neat

What would you guys think about a mandatory new member guide. Something that everyone (even old timers) has to read through, and only afterward are they allowed to post. How about this:

First, research our topics to see if your question has already been answered. The site is equipped with a search function that allows you to browse past discussions. Not only might you find an answer to your question, you will also find a great archive of accumulated knowledge that you may wish to read at any time.

Be patient. The simplest questions are often answered last. Many people here have been on Internet discussion boards for quite some time and are reluctant to draft answers to questions that they may have posted several times before. We try to make sure all questions receive at least some sort of response at the end of each day.

Most importantly, be clear and objective. State the specifics of your situation, as each situation demands a different answer. List your modifications, your intended purpose for the car, and specifically what characteristics you would like to change. The more information you can give us, the better answer you will receive.

If you have a question, make sure it’s a question. Most victims of our JackAssery! post answers in the forms of questions. They have their mind made up, they are not impartial, and all too often they have not done their own research.

Discussions are sometimes better than answers. If you don’t feel as though you are 100% sure of your answer, let your uncertainty be known or don’t answer at all. You will not be flamed for posting your thoughts, theories, opinions, or even wild guesses as long as you don’t represent them as fact. You’ll have done no wrong by making an incorrect assumption as long as you remain open to its discussion and dissection. Keep in mind there is probably someone else out there that can provide a 100% answer.

* Do not try to impress us with big words. Chances are you don't really know what they mean and you have no idea how to use them in the proper context. We DO know what they mean and we will mark up your post like a 3rd grade english teacher with a beehive and a hairy mole on her chin.

* Absolute Statements are Critical Lightning Rods; use them with care, or risk grounding.

* Use the WAG label as a get out of jail free card.

* A single post in all caps will get you banned or worse. Guaranteed.

* When you ask a question, try to be as specific as you can. Rather than ask a general, sweeping question ("what suspension parts are good?"), try to narrow it down to a specific subject ("Konis vs Bilsteins for a street/open track car?"). Let us know what your intended purpose will be, make, model, and year of car (we welcome all types here), and what relevant mods (if any) you already have. Without this basic information, we can't accurately answer your question.

* Use the search function BEFORE you post a question. We don't like rehashing a subject that was discussed just last week, last month, or a even last year if nothing new is brought to the table. We like to be thorough in technical discussions, so chances are good that your question was answered if your topic has been brought up before. In addition, use wildcards in your searches. A search for tire* will find both tires and tire. Finally, don't search for a URL and expect to find out if a link to another site has been posted; that does not work.

* If you have performed multiple searches, and you still have not found the answer to your question, search again. While the possibility does exist that you, the freshest of all meat, have a tech question that has never been covered here before, it is becoming an increasingly more unlikely event with each passing day.

* If, after all that diligent effort on your part, you genuinely suspect that the question that is burning your brain with curiosity has never previously been addressed on the Corvette forum, then choose carefully where to ask your question. Rather than start a new thread, look for an existing one where your question will fit with the topic, even if that thread hasn't been touched in years. Rather than tease or harass members for adding to an older thread, we encourage it. That way we can keep all the tech in one place, rather than have to dig through 15 similar threads of varying vintage.

* Wherever you decide to post your question, list the search terms you used when you came up dry, and post links to the tangential threads you read that covered your topic without fully answering your question. This will not only help your credibility when you say "I tried searching, but...", it will also make your post even more useful down the road when it turns up in someone else's search. In some cases, it will allow other members to point out to you the flaws in your search technique.

* Go easy on the signatures. A couple of lines will do. We're more substance over style here. You're here because you want to learn more about your car. We can assume that you either have a ton of stuff done to your car, or you're going to shortly. If we want/need to know we'll ask.

* Do not start a thread asking about 'what kind of music do you guys listen to. . . .' That is considered quite gay, and you will be christened __Homo Dancing Queen.__ This is a car website, not ****ing 'Soul Train.'

