Padded Room
 

Droc, its easy. If a noob post like that annoys you - simply don't respond to it. It takes as much effort to come up with creative flaming as it does to help someone.

I am saying if you're choosing to respond to it, do so productively. It can be simple as saying "Please read these FAQs first and then ask any questions not covered in them." and post the links. It can be a canned response that you just cut and paste, which takes no time at all, its a computer after all. In fact I am making one up right now that I intend to use from now on.

Is it frustrating? Yes, it is, I agree. Its a huge pain in the ass. But you are dealing with kids, some of them very young even for their age. I come from a Scouting background and deal with Beaver, Cub and Scout aged children and teens, and this is par for the course. Being a 39 year old airsofter and a father of three and a volunteer in several other community organizations, I recognize the need for mentorship here. Perhaps you don't want to do that, and thats fine, but it needs to be done to some degree.

I'll say it again to emphasize, because I think this point is important - this sport/community is NOT growing and in many places it is shrinking because we are essentially eating our children. And when we don't go out of our way to direct these inquiries properly, we force them to seek out cliques within the community that sell to minors and hold backyard/construction site skirmish events that ultimately can get them hurt, and when the police get involved, reflect badly on airsoft. So, this effort up front pays dividends down the road.

I always point them to the FAQ and Information section, at least once. I tried spoonfeeding, it did not work. I tried being nice, it did not work. Now I tell them exactly what to read.

I'd love to hear of a solution where nobody would have to point out the obvious. Nobody's done it yet.

Blaming me is easy because I speak my mind.

So again, if you guys have a foolproof method to stop the daily bullshit we read here, I wont be alone waiting to hear all about it.

Yes, and you do it grudgingly and in an unwelcoming fashion. Your efforts to educate when you're polite and sincere are appreciated. When you're being passive agressive, it is not and its obvious. Sorry, but I speak my mind too.

I've been standing on the sidelines for a couple years observing all this and thinking about it too. Its clear to me that regular users are antagonized by new posters asking the same questions repeatedly. Its clear the FAQs are not always being read, and I don't think its always because people don't want to read them. There is a LOT of information there, and some of it is hard to dig through to find answers to the one or two immediate questions one has when they first hit this site. I think a careful reorganization of that information may help. The information is good, its just sometimes hard to wade through.

A section to parents is also missing. I'm willing to author that. I have background in that being an Airsofter, a Scouter and a parent, and I've written similar documents before. I have a good idea of what parents want to know and I've already acted as a parent interface to new underaged airsofters and mentored them as well - successfully too.

I've also been speaking to Spleen and I've made some suggestions that the mods and admins of ASC may accept, reject or ignore altogether. I'm not party to the ASC inner circle so I can't comment further in that regard. But I do think there is a solution to the problem, with a little bit of PHP and a graduated system of access, you can eliminate a lot of the more annoying posts that antagonize regular users. If someone still posts questions like that, it should get instashuttled to a separate forum and people tasked to deal with those people and questions who are willing to be patient can deal with it. If its someone being an asshat, there is always the mod hammer, which really should be the tool of last resort.

To do that we would need a fairly decent pool of willing volunteers who would exhibit patience. It has to be a large pool because there are a huge number of new users signing up here daily and since its a volunteer role, you have to spread the load reasonably.

So, between graduated access, clarification and reorganization of the FAQ system, and a new user mentor process, I think you can fix most of what is currently broken in the present solution. There also has to be a willingness to try it - I know a lot of the current mods are frustrated by the history of this problem, but I think a fresh effort might be worth the try.

Alternatively we can go on flaming new users and watching our numbers dwindle as we become an insular, jaded, clique of in-joke cool kids dissing all those outside our social group...

...no, that doesn't appeal to me either.

Hey, believe it or not, if anyone finds a solution I'll be a happy man. No joke, no sarcasm, I mean it.

Heck, just look at the idiot who decided to post porn for the last 20-plus minutes in the general section. If that is not ammo to make this site 18+ and age-verified only, I dont know what is.

If newbies read the FAQ, and I mean at least the Newbie Guide, there would be less problems.
If parents did the same, the problems would be far lower. But they dont, not unless they get semi-forced to do it.

