Padded Room

[Tertion]

Last year, I have seen a forum about a free online mutliplayer game, based a lot on politic..so a good understanding of the gaming world was required to play properly...

Before being able to post, you where obligated to respond to a (very tought, according to myself) quizz a have a 18/20 mark. And all the responses could only be found in the FAQ section and politic info threads...

I think this system is good because it does'nt "stop" neebs because you still can read info on the subject and learn even if you have'nt passed the test....and you cannot post things until you pass it.

I don't konw if it's possible to do with Vbulletin.....

[Greylocks]

To answer HoJo

The mud room system can still work even if the established person is in Europe. The low numbers of such members can be given some leeway with no more problems than an email.

Originally Posted by Tertion

Last year, I have seen a forum about a free online mutliplayer game, based a lot on politic..so a good understanding of the gaming world was required to play properly...

Before being able to post, you where obligated to respond to a (very tought, according to myself) quizz a have a 18/20 mark. And all the responses could only be found in the FAQ section and politic info threads...

I think this system is good because it does'nt "stop" neebs because you still can read info on the subject and learn even if you have'nt passed the test....and you cannot post things until you pass it.

I don't konw if it's possible to do with Vbulletin.....

thats not a bad idea...


Really, this whole discussion has hit on some great ideas, and I say go for it. With the increasing number of minors joining ASC, something has to be done. Not saying that all are bad, but we all know from experience, that there are many people who should never be allowed access to this site.
I also think its a little something that we should do to help screen out problem people. As drastic as these steps are, we know from our "closing the gallery" thread that taking steps like this may be a politically responsible thing to do.

I dont think this will scare off future players....those who are serious about this will no doubt understand that its a problem and this could be a solution.
So long as the mud room has age verifer info. There are many people who just dont care to post on ASC, and just come here to get verified.

Id be more then happy to help out in any way that i could with this idea if it goes through.

Originally Posted by Gryphon

I like this concept. I'd proposed this to Miles some time ago but was told this had been tried once before with less than satisfying results. If that's the case, what will be different this time around?

As far as I can recall, it wasn't quite like what we're proposing where the Mudroom would be restricted to newbies and certain members entrusted to guide them correctly withough being dicks about it. That's very possible now, given the features of VB.

There was once a noob board, but nothing forcing new people to confine their posts to that location until they were sufficiently screened. As is the case now, the noobs would just ignore it and post in the general board. With VB, we can restrict that entirely.

[lyphe]

Scarecrow, I agree with you completely on being nicer to the newcomers as to not scare them away. Personally when I first found this forum I asked a question (which I’m sure would have been easily answered by the FAQs) and the first few responses I got were excessively aggressive and negative. *points at Greylocks* I now understand the responses I got, but back then I was ready to walk away and look for another forum to answer my question, after all, just because I’m had no knowledge about airsoft, didn't make those who responded any better then me. In fact I had no idea there was even a sport surrounding airsoft until a few days after I joined. Now what I’m trying to relay here is that not everyone would stay and wait for the nice reply (respect goes out to Brian for being a good mentor). I think that we are scaring off a lot of potential future players by being impatient with all the noobs and their 'stupidity'.

The solution? The first thing to do is NOT waste your time flaming people as someone just mentioned, ignore the post if you must, just don't flame. With a little work, I think that a Mudroom would work very well for keeping ignorant posts out of the general public's way. All we need is for a decent amount of members to go to the section and answer the simple questions and point newbies in the right direction. Most of the newbie questions are essentially the same, so its not like we need someone ultra airsoft-savvy to be tending to them, with the immense amount of members here, I’m sure that a separate section for newbie posts can be easily managed.

[Jake]

I just wanted to add another new person's perspective as I joined this site about a month ago, and my first impressions are still a little fresh. Starting from the very beginning: When you sign up a couple confirmation emails are sent. These seemed to be a very generic greeting, and I wonder if this message can be changed to include something a little more specific to this board.. such as the rules, telling people to read the FAQ etc.

Also, the order of this forum from the main page seems a little mixed up to me. The first category is the Armoury, and then it is followed by the General section, including the PropsCanada nightmare (which was fun reading BTW) and other sections.

I think if this place was set up in a different way, it would cut down on at least some of the pointless new threads that are started by new people that just don't know any better. Here is one example of a message board that I found that has things a little more organized:
http://www.pearlharborattacked.com/c.../ikonboard.cgi

I am not suggesting that the whole format be copied of course, but I liked the general idea: At the top of that forum it starts with announcements.. "Please Read First", followed by the FAQ and then the topics. If you click on the first topic called "Research Reports, Term Papers" they have a sticky on how to ask questions and what not to do. From just taking a quick look, I liked a lot of their ideas.

Anyways, I just wanted to throw in my 02 cents. So far I have seen a lot of good suggestions, and maybe if a combination of them were put into place there would be less problems.

[thephenom]

Originally Posted by Jake

I just wanted to add another new person's perspective as I joined this site about a month ago, and my first impressions are still a little fresh. Starting from the very beginning: When you sign up a couple confirmation emails are sent. These seemed to be a very generic greeting, and I wonder if this message can be changed to include something a little more specific to this board.. such as the rules, telling people to read the FAQ etc.

