I’ve seen way too many threads/posts in Tech Talk from new members quickly shot down by the cannons of veteran members. Yes, we do have noobie threads with plenty of info and, yes, sometimes we have the occasional “pointless” thread. However, I think many of use have forgotten what SRK is about.
In my opinion, and in my experience, SRK is about building the fighting game community. We share fact and opinion, from PCB schematics to our joystick and button preferences. At the same time, in any given thread, we’re all getting a sense of the individuals that make up this community. Location, background, personalities, are just a few of a million traits we are trying to uncover.
So why is it that newcomers aren’t welcomed, but usually scolded by the flames of irate members who are furious that they have an extra thread in their way? Since when has this community become an all-business, no-play operation? And why have we forgotten the day we all made our first post/thread when we ourselves, while we may have had a legitimate question, were testing the waters to see what kind of people SRK was made of?
It’s extremely disappointing to see new or potential members of a comparatively small community pushed away by negative responses. If anything, we should welcome every damn soul we can to SRK in an effort to keep it growing. I have the utmost respect for this community, but the day we all become too knowledgeable or too busy to welcome new members and answer their “simple” questions, is the same day I lose interest in what I find to be one of the strongest fighting game communities in the world.
You got some points though some new members have asked questions that have been answered in previous threads. It may just be an attitude check that some members need to keep those new members in this small community.
At the risk of sounding exactly like what you are talking about, I need to tell you this: This is the wrong place to post this. There is already a thread about newcomers being unwelcome and this type of thing has been talked about to death. You should have looked around more for that particular thread, or at least realized that the place you posted this was not the right place.
Secondly, most of the people that do get “attacked”, bring it upon themselves by being stupid. And when you say we should take all the people we can, thats like opening the flood gates FOR stupid. People have said time and time again that as long as you dont make stupid posts, put forth the least bit of effort to post in the right section, and dont pick any fights with other members, you WILL be welcomed to SRK.
I actually clicked on this thread expecting the title to be a play on words and the content to be about light up buttons or sticks or faceplates or something…
I totally understand why this was brought up here. It’s definitely worth talking about. I’ll be the first to admit I can be one of the rather surly ones here.
This is where I’m coming from. I make an effort to help people who’ve demonstrated:
They’ve done some research
Can communicate like a reasonably intelligent mammal
The thing is, so many of the new posters here lately have basically been like this:
One of the things that makes tech talk such an awesome resource is several mods and esteemed posters have put together awesome posts that address most, if not all, common noob questions. When there are two giant posts at the top labeled “read before posting” and “the absolute noobie thread” that aren’t being used… well, I don’t know what to say.
I mean, at least make an effort to make your posts look like you’re not sending a text to a 13-year-old girl to ask her to the movies.
I understand being new to the world of arcade parts is rather daunting, but, help us help you. This sub-forum is such a tremendous resource. People ought to use it rather than expecting other users spoon feed them information. Let me give you some examples:
They obviously did some reading, but have a problem that they didn’t know how to fix/diagnose them self. They took great pictures and asking great questions. I tried to help them the best I could. (speaking of which, anyone else have any ideas on that one?)
Trust me, I know exactly what you’re saying. I answer that stuff all the time, but, in my opinion, threads like that should be replied with a simple post with a link to get them going in the right direction. All it takes is a few second of patience. Or, if not, just ignore it altogether. Screaming in someone’s face and not looking at them when they talk to you can have the same effect.
As an amendment to my first post, I would like to clarify that I believe we should only welcome mammals. Communication, or lack thereof, is a different story altogether.
I’m pretty new and I want to say I’ve always been pretty intimidated when it comes to making a post or asking a question here. So lurking is all I’ve done.
If I do want to post, I will make sure to be extra careful though so that my inexperience wouldn’t offend. There are some that are pretty aggressive here, and you don’t want to offend those =/
This is exactly how I approached posting in Tech Talk. Before asking anything, I would try to get all the possible research done first. I just really didn’t want to look stupid whenever I posted.
Of course, I soon realized that it didn’t really matter. I joined during the 09 wave and that was just unfortunate timing (I had always just lurked before). Because of the 09 stigma, some of my posts were ignored and some were even negative repped. I remember posting in the Mayflash thread, confirming that you can dual mod them with pictures as proof and I got hit with negative rep because my wiring was terrible (in the repper’s defense, the wiring job was really horrible).
Whenever I post, I try to contribute. That’s all there is to it. If I feel a thread’s question has already been answered before, I’ll either leave a short link and be done with it or not reply to it at all. Someone else usually beats me to the punch anyway.
If someone is acting like a douchenozzle, call them out right then and there. Don’t let them get away with it.
Ya, Tech Talk has began to become a little more intimidating for new members. If there is a question that I can address, I try to show them some appropriate threads that they should post in next time and try to stress the ability to search. However, I will usually still answer the question none the less, since the thread is already made and the question may not be answered in the appropriate thread.
We should be a bit more forgiving and help others out so that potential new members won’t get turned away. A lot of people don’t necessarily post on forums a lot and SRK can be a bit daunting. Also, everyone was noob at some point or another. As long as we teach people that things are accessible in a non-condescending way and show them the ropes, new members will be more inclined to post and use the forum properly. Just my 2 cents.
Yes because people who are less intelligent then you its a logical reason to flame/bash them or call them stupid!, Hurrah!(sarcasm) Also in the example his name would indicate maybe his English isn’t on par with you or me or someone else, So maybe English wasn’t his primary language?
It doesn’t help that there’s a 300 second limit between each thread search. It’s hard to find the right keywords to get the results you want sometimes and when you want to modify the search terms, you have to wait.
Ya, the thread searching option isn’t very usable. Use the general search (which uses Google and is located between the Calender and the Quick Links button) and you won’t run into this problem. :wgrin:
There’s nothing wrong with using this thread and this is a awesome way to get your questions answered quick since its a sticky that’s always on top. Someone will always have a reply on this thread.
Also if you have a question, don’t be afraid to PM someone including myself.
At the end of the day this forum is how I choose to spend my downtime. I speak to many of the people who lurk this board on a more regular basis than my local friends.
With that being said, I definitely try to keep things light. I didn’t become a moderator with the intention of busting skulls. I wanted to clean up the cluttered stickies, help people out and kill the spam.
I don’t hesitate to post light-hearted things that would probably get me flamed if I wasn’t a moderator.
I generally close these posts. I can’t stand when people write unintelligibly (in Tech Talk or otherwise). This is one of the few instances where I’ll actually flex a little muscle.
Google does a better job of indexing the forums. I use it on a daily basis when I’m digging for a particular thread.
I was shot down months ago for wanting to buy something. My newbie status was a marker for the attackers. After that event I no longer post and just lurk like I’ve done for the last few years.