I've never doubted that.

Which is why we should have a mud room with a closed door separating new guests from the living quarters. You're not allowed in (or not allowed to post) until you've met certain requirements and acknowledged those requirements. By all means, keep the board open for all to read and so that Google can still grab ASC content.


I agree and I think that is enforceable from a technical point of view. And if someone acknowledges that they've read it and still post stupid questions, you move the stupid questions back to the mud room, and let those who are willing to be patient sort it out while the party still continues in the living room.

Hate it what I can't go back and edit.

You also demote the user back to a guest and revoke their posting access outside the mudroom until its clear they're sorted out. If they continue to be problematic just because they're socially stunted, they you give them the boot off the board.

This has the effect of making post a privledge, rather than an automatic right. I think that would change some attitudes around here.

That sounds perfect. But I dont know PHP. How easy is it to implement?

I think some (if not all) of the functionality may be native to vBulletin and some of it needs to be written. If Hojo doesn't have time, there are great programmers at getafreelancer.com who work for peanuts who I am sure could bridge the gap. I'm sure a small collection of the donations could fund that if ASC Armoury isn't up to the task....

Greylocks, my big problem with you is that you make statements that just aren't true. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You need to read the FAQ you are so quick to point out to new users.

I don't know whether you post the incorrect info out of ignorance, or whether you know it is wrong and post it as fact in order to force your opinions on others. Either way, you need to at least start posting accurately.

Can you not see the hypocrisy in railing on about how others haven't read the FAQ while in the same threads making statements that are directly contradicted by those FAQs?

I post about laws based on what the police will toss at us; in their eyes they are Replicas because those laws bite the most and area easy to enforce. The FAQ are NOT clear about what gets enforced. You dont risk getting shot or arrested as badly with airguns as you would with toys that are 1:1 scale to the real thing.

I err on the side of caution. Airsoft laws are unclear, replica laws are Very Clear. I stand by them.

99% of newbies ask if they can play at 14; I or others direct them at the FAQ. The FAQ does say many good things, specially the Newbie guide, but on the law side ALL of us are in a grey area. Pick something enforceable. I do.

They dont read the FAQ, they even refuse the read it after being pointed to it (we saw that this week), and then they refuse to accept the rules they just read. Yes, those idiots WILL run the streets, most likely. But they cant say they came here and were not told the right information. They just chose to be dumb as bricks.

No, there is no way to stop them from being stupid.

Find a real workable solution and I'll be first in line to help.

(Edited after an intelligent private discussion with Spleen).

EDITTED: I've removed this post as my dispute with Greylocks is not a useful contribution to this thread now that we've moved it back to the General section and turned it purely into a dicsussion of the mudroom idea. If anyone has a serious problem with this, or sees it as "revisionist" I will be happy to forward them the complete text. I'm not trying to "unsay" it, I have just decided it doesn't belong here and instead sent it to Greylocks by PM.

VERY easy to implement, no coding required. New group called "Probationary" or whatever, access controls to read only on MOST boards, DENY in some, and post only in a specific board - Using basicaly the same code as the "asc contributors" title bars, you can configure probationary users with an image designating them as such, so that it's clear in boards that are availalbe to them WHO is probationary and who is not.

Takes 20 minutes to do.

You can also set it to "promote" a user after X days or X posts, thus moving them into a non-probationary group.

Split useful part of the thread back into General. Ironically I think being in the trash kept alot of random posters out.


The technical aspect of implementing it is not the problem, it's easy. My issue with a probationary group is that we have many new users who are already established airsofters, especially in other countries, who sign up to participate in a thread right away - as many of us do on other boards, you browse and if you find a discussion you want to be a part of, you signup and post.

I always have a keen dislike for penalizing the good users for the actions of a few problem ones - it's why we have a gun registry. It's easy to realize the benefits of a system like that, but you won't know who you're shutting out. Given that we are now one of the largest english airsoft websites in the world, instituting a policy locking people out could be quite frustrating to the community.

My opinion.

I agree with the probationary part for new players. But Remenber The final decision lies on HonestJohn who owns the site.
HoJo you can manipulate the access for people who have proven themselfs to bypass the probationary wait.