* Silly usernames (Barry Mccockiner), usernames that imply useless superiority (Supastreetcarkillah), or usernames with alternating caps (tYpERfORdezZcOrt) bring little to no credibility to your posts, and will probably end up getting your dumb *** banned. Try using your own name, and say nothing you wouldn't want associated with it.

* Ghetto-tabulous language, street slang, and ebonics are all not welcome here. "sup, dog?" is not acceptable in any post at any time. Nor are the words "dope, mad, tight, hella, or da'bomb" unless they are used in the context that our friend, the dictionary, places them in.

* Use the spell check function in your word processor. Then cut and paste your posts into the BB.

* Big sigs suck. They waste space and are weak methods for getting people to be impressed by dumbasses. Here's a short rule you guys (and girls!) can live with... Short sigs on here - that's it. If you include a long sig as part of your posts, that will be altered once as an educational measure. Any use after and your user name will be deleted. If you want people to know what bolts you use to hold the LEDs on your hood and which hand you prefer for taking a ****, get a website and include a link.

vinnies87

How about reading whats already the RULES of the forum, Moderator Notes and Stickys, Common Sense and more common sense, and the rest would not be needed.

neat

Sounds good!

snowmaker2000

Ummmm whats wrong with simply banning insulting language and calling people stupid and ignorant? I am guilty of it.....but only in response. I am really pissed tonight.

vinnies87

Snow: your on a roll tonight... Well only if they are stupid, ignorant, lazy.

bogus

I put the various FAQs together because I wanted a one stop shopping place for things people want to know... the annoying part is that people are too special to bother checking the FAQ... it's really tiring telling some troll that yes, the LT1 came out in 1992, whereas the FAQ is above you? morons.

Last month, I spent some time cleaning the FAQ up... would you believe that at least two people posted their FIRST AND ONLY POSTS in the FAQ, asking questions, that were expressly frowned up!!! Idiots.

What does this mean? All the common sense in the world is great... and would be great is the world had common sense. which means people won't read the rules, either.

Oh, and I will continue to use big words... only cause I know what they mean.

CentralCoaster

Sure, type all that crap up.

Then I will scroll through all of it and click "OK" "Register"

Sort of like how I scrolled through this entire thread without reading it.

CentralCoaster

This forum does not suit noobs, it serves confusion. It is poorly laid out straight from the start page. I've expressed this and several ways to address it but nobody cares.

I've also volunteered to single handedly re-input and reorganize the entire tech tips section into a new subforum so it could be used. But again, nobody cares.

It's sort of like that ant farm you put together when you were 8, and then lost it in the basement somewhere.

neat

The way the other forum does it is that somewhere in the rules there is one sentence like this, "You need to send a PM to So-and-So and ask for your membership to activated. You need to include the word Ju-Ju-Bee in that PM."

That completely eliminates the non-reading, lazy, and ignorant from the site.

Snow, what happened to you? I know CFI-EFI can be harsh, but be realistic about it. I'd much rather get slapped about on the Internet while getting the correct information, VS a polite delivery of the wrong information.

And in all honesty, if you make an error, act stupid, or do some other dumb stuff, you're going to lit up for it. At the very least admit your mistakes and accept the brow beating. It's not that big of a deal. I went round and round with the ZR1 crew on here like you would not believe. In fact, if you get bored sometime, read this thread:

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1480926

In there all I did was ask for clarification of an absurd story I had heard from several places on the Internet. I was brutally attacked, and I defended myself. In the end though, the whole tirade, both on my and the ZR1 Internet communities behalf, was completely pointless. Nothing came of it, other than wasted band width and frustration from both parties. If I had simply taken the higher road and ignored the brow beating, everyone would of come out ahead.

I guess my point is that you are going to run into butt heads everywhere, the Internet is no exception. Letting it get to you, especially if said butt head is delivering factual information, will really take all the fun out of this forum. Take what you can use, discard the rest, give back what you can, and press on.

