newb section

[Northern Redneck]

We seem to be getting a lot of the same questions repeated over and over again by new people, I've seen this on a few forums, so was thinking sticky a suspension,rims,motor Swap, and a bolt on list to it.

[ozzie]

Doesn't work. Have you seen the SRA suspension thread that's stickied?

[uncleremuslegend]

wait... stickies? where? ?? 

[Northern Redneck]

How about a gradation type deal? First 50 posts type deal

[ozzie]

How about a gradation type deal? First 50 posts type deal

I've been on forums with those. They suck, even when it's just a few posts. When I go to a forum looking for the answer to a question, I've usually already tried google, manuals, etc, but I'm still forced to post in a newb forum, alongside e.g. "what bolt pattern fits my Civic", that a lot of the more knowledgeable (but busier) members ignore.

I don't think we've got a big problem with n00bs on this forum, most of the new members seem to have at least of an idea what they're doing, and with the age of these cars, there aren't a whole lot of new members anyways.

[a2ndopinion]

Oh come on ozzie! How many questions have we had recently about suspension from noobs?

[ozzie]

But what would a newb section do to help them see the stickies, and how badly would it hurt the newer members like 61racing?

[ozzie]

you know what would be useful, to ban noobs from posting in threads over 90 days old.

[Northern Redneck]

Ha ha ha I see en that to but you have to give him credit for using the search function, how many times do we say that?

[Steven Benner]

A noob section wouldn't help, and a "graduation" process would not only piss people off but discourage them from learning how to do it right.

The population of the world is divided into two types of people:

• (5%) Those who know how to search, and...
• (95%) Those who need to have someome search for them

It's true. This is just how it works on all forums, and how it has always worked on all forums. Search boxes are filtered out as some kind of techie power-user thing, and stickies are masked by some kind of magical bold cloaking device. I knew this when I wrote the original forums from scratch in Perl back in ought-zero, in fact if you check the original forum rules (which haven't changed since the beginning) you'll see that I decided back then to accept that fact by saying "Search is not an acceptable reply".

The only option that seems to work for everyone is creating and maintaining an FAQ. But it still requires that someone reply to the newbies question with a link to the specific answer in the FAQ.