Helpful note/popup for first time forum users

[TVwazhere]

We've all been there. We open up a new post made by someone with single digit posts, gray face and too many numbers in his username who needs a problem solved with his pc or need advice on a build of some sort, but they provide far too little detail and information for the community to be able to inform the poor kid, forcing us to *we need more information* comment spam until they come back, usually three hours after the fact, which by that time most of the original commentors have left, wont bother to check back and the thread gets lost in the aether of the deep web. (run on sentence, damn) Normally this is what "Before you posts" threads are for, but TBH I myself barely read them the first time I was here. 

Proposed ideas:

 

A; Each subforum cannot have a new topic started until the "Before you post" thread has been opened for new users. This is a bit restrictive in my mind, but it atleast makes users aware of certain rules, for example the Tech news forum has specific formatting that is loosely required.

 

B; When a new profile starts their first post, a popup comes on screen with helpful suggestions like "Looking for help with your PC? Make sure to post all your PC specs so forum uses can properly assist you!" or "Need to decide what PSU you need? Check out these pinned thread for wattage and quality" (because lets face it half of the answers theyre looking for are already answered either in pinned threads or half a page scroll down)

I mean I'm all for helping people especially when they have a specific need case, but I feel a lot of "1060 vs 480" or "what cpu should i get" with no mention of budget, already owned components or use cases could be cut down significantly and makes our "jobs" as forum members easier

Good example:

General thread popup: "Have a specific question in mind? We might have a sub thread for it! Check our other sub threads on the home page!"

Audio popup: "Need amp/DAC advice? Check out this thread!"

[paddy-stone]

3 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

We've all been there. We open up a new post made by someone with single digit posts, gray face and too many numbers in his username who needs a problem solved with his pc or need advice on a build of some sort, but they provide far too little detail and information for the community to be able to inform the poor kid, forcing us to *we need more information* comment spam until they come back, usually three hours after the fact, which by that time most of the original commentors have left, wont bother to check back and the thread gets lost in the aether of the deep web. (run on sentence, damn) Normally this is what "Before you posts" threads are for, but TBH I myself barely read them the first time I was here. 

Proposed ideas:

 

A; Each subforum cannot have a new topic started until the "Before you post" thread has been opened for new users. This is a bit restrictive in my mind, but it atleast makes users aware of certain rules, for example the Tech news forum has specific formatting that is loosely required.

 

B; When a new profile starts their first post, a popup comes on screen with helpful suggestions like "Looking for help with your PC? Make sure to post all your PC specs so forum uses can properly assist you!" or "Need to decide what PSU you need? Check out these pinned thread for wattage and quality" (because lets face it half of the answers theyre looking for are already answered either in pinned threads or half a page scroll down)

I mean I'm all for helping people especially when they have a specific need case, but I feel a lot of "1060 vs 480" or "what cpu should i get" with no mention of budget, already owned components or use cases could be cut down significantly and makes our "jobs" as forum members easier

Very good idea, I support this suggestion too. I don't want anyone put off joining the forum or anything... just that they are made aware of posting goofs as above when they are looking for help.

[Sir Asvald]

Yes. I second this. It annoys that people leave their posts so vague... They post their stuff and then never reply.. 

[NinJake]

Good ideas here! Not sure how easy it would be to be implemented but for a new user, finding a way of informing the user of useful stickies and making sure they "read the rules" is a fine line between:

 

a) I joined this forum but was hit with "pop-ups" and now I'm never joining again, or

b) I joined this forum but skipped through all the useful information anyways like agreeing to a EULA.

[Swealteek]

Great idea and on the topic of this stuff can't we have template with certain quastion so its easy for new people to look wat we my ask like

 

Lets see your building a new PC

 

Wat ar you gone do whit you PC ?

Wat ar you gone do whit you pc, Ar you gone play games, video editing , streaming , muzik pordtuin , basis internet ect.

Requirements

Like, formfactor, coolant , amount of wat the systeem can draw , Multi gpu or just one ?

