[achtung]

An introduction thread in Hard-Light.  So the newbies will stop posting new topics.  Not that it's that bad now, but I believe it may start getting worse if the trend continues.

[Polpolion]

Or better yet, a welcoming page that you are sent to after you register. That way they'll have to read it.

[Turey]

An introduction thread in Hard-Light.  So the newbies will stop posting new topics.  Not that it's that bad now, but I believe it may start getting worse if the trend continues.

Or better yet, a welcoming page that you are sent to after you register. That way they'll have to read it.

I like both ideas. Let's do both.

[Herra Tohtori]

That way they'll have to read it.

The same way everyone must read end user licence agreements? Some even have to be scrolled down before they can be accepted.

...Oh, wait.


I've got a better idea. If you really want to make them read learn some thing, make them fill a question form during registration. Easy questions from a short welcoming document, but so that they really need to read through it once, or that they already know the answer it's not a problem.

But I don't know if it's worth it, though.

[Tamlin]

OR , Somethings even better. Archive topics..{can you do that} something relavent to? X

[achtung]

I wasn't very clear in my wording.  My apologies.

I meant the "Hi, I'm <insert name here>" threads that don't really ask a question, but just say "Hi".

[an0n]

Stop stealing ideas from WS, ****ers.

[NGTM-1R]

Stop stealing ideas from WS, ****ers.

Stop stealing from the intarweb, bastard.

[Starman01]

Actually I find this a little unpersonal for the newbies, to be driven on a seperate route and read special pages or fill out forms, you rather scare away the not so patient individuals.

There have been a lot of newbies registering lately, and ?  I think it's great to have new people around, giving them a warm welcome and see the community growing (though our "standard" welcome text is rather dumb, not all will understand why someone welcomes them with "open fire on .... "-message  and then post the welcome image. If one not get's the joke behind this (that the welcome banner is a beam shot) it was his first and only post)

Think of when you guys came here with a lot of questions , you were happy when people helped you out. Not to mention that quite a lot of this "newbies" seem to be very talented individuals and just took notice of this site due to recent releases (not only because of WCS), there are different types of newbies out

The real newbie might be sometimes annoying, but when they get the usual personal welcome they get a better image of the community .
IMO what we need, is a "how to get started" page or thread were we can direct the newbie too (after we welcomed him) , but not only Karajormas Signature, something that stands more in this community/site   (no offend meant Kara ) The Wiki itself, as great as it is, is to complicated for newbies which don't know where to even start.

In conjunction of the "change" thread, maybe this could be the first small community project, creating such a "how to get started" thing.

Just my 2 cents

[karajorma]

Actually I think a how to get started link would be a very good idea. Link liberally to the Wiki and my FAQ for more details on how to do stuff but give people an idea of how much you can do with FS and FS2_Open.

[Fineus]

I quite like the idea of this on the condition that it's kept short, sweet and to the point.

That said - no quizes. Fun for us perhaps but I'd find it really tedious to have to look up information on a community just so I can post a topic.

Ideally we could get some nice graphics in there that help the newbie to work out the difference between what information they're looking at. Topics could be broken down so that routes could look something like this, with links opening collapsable text fields on the page so that topics can quickly be looked up then shrunk down again (example, not particularly refined). The whole thing should have a "Would you like to know more?" sort of feel for it - where the further in you go, the more detail you get:

Modding:
{short blurb about the capabilities of the FS engine as well as a couple of examples of what has been done with it - perhaps link to one or two of the more prominant mods}

- {link to short details on the creation of a mod for FS - what software is needed etc.}
- - {link to specific details of software needed as well as links to threads containing tips and techniques.}

- {link to various catagories of mods from total conversions / models only (Star Trek mod for instance, which contains no campaign) to full blown mods including campaigns etc.}
- - {Once the catagory is selected, link to list of mods that fit that catagory as well as those involved in designing them and any other important info}

That said, a lot of this content can be lifted or modified from the Wiki. If this was going to be done, I don't see any need in re-typing everything from scratch when it's already there for us. This process would just be presenting that information in a different - more newbie friendly - way.

I think to know that this had succeeded - I'd want this thing to answer most basic questions that a newbie might ask. That is to say that if Joe Newbie comes along asking about where FS3 is - I could point him at the answer in this new guide and then assume he doesn't need to ask any more questions on the subject. The goal of it shouldn't be to destroy discussion but to get newbies clued up enough that they don't ask the same question that a thousand people like them have asked already. To put it simply - rather than say "This has been answered, use the search" we'd want people to say "Use the newbie guide".