What about a system where people can post anything they like, but if that post shows that the user is unfamilliar with airsoft and the rules, etc. Then moderators put that post in the Mudroom, where the user must read the FAQ, even scroll through it, almost like those Microsoft agreements before posting again. Also there could be people designated to answer the questions in the mudroom that have shown they are able to deal with new comers. This way people who join and know what they are talking about can just post away, but those who haven't read the rules and just start asking stupid questions are sent to the mudroom.

More moderators, in the true sense of the word. If "probationary" users wish to post in boards that are otherwise closed to them, their posts can be moderated. Moderators can be set up to ONLY moderate posts created by that particular group - most of the assholes won't bother because their posts will never be seen by the public. The good ones get approved.

I'm sure you can find a half-dozen or so post moderators to handle the job.

Actually, there's merit here too. You can enable the ability for a specific group to REPLY to threads without being able to post NEW threads. Therefore, you could have a select group who are "authorized" to reply to mudroom questions, while keeping loudmouths out.

I see and agree with that point.

I probably wasn't very clear in presenting my original idea, but I would still leave it open and DEMOTE a new user to the mud room should they appear 'not to get it'. They would not be promoted out of the mud room until they demonstrated sufficent motivation to seek out the answers that are found in the FAQs. Current moderators who trash threads due to these kinds of posters, as they are easily identifiable, could send those particular threads and users to the mud room instead of the trash. Not everything in the trash is necessarily trash (now I am a garbage picker...). This would allow the good users, as you call them, who don't have issues to continue to enjoy the benefits of instant activation and membership, while minimizing the impact of those who need more assistance in finding their way around this sport we know and love...

This would also help first time users learn about airsoft without antagonizing the membership who really don't want to see threads titled "What AEG should be my first gun?" or "Can I use a Cambodia Tire Soft Air gun at an airsoft game?".

Now those are some interesting ideas I'd consider... demotion of users or simply moderate posts of new users until they are upgraded.

It's more labour intensive, for sure, but both ideas have merit

It could be a little more labour intensive, however, consider the degree of labour involved in moderating these kids now? I think we'd be shifting the workload to the front end, rather than the backend of dealing with what amounts to a problem that is really hard to mitigate - users who either are incapable of research, refuse to do it, or, actually don't have the skills to do so yet...

And then there are those who are just shit disturbing and we already deal with those through temp and perma-bans. Those tools still remain available when all else fails.

One issue here... I believe granting moderator access to allow them to move users to a specific group (demoting someone to the Mudroom group) requires granting administrative priviledges for "adminster users and groups" which is global, meaning you can't allow an administrator to administrator only CERTAIN groups...In other words, if you grant a moderator access to move a user to mudroom group that moderator would also have access to move themselves or others to the admin group, or any other private groups. I'm quite sure I saw a hack to modify this default behaviour, though.

EDIT - And if I didn't see the hack, it would be pretty easy to code in an "if" statement to check the group membership (mudroom moderator) and allow only access to administer the "mudroom group"

uh... I like cheese.

(translation: wtf did you just say, sorry, I'm vbulletin challenged)

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?

Perhaps it didn't quite come across in translation... notice I had to reapproach the concept a couple times to get it across...

If I may interject momentarily...

Another board I am a mod on has a group set up for newbies. They are restricted to not opening any new threads until they have reached 20 posts. It seems to have weeded out a lot of the "Hi, i'm new here" and "how do I do this?" threads and forces them to search for their own answers. Perhaps this could help?

I'd suspect that here it would lead to a ton of thread revivals with things like "lol" or "tahts a niec gunnn"

Our solution to that was to give the user a warning and lock the thread.

This approach takes quite a few moderators to implement, however.

My confusion just stems from the fact I never saw the previous attempt nor am I familiar with the problems it suffered. Just heard it didn't work out.

A thought about FAQs. The problem with getting people to read them is that most are not easy to navigate, nor are they fun to read. Since the majority of noobs we deal with here are the teen and pre-teen crowd of Generation Why, they're used to having everything spoon-fed to them. Learning is meant to involve video games and television, not actually reading something. I mean, reading would just be, like, totally 2005 dude. Anything stickied in the mudroom ought to be written to appeal to the lowest common denominator if there's to be an expectation of success with it.