Prefuwrdt hardware

Do you really want a specific processor or case, or you a fan of a sturent manfture. (so we can take it in to a acount wen helping you)

 

PCpartpicker list

(Pcpartpicker is a free website ware you can build a pc and see if every thing fids, Not only that you can also find the lowts price thare so you dont have to hunt for parts)
 

Extra ?

Any else that me be of imports ?

[RumSwift]

Would be more work for mods, but you could turn on post approval for the first 5 posts or something. Meaning the post would go into a moderation queue and then have to be approved before it appeared to regular users. I used to do this when I ran a forum for another website, although that was vBulletin so not sure if it's native with Invision or not. 

 

If there is too little info on there then mods can just pm user and say "add more detail", this way by the time the post appears for us, the people online will be able to help right away. 

 

Edit: Would also help stop people who sign up to spam

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, Rhyss said:

Would be more work for mods, but you could turn on post approval for the first 5 posts or something. Meaning the post would go into a moderation queue and then have to be approved before it appeared to regular users. I used to do this when I ran a forum for another website, although that was vBulletin so not sure if it's native with Invision or not. 

 

While its possible, there aren't nearly enough mods to handle such load. And most new users come here for fast-to-solve issues, which would be over within first 5-10 posts.

 

2 hours ago, Rhyss said:

If there is too little info on there then mods can just pm user and say "add more detail", this way by the time the post appears for us, the people online will be able to help right away. 

 

Chances are that user will read PM: Slim to none. If they are met with "Your post is waiting for approval" message, they just go to another forum.

 

2 hours ago, Rhyss said:

Edit: Would also help stop people who sign up to spam

 

You haven't been here enough to see what spam is. Current filter is catching most of it.

[colonel_mortis]

8 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

A; Each subforum cannot have a new topic started until the "Before you post" thread has been opened for new users. This is a bit restrictive in my mind, but it atleast makes users aware of certain rules, for example the Tech news forum has specific formatting that is loosely required.

I suspect that this would just annoy people, and while some people would read it properly, I would guess that a reasonable chunk of users would just "read" it for a couple of seconds, then go back to the create topic page.

8 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

B; When a new profile starts their first post, a popup comes on screen with helpful suggestions like "Looking for help with your PC? Make sure to post all your PC specs so forum uses can properly assist you!" or "Need to decide what PSU you need? Check out these pinned thread for wattage and quality" (because lets face it half of the answers theyre looking for are already answered either in pinned threads or half a page scroll down)

I think that could work better, a bit like how Stack Overflow does it - not intrusive, but clearly visible and simple enough that most people would read it (though it doesn't seem to have solved SO's low quality post problem). I will add it to my list of things to consider adding, but there are a lot of other things that also have that status, so the chances of it being implemented any time soon are fairly slim I'm afraid.

7 hours ago, Swealteek said:

Great idea and on the topic of this stuff can't we have template with certain quastion so its easy for new people to look wat we my ask like

 

Lets see your building a new PC

 

Wat ar you gone do whit you PC ?

Wat ar you gone do whit you pc, Ar you gone play games, video editing , streaming , muzik pordtuin , basis internet ect.

Requirements

Like, formfactor, coolant , amount of wat the systeem can draw , Multi gpu or just one ?

Prefuwrdt hardware

Do you really want a specific processor or case, or you a fan of a sturent manfture. (so we can take it in to a acount wen helping you)

 

PCpartpicker list

(Pcpartpicker is a free website ware you can build a pc and see if every thing fids, Not only that you can also find the lowts price thare so you dont have to hunt for parts)
 

Extra ?

Any else that me be of imports ?

A template sounds good in theory, but, aside from unfortunately being very hard to implement well in terms of the code required, it would also be quite difficult to make a template that actually meets the needs of all the users who are posting things in any given subforum. It could possibly work in New Builds and Planning, where things tend to follow a formula, but for the rest of the site it doesn't really work.

7 hours ago, Rhyss said:

Would be more work for mods, but you could turn on post approval for the first 5 posts or something. Meaning the post would go into a moderation queue and then have to be approved before it appeared to regular users. I used to do this when I ran a forum for another website, although that was vBulletin so not sure if it's native with Invision or not. 

