too shocking or upsetting for people

orestes

Boards is a community, and needs to be understood in those terms imo.

Imagine you moved abroad to a foreign country that you had no prior understanding of. Would you feel you had the right to act in any way you felt, regardless of the opinions/thoughts/traditions of that society, just because that was the way you acted in the society you were previously a part of? Sorry, but things just don't work that way.

If you want to be a member of a community, you have at least try to make an effort to understand that community. Members of the community will help you with you integration into it, but you have to be willing to make the effort on your end too. If you moved to a new country and started breaking laws and when admonished started crying "but these laws aren't fair, they're not like the laws I'm used to! You're system is wrong!" you would be up shit creek without a paddle. Your failure to understand the community is not the communities fault.

Boards does all it can to be welcoming to new members of its community imo. Links to FAQ threads are included in the welcome pack as far as I know.

When I was new here I asked a shit-load of questions. If I wasn't sure about something, I simply asked about it in thread when it came up and I wanted clarification (ranging from freedom of speech on this site to asking what a moderator was). I posed polite requests for information in order to understand the community, and was in turn provided with the information I had requested, which helped me to understand this site and how it functions.

I really don't want to seem like a smart-arse here, but perhaps the errors aren't on boards' end in all cases? Boardsies (admins, smods, mods, users) can't be expected to hold the hand of every new user who signs up to the site. Yes, we will help you settle in, but if you can't play by the rules or meet the users of this site half way, then you have no right to complain about this site. Why should we change our community to suit a few people who couldn't be bothered to try to understand it? Simple answer imo: we shouldn't.

There is a fantastic community on this site imo, but if you wanna be a part of it you should at least try to understand it.

Overheal

orestes wrote: »

Boardsies (admins, smods, mods, users) can't be expected to hold the hand of every new user who signs up to the site. Yes, we will help you settle in, but if you can't play by the rules or meet the users of this site half way, then you have no right to complain about this site. Why should we change our community to suit a few people who couldn't be bothered to try to understand it? Simple answer imo: we shouldn't.

And we wont, and we may never which is why I took all that time to write the FAQ Now only my thread will hold their hand, and to hell with them if they ignore it! Mwhahahaha :pac:

In seriousness though, the idea there was that orientation thread will (hopefully) take some orientation woes away from established users, specifically so everyone and their granny shouldnt have to need to hold anyones hand. After all that would be too close to the Hippy's notion of peace, and I don't want the commies to think our resolve is weakening.

(added part 3 today and made my final amendments to parts 1 and 2: Link)