I was wondering if anyone has ever thought that there should be a section where you need to introduce yourself and provide something to the community you are joining before you are granted access to the forum where you can ask questions.
Lots of forums now require you to have a 10 post count before you can post in all the other forums and your posts have to consist of an introduction as well as you giving something back to the community. That giving back could be something as simple as posting a shortcut or a method, a link to some software, a case you worked on where you had something come up that was unusual and you want to tell others about it, etc.
There seem to be more people on here with very low post counts who ask a question and then don't ever give anything back (and even a large number of people with 10-20 posts but all questions, no help on any other people's topics at all), who knows if they are making money off that post, taking the shortcut to not having to research themselves, etc. But I do think that if people had to obtain 10 posts before posting to the general forum, then they would think twice and would research issues more, or at the very least sign up and give something to the community before just taking something and then leaving.
Your thoughts?
I have fairly definite feelings about this but I'm more than happy to hear other people's thoughts before I stick my own oar in!
Jamie
Your opinion matters to me.
34 reads and 1 reply, not many ppl who read it want to speak up.
What say you Jamie?
But surely such a policy wouldn't be retroactive… (says the user with 2 posts) It's a good idea in the sense that it would make sure people are more involved in the forums, but I'm sure that a good number of extremely interesting and helpful threads have been started by those very one-question or question-only users.
I have seen that and similar systems operated on other forums, personally i'm not a fan. Surely you would just generate a series of pointless posts as people tried to inflate their post count. In a number of these other forums you see that the 'introduction' threads become more and more meaningless and more widely ignored. This is to the point that actually people introduce themselves receive less than a lukewarm response and decide the forum isn't for them.
I have noticed and I am sure you will have, that certain requests for help are just ignored and posts fall into obscurity, these are usually because the question has already been answered elsewhere x number of times and the person posting is 'unknown'. Just through natural course of events this happens. You will also notice that interesting and thought provoking questions even if posed by 'unknown' people are answered by lots of knowledgeable people, in the public forum, there for the whole community. In my opinion that question itself is a contribution and the person(s) who benefit are not just the OP, but other members of the community.
Some members here contribute vastly more than others, to which I and Im sure others are grateful, but I don't think they are doing that in a bid to get the same back in return. I have helped 37 people in the last 6 months I expect it back 37 times.
I've recently implemented a new personal policy in this regard. From now on, I'm only helping out people who have a novel question, or from people that I feel are contibutors. I'm so sick of all these new CF courses that make their students post on forums, inflating the number of pointless posts. If you're a postgrad student working on a thesis topic, and you can't read some of the forum history asking the exact same question that you posted, then you don't deserve your undergrad degree, let alone the time of people who do this for a living.
/rant-off.
That method works also.
I've recently implemented a new personal policy in this regard. From now on, I'm only helping out people who have a novel question, or from people that I feel are contibutors. I'm so sick of all these new CF courses that make their students post on forums, inflating the number of pointless posts. If you're a postgrad student working on a thesis topic, and you can't read some of the forum history asking the exact same question that you posted, then you don't deserve your undergrad degree, let alone the time of people who do this for a living.
/rant-off.
maybe a seperate 'rant' forum for people with over 100 posts, although I wouldn't be invited, maybe it already exists ! lol
maybe a seperate 'rant' forum for people with over 100 posts, although I wouldn't be invited, maybe it already exists ! lol
HEY! that looks a lot like a post made only to raise your post count! wink
My two cents (from experience on Forums) the "Hello / present yourself" subforum is pointless.
Expecting people to contribute BEFORE getting anyhting is at the same time unrealistic AND "classist" in the sense that a n00b will always remain a n00b…
I mean, most members here are highly specialized pro's on a rather "narrow" field, unless an exceptional event happens, what would a newbie supposed to be able to contribute? Members here should ALREADY know everything or nearly everything on the subject.
I guess that a choice has to be made
either the Forum is "public" and then one has to live with a few pointless posts, a large number of too lazy or too dumb one-posters and possibly an even larger number of ungrateful ones
or it is made "private", only accessible by invitation (and a secret hand-shake will also be needed), everything will be nice and cool (mostly) but the sometimes crazy ideas that new members post and that from time to time contribute to have some interesting discussion will be lost forever
jaclaz
I just post ideas or thoughts and in this case one which I want opinions.
I thank you each for replying.
Sometimes I have good ideas, other times ideas which I think are really good, don't pass the test with hardly anyone else.
A few years ago I wanted to put together a FF get together and have our own posters speak, we could have a track of classes, food, and stories. Thought that would be great. 4 people were interested so it ended up not happening, but I still wanted to try to make it work.
This is just another idea. I was under the impression that this bothered lots of other people. I've gotten a bunch of PM's from people who didn't want to post to the main forum saying they are getting tired of things like I posted, and then there is the school of thought, just ignore the one post count people or the people who only post asking questions and don't post their results from the advice or help they were given.