How about a short video of Dos and Don'ts with a healthy dash of cinematic license? That would probably be a better way to introduce people to the basics because it involves less effort on their part, and they're more apt to watch a video if they expect to be amused or entertained. With the people I know and the stuff I can get my hands on (or anyone else similarly equipped and willing to take on such a project), that could easily be arranged.

Lots of good ideas in here. I personally would like to see a "graduated" system where new users can read but not post for a set period of time/user activity. At that point, there really is no excuse for not browsing the FAQ - lazy noobs may have to wait weeks/months to get the answer to "wH4T 4m b3sT Gun>", so they may be encouraged to get their answer faster by finding it for themselves by searching the forum threads.

As a side note, can we bring Karma back?

</jk>

The concept seems sound, but the MUDROOM is too rural. You'll have newfie's looking for the "Kellies". Nope call it THE SHORT BUS. & the 1337 kool guys get a hockey helmet!

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.....

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

*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.

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.

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

There are really a lot of good ideas here. I am fairly disappointed I missed out on the thread when it was still active.

While reading through it I came to a lot of the same conclusions and Ideas already posted. So I don't have much to add. What I would like to add is a combination of what I thought where some of the best ideas.

1 - All new users will enter the forums with posting rights only to the mud room, but would still be able to read all other sections that any member who is not age verified would be able to.

2 - The mud room would be watched over by a specific group of moderators, to help and direct new members.

3 - The mud room should contain a revised version of the FAQs. I think the current FAQs are good, but can be almost painful to sort though. It needs to be reorganized more then rewritten. The new ones should simply cover the basics facts we would like any new member to have before posting. We should still keep the old FAQs as well because they cover more, but leave them out of the mud room.

4 - At any time after joining the mud room they can take a quiz to prove they know the bare minimal we would want them to, via the new FAQs. Nothing terribly hard on the test just enough to show they have done their homework. After completing the quiz they would gain the privileges all other members have, minus the age verified only sections of course.

I think this would help stop people from creating joke account and trolling, as well as increase the amount of general knowledge new users have.

Users who are new, but already established in the community would be able to easily answer the quiz gaining immediate access to the rest of the site. It would be an inconvenience for them, but an acceptable one I think.

The problems I see are around the complexity, like scarecrow mentioned. If it’s to complex it won't take long for it to all fall apart. We may also lose new members, because of frustration or laziness.

I know almost nothing about programming so I don’t know how hard it would to implement any or all or if, or it would even be an effective method. This is just my 2 cents on the subject.

hmmm i really like the quiz idea
somehow make a quiz that they can access at anytime, but they have to get like 80% on the test to get a profile and be able to post

thats my idea an' i'm sticken to it

It's not about quizzing new players to ensure they read the FAQ. It's about ensuring new players are properly observing forum rules and norms through evaluation of their posting habits.

There are plenty of stupid posts here that have nothing to do with items covered in the FAQ.

Also, I'd like to know if plans are proceeding in this direction, since there's been no comment by the administration for some time. At a minimum, could I get a PM from the administration to let me know if any of my and Scarecrow's suggestions are to be explored further, and if we'll need to provide input into the implementation from a technical perspective? It would be appreciated...

All of this is being taken into consideration. Unfortunately, with the recently implemented changes to the forum (which were planned and underway before the padded room discussion began), there's been a forced hiatus from practical research and development on the idea. As to whose input will be taken, the input already made will certainly be taken into consideration. WRT technical input, that will also have to wait until the admins have finished the current site upgrade, and put a bit of time into looking at the solutions available.

To respons to your post, though, it's not just about "ensuring new players are properly observing forum rules and norms through evaluation of their posting habits". A large part of the idea is also to shield new players from the abuse they would typically suffer from the "stupid" questions they will invariably ask, and to eliminate the hostile noob-bashing "me-too" lynchings that inevitably result. In short to improve the general enjoyment of the baord for all users by keeping these two groups of people apart.