I for one have never read any one of those emails, and I have accounts to quite a few forums. I just scroll and look for the link to confirm my account.

However, your other suggestion is great, it's been suggested here before, just never figured why it's never been considered/implemented.

[Gerkraz]

I moderate a serious discussion forum on another board and we have some similar issues that ASC faces with new users. FYI: the board has something like 5,000 active users, 20,000 registered, and I'd say we have about 30 active (read as: good) posters in my forum. We also have many more random users coming in a posting stuff like "Is Dubbya more like Hitler or teh Devil???? LOLZ" or "Is cutting yourself normal?".

Serious Discussion (the forum name) exists for people to argue, debate and discuss issues in a serious, academically (or at least intellectually) rigorous way. In order to ensure this we have a very straight-forward set of rules which users are required to read before posting. Most of them do not do this and as a result we get lots of junk threads/replies being posted.

The way we deal with this is pretty hands-on, but it works well.

Whenever someone creates a junk thread, I simply lock it, toss it to the trash forum, and send the user a PM telling them why I locked it and how to go about posting it properly (pointing them to a FAQ, dictionary, spellchecker, etc).

Whenever someone replies with a junk post, I edit it out or delete it and then send the user a PM telling them why I did that.

Generally that brings two kinds of responses:

1) "Fuck you, man, this is a free Intarweb I can do wut I want...lolz"...I then give them the banhammer.

2) "Okay, thanks for the heads up."...I let them go on their merry way.

If ASC were to use a similar method, while it would cause the mods to spend more time moderating the boards, it would also ensure that we get rid of most of the stupid noobs, and keep the good ones.

[Frozencricket]

Um... I know I'm basically a n00b, but if you need someone to review the FAQs, I'd like to volunteer. I'm a professional editor and my workplace aims for a grade 5-comprehension level.

Originally Posted by Frozencricket

Um... I know I'm basically a n00b, but if you need someone to review the FAQs, I'd like to volunteer. I'm a professional editor and my workplace aims for a grade 5-comprehension level.

Aim high, lol.

Hojo, if you need some help getting the code right, let me know. I'm not positive which template is responsible, but I'm sure we can figure it out.

[Frozencricket]

Originally Posted by MadMorbius

Aim high, lol.

This is for the government of Canada, after all. Can't expect too much.

[spleen]

Originally Posted by Frozencricket

Um... I know I'm basically a n00b, but if you need someone to review the FAQs, I'd like to volunteer. I'm a professional editor and my workplace aims for a grade 5-comprehension level.

This won't work. If I'm going to be moderating the mudroom, I have to be able to read the FAQs. But I digress...

Many good ideas here, but I think we need to focus on the mudroom idea. Too many people are suggesting graduated user levels, etc. which have all been discussed too many times before. It's not that these ideas don't have their merits, it's just that we could spend our whole lives discussing (and much of it rehashing of old suggestions) which is the best way, and never actually implement anything. This mudroom idea has gotten further than any other idea in the last few years, and I think it's worth focussing on giving it a good try.

As I understand it the reason that the forums are in the order they are in, is that the Administration wants first and foremost to service well it's existing users. They don't ever want to make the forum less efficient/slower/more annoying for the users who are actually using it the way it should be. This is why the seperate mudroom idea has caught on. It doesn't affect the ASC experience for everyone who's already a member and using the board, it just gives us an entirely seperate part of the board to restrict the new users postings to.

[T.Smith]

*looks to this thread like a small glimmer of light through the clouds on a rainy day*

After readin' through this thread I am thrilled at the prospect that steps are bein' taken to address this issue an' make the ASC a little more friendly an' alot more informative, for first time posters an' veteran members (An' guys like myself who only really visit one section an' post here an' there).

I'm not sure how well the graduated program would work, but the demotion theory has it's merits. I would imagine that the new poster would realize his mistakes an' after bein' demoted to the Mudroom (an' quickly realizin' there are only threads like his, the FAQ an' a comprehensive "dos an' donts" thread to read) will quicly realize his mistake. I agree that more work would have to be done to bring a new poster up to speed an' then re-promote him as time passes but the benifits are endless!

Kudos to you all, an' I look forward to hearin' more.

[Scarecrow]

KISS principle here folks. Keep the mudroom concept simple and it will work. Muddy it up with complexities and it will be impossible to manage. Morb's identified the key technological parts of vBulletin which can make this work. Spleen looks like he's good the logistics of it nailed down. Just have to see what Hojo is willing to do, as its ultimately his decision. He understands the history of ASC from the inside out, so he's likely to know what will work from a broader perspective.

But its good to see so many people genuinely interested in making things better with positive contributions. The community needs the good karma right now to get things turned around and get new players properly oriented and integrated so we can all benefit from a healthy population of regular players. There is nothing worse than showing up to a game where 50 people posted and 8 people show up. I think something like this will help fix that by reinvigorating the community with fresh faces who are enthusiastic to play the game.

[Kurgan]

Hey..Kellies isn't just for Newfies.....lol..