CentralCoaster

Anyone who actually relies on a guide to get along on here, probably won't get along on here.


I think if snowmaker stood by his word and left, all the forum's problems would be solved.

mykle

I've seen this sort of post frequently on message boards for a wide variety of topics. I'm a search kind of guy, I come for information and doing a search is the fastest way to find it typically. Thus, my one post at this site until this point was a thankyou.

Some people like to have there particular issue addressed specifically, especially newbies, they bought the car yesterday and want to talk about it, every rattle and creak they want to share and discuss, and when their wife looks at them with glazed eyes they come here looking to find someone who can share their enthusiasm. Apparently they should have kept talking to their wife, while she may not have been actually listening, at least she wasn't telling them to shut up, read the FAQ and use the search.

Some people become the "answer man" on a forum, naturally they get tired of rehashing the same stuff they explained last week. I can certainly understand that, but what I don't understand is why they become angry about it. If you don't want to rehash the same old stuff ignore the post, the guy who just changed his fuel pump last week would love to tell this weeks fuel pump guy about it.

I suspect the brand new, never before seen, issues for a C4 are going to be few and far between, so in theory there should be almost no posting going on at all if everyone is using the faq and search. If everyone searches and noone posts any redundant topics the forum dries up and dies in short order. Newbies are mandatory to sustain the community.

Slalom4me

Coles Notes Condensed Version
To which I will offer another suggestion
.

VenkmanP

I think some of your suggestions are more of a "guide for intermediate users." For those that have gotten over the very-new-to-teh-interweb difficulties.

The noobs need to be forced to read this before being allowed to post:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/posting.php

Hmmm. How about we get all the forum code-monkeys together and code up a BBS software that, when you post a new thread, does its own search, and if it decides that you repeatedly post topics that you could have found with a search, bans you automatically?

c4cruiser

Uhhh, that would be in the forum rules and the Mods usualy hand out tickets to the bus if it keeps going.

VenkmanP

There's some truth to the statement about ignoring the repetitive posts.

The problem with that is that the forum then becomes completely useless as a medium for new technical information. It then serves only as a place for very basic tech info, most of which is not even corvette-specific. ("how do I bleed my brakes?")

There are lots of new technical questions being posted here all the time. For example "can the 94 ABS be used as a standalone unit" was a recent thread which addresses an issue which I have not seen discussed in my 4.5 years here.

As another example, a lot of new information being shared about the LTx engines on other forums (mainly F-body forums) all the time. The performance boundaries on these engines are still being pushed. The amount of experimentation being done with them has increased in recent years, and also there is new technology becoming available for them as time goes by. This sort of information is what gets lost in the sea of noob questions.

Which is evidenced by this forum every day. This one has been mostly-dead for years now.

zr1fred

Yeah, probably solve world hunger and global warming too.
Seems like there is a snowmaker here every few days. Some people on the internet are like a 35 year old lady with a cell phone and an Expedition, think they own the highway. JMO

CSS996

If everyone searched, there wouldn't be any new posts. Pretty much every question has already been answered. That's a slight exaggeration, but I bet activity would decrease by about half.

If someone posts a question that can be answered with a search, You are free to ignore it, or simply ask the user to do a search. When I see a thread titled something like "C4 vs Porsche 993 Turbo!!!!" I know not to even read it.

Sometimes the new posts bring new information to light that was recently discovered, or maybe a new product/solution has been found. Unless someone updates every old thread with this new data, how is anyone else going to learn about new tricks and such?

You'll never get people to read a bunch of rules and follow them. It's just how people are.

You always have the option to ignore the post. But if the old-timers band together and are constantly answering posts with "The Search function is your friend." Maybe you can get an extra ten or twenty users to search first.

JMHO

eschoendorff

Roger that.

Road Agent

MikeC4

This is not "Family Circle" !! Stupid is as stupid does.

Are you still here?