There are many, many issues to address when it comes to n00bs and newbies. That is the purpose of this thread. What different issues are we talking here? Well, for starters, I think we should impose a limit on how many posts a person can have before they can be warned. I don't think many people read the community guidelines. I know I didn't when I came in.

That's where the People Staff comes in. If a newbie has committed an offense in a topic (chances are they probably won't know it), a person on People Staff can PM them the community guidelines. After reading them over, the newbie can PM the staff member back and not only feel welcome in cB, but also establish rapport with a well-known member.

Another issue is the way newbies are treated. To be quite blunt, many cBers can be extremely rude to new people, especially if they unknowingly do something wrong. We need to clearly point out that mistreatment of newbies will NOT be tolerated, and that anyone who does mistreat newbies will be warned.

Anymore?

Yeah. Let's all be nice to the new ones. They don't know any better guys.

*cough*cough*

- Solipsist

I'm pretty much sure, when a new member registers Jusun sends an automatic PM containing the link to the Community Guidelines.

ya... but most of them are too *lazy* to follow the rules, or even read them. I mean i am nice to them but when all they do is ask for help and NOT even bother to try to post on other topics to make friends... but im glad we do have rules.. or this forum could be crazy XD

Yeah. A lot of n00bs just don't read community guidelines. I think they do a pretty good job learning now though...

Because they learn when people bitch at them.

- Solipsist

thats the whole reason for verbal warnings . . . isn't it?

since pretty much everyone agrees that when a verbal warning is issued, the person recieving should get a PM then the whole link to the community guidelines will be useful in that

Wouldn't it just be more work for a mod? I mean, noobs probebly won't even understand how PMs work until later anyway.

its kind of hard to miss a PM


¬.¬ dont you think you guys are underestimating newbs a bit?

^ I agree. All of mods take in consideration whether when a newbie has committed an offense. Like Heather said, thats where verbal warnings come in. I also think after a certain amount of the new members should have familiarize themselves enough to know what cB community guidelines are, in say, a week, unless they break a rule earlier than that and they are then told at that time read over the community guidelines. At least, thats how I do it.

So if a newbie has done something against the rules, we will PM a verbal warning to them with a link to the community guidelines. We will give them a grace period of one week in which no other mods can warn them for that period of time. You could alert other mods of the grace period newbies with a thread backstage.

^ Oh well, if they break the rule again within that week and we already warned them and that person decides to break it again, yes, they have a possibly of getting their warnings raised. I dont feel I should have to baby someone to follow the rules after they've already been told once. But yes, a verbal warning should be accompanied by a pm.

No, I know it took me a while to learn the ropes of CB Especially PMs and such. Plus some members might not have a lot of TIME to dedicate to learning all the rules. And I think it might be a lot of wasted time if the Mods PMed EVERYONE who made a mistake on CB.

We are pretty lenient on newbs if you haven't noticed. Saying "and please don't double post!" isn't even a verbal warning. It's like a heads up. We warn people when they know they're breaking the rules. If the new people don't take the time to learn the rules, who's fault is that? Why should we just let people go by if they're the ones who didn't even try to follow the rules? Use some common sense..

Even if newcomers do read the community guidelines and all, most of them still get mixed up. Like they post something in the girls locker room that should be in the relationships forum. Or they make a duplicate thread...you know. It takes some time and experience to really get everything down. Usually they post an introduction, not all of them, but a good amount. And they are again reminded to read the community guidelines. I mean I would be easy on the newcomers and just say to them in a thread, "sorry we've got another topic on this" or "sorry...so and so" "read the community guidelines". I mean we're here to make them feel welcome, not to bully them or yell at them to follow procedures. So in that case I think (especially) for the first week or so, mods should kinda let it slid if they make mistakes. I mean there are some that are going to come onto Createblog and spam for the fun of it! we've all seen those. Those are a different story.
But yeah, usually there is always a mod or even a member that says something in a thread, or PM's them with the community guidelines, or whatever they are doing wrong.

but i mean im sure a noob would need a few weaks to understand the concept of what type of post goes where. for example it took me a while to figure out the difference between lounge and some other sub-forums... XD but still when the first join cb they auto-recieve a pm for reading the communiy guide lines from Micron.... So really there is no excuse... hmm....

Does anyone ever get warned for putting a topic in the wrong place? That's not even an issue..

so is the issue here on a sort of week's leniency for newbies?

that's nice and all, but the join date for members only says what month they joined... no one is going to be able to remember exactly when every nesbe joins... that's a hellish job.

i dont see what there actually is that we can vote on here... i dont see a way to actually pin down the issue

perhaps we should just include some prefunctory in the BLs in the section dealing with warnings saying 'mods will use their discretion when applying rules and consequences to new members of the site'

I don't think this is even an issue. What kind of by-law do you intend by this?

That is so true i agree 100% I know i didnt reat them coz i was to lazy and i wish a had becuse i would have known and not gotten yelled at. But yet i was lazy and i get what i desurved.

I was hoping we could cover multiple issues in this thread. :/

^What issues? If you specify what you want to be bylawed [yay for making up words maybe?], then we can discuss. For right now, people just don't know what you want up for discussion.

I want to have bylaws passed covering the treatment of newbies and how we should deal with them.

i dont know of anyone that treats them badly. weve already set laws governing the warning of newbies.

Err, nice try, but I don't think that the by-laws are the right place to cover this.

Any committee member who finds a valid topic to debate involving newbies, feel free to reopen.

topic closed