 

If there is too little info on there then mods can just pm user and say "add more detail", this way by the time the post appears for us, the people online will be able to help right away. 

 

Edit: Would also help stop people who sign up to spam

That would be far too much work for the mod team (it would cause orders of magnitude more work), ignoring any other issues.

[Guest]

no more audio popups please...

[TVwazhere]

13 hours ago, colonel_mortis said:

I think that could work better, a bit like how Stack Overflow does it - not intrusive, but clearly visible and simple enough that most people would read it (though it doesn't seem to have solved SO's low quality post problem). I will add it to my list of things to consider adding, but there are a lot of other things that also have that status, so the chances of it being implemented any time soon are fairly slim I'm afraid.

B was my initial idea and I agree would be probably the best middle ground in terms of ease to implement as well as long term effectiveness. I know you all are probably working on some more hard hitting issues/bugs and features currently, but it's nice to know this suggestion has been added to the consideration pile  

[Princess Luna]

Indeed, I always say invest as much time on your question as you wish someone to invest time answering it, some OP's are a few words long like 'what cpu is good?' and that's it... annoys me a little personally.

[captain_to_fire]

On 8/23/2017 at 6:29 AM, colonel_mortis said:

I suspect that this would just annoy people, and while some people would read it properly, I would guess that a reasonable chunk of users would just "read" it for a couple of seconds, then go back to the create topic page.

I think when a new member signs up, there should be a splash screen about the community standards before they can even sign up so that they'll not post stuff like "How can I crack a Windows 10 license for free" or "Is my PC good for a Hackintosh" or "Guys, please help my new tech review channel grow". I don't know what goes behind a mod's screen but I've seen new forum members with less than 20 posts receiving a ban hammer because of ignorance of the CS. 

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

I think when a new member signs up, there should be a splash screen about the community standards before they can even sign up so that they'll not post stuff like "How can I crack a Windows 10 license for free" or "Is my PC good for a Hackintosh" or "Guys, please help my new tech review channel grow". I don't know what goes behind a mod's screen but I've seen new forum members with less than 20 posts receiving a ban hammer because of ignorance of the CS. 

You agree upon CS when signing up.... And AFAIK no normal user gets banned just for asking once. Those who do are bots.

[captain_to_fire]

1 hour ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

You agree upon CS when signing up.... And AFAIK no normal user gets banned just for asking once. Those who do are bots.

I forgot if there's a check box that's says I agree to terms and conditions when I signed up two years ago 

[colonel_mortis]

4 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

I forgot if there's a check box that's says I agree to terms and conditions when I signed up two years ago 

There is, but it's for the terms and conditions rather than the community standards.

[captain_to_fire]

27 minutes ago, colonel_mortis said:

There is, but it's for the terms and conditions rather than the community standards.

I think it's time to have the community standards be read prior to signing up for new accounts 

[colonel_mortis]

3 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

I think it's time to have the community standards be read prior to signing up for new accounts 

I don't have the statistics to hand, but I doubt that any significant proportion of new registrations read the Terms of Use, so I don't imagine that they would read the Community Standards either if we added it to the registration page.

[Swealteek]

On 24-8-2017 at 0:01 PM, colonel_mortis said:

I don't have the statistics to hand, but I doubt that any significant proportion of new registrations read the Terms of Use, so I don't imagine that they would read the Community Standards either if we added it to the registration page.

But cant we have samting like a small window next to their first post whit some basic ¨Community Standards¨

 

@hey_yo_ No god no. I get ware your coming form but. If you need help becas your pc dasn´t boot. And we have some BS inplace that wont allow tham to post or do X. Their ar gone go awe to a ather form or look els ware. And to be turfy onsist i rather deal with/ help those people than see some one how has 1.5K post and is asking wat i had for dinner. Also think a bout this. If LTT had samting like that in place dasnt that feel inviting to join to you ?

[Guest]

On 8/23/2017 at 6:53 PM, Princess Cadence said:

invest as much time on your question as you wish someone to invest time answering it  

I found the short "read this" we are looking for!!!