The Way We're Treating Newcomers


Grebn

Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2005
Messages
128
Alright all,

I tend to follow threads on the GP32x on a daily basis. Most of them are either interesting or entertaining, and a lot of the time sound support and advice is offered.

But I'm getting increasingly hacked off with the know it all, shoot you down in a second mentality of some of the forums members, particularly when directed at a newcomer.

And why not? They're easy targets right? And its so much more productive to spend a minute or two slagging and flaming them than actually offering a line or two of help.

Only thing is, it comes over as pathetic, and the guy looking the idiot certainly isn't the one asking the questions. So why do it? Obviously if you're slagging someone down, its because you know the answer and they don't. So why not share the brilliant wisdom that obviously gives you the right to be so rude and unpleasant.

When I bought a GP32, I was stuck with the white bar issue, so I posted on the forum. The replies I got were extremely helpful and friendly. I realise now that that was just pure luck. If I'd have got yupster, charga_man or some of the other bullying divs that patrol these forums, it may have just given me the impression that the forum is full of tossers and geeks.

So message to the pricks on this forum - sort it out. If people are shot down for asking a question, they may not ask any more, then they'll be as ignorant as you.
 
It's a net-wide problem, not just these forums...

Different personalities, I quess some people just get ticked off more easily by "obvious" questions... Some may even enjoy it... :blink:
 
Well firstly by calling them 'pricks' you are acting as bad as them.

When i first got on the net i got flamed on several forums, bit of an initiation if anything ! I learnt not to go asking for roms, learnt not to ask stupid obvious questions which 99% of the time will be in the FAQ. Even now though i admit i dont bother reading FAQ's but i tend to have a quick look to see if someones asked my question already.

If the person is a newbie or a veteran they would still probably get flamed if they ask lazy questions. I mean when people say 'i cant find roms' i mean how the hell cant they ? Theres millions out there and by typing in the obvious words you tend to find sites straight away. Thats what riles me up, i've helped a lot of people here with MAME roms and other rom sites before you start but when you get people who are just plain lazy and dont even try then that winds me up.

I do agree with you about the way some people do treat newbies though, think we've had this chat before. I had a friend who asked an innocent question before (He didnt realise these files were pirated as he didnt have a clue what the extension was) and he got shot down by immature idiots.

What annoys me more than anything is people 'talking the talk' and acting the tough man online. In person they would be 100% different, not so rude and probably helpful. Instead so many dweebs who were picked on at school and college and who dont have a life suddenly act like 'Rambo' and think theyre tough as anything by swearing like a pikie and acting tough.

NOT saying everyone at all, often i think a fair few people should have a go at some newbies for being lazy ar*es but also at times people go totally over the top.
 
Actually, reading back I agree that calling people 'pricks' wasn't really the right way to go about it! I was getting myself worked up while typing :)

I guess discretion is the balance, but I wish certain people would exercise a little more sometimes... a good example a little while back was someone asking about where to store files for an emulator. They wrote in a pretty dyslexic style, which was immediately jumped upon by one or two people, rather than the question itself. And it was a bit unpleasant, and kind of dodgy (I mean, the entrants age or nationality could have been an issue). And there were also the usual 'check the threads you retarded illiterate' style replies.

I guess I'm talking about those kind of events rather than shooting down folk who beg for ROM sites. Its just recently it seems to be getting more frequent, and more ganged up on, and therefore making the forum a less enjoyable place to be.

But like you say, the only uniting factor is that we all own GP32s. That doesn't dictate any sort of personality, and it takes all sorts...

And yupster - why am I wrong? I'm just venturing an opinion.
 
But surely anyone can check a readme.txt ? I mean thats why its called 'readme'

I try to help anyone i can as i've been in that position before but if someone simply hasnt read the readme telling you were to put roms etc then i must admit i dont bother helping then.

If i know someones tried but failed then i'll be pleased to help as long as they've tried
 
I agree actually. If we want this community to survive, it's about time we were a little nicer to the newcomers.
 
The reason people ask for things (however simple) is because they can get an answer quicker rather than browsing through documents (however long) for an answer. OK, some may call this lazy but when people have a problem, they usually want it sorted as quickly as possible.

:)
 
I dont read all of the 'readme' file but just look for important stuff, eg what to call the folder where to put the roms. Obviously for NES, PCE, GB, Speccy, C64 this is always different. It said clearly MAME034 yet there were still problems from newbies. The rest of the readme i just ignore, once i know where to place roms then bingo !

As for people being a bit kinder to newbies , how about this one ? ....

One of my friends posted here a while back....

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=14690

Totally new to the GP32 scene , found some file formats which he didnt think were roms, got some sarcastic messages back, was SOMEHOW accused of being racist, got some TOTALLY over the top replies from Vimacs ("go burn in hell") and spray (hey dickwad FUCK YOU!) and the worst ,most over the top reply ever from V3X (why dont u do us all a favor and go dig a hole, burry urself in it and burn urself to death) and FINALLY GeneralNMX came back with a sensible reply to his question and said it 'could' have been a warez incident but it wasnt.

Now that person thinks the majority of GP32 users are twats (and who can blame him) and thinks this forum is full of a bunch of tourette speaking kids.

Like i said before the kids who act like Rambo here are sad as anything as its so different in cyberspace than in real life. If you think peoples responses are a bit rude to newbies at the moment then how about former replies to newbies like 'burn in hell' and 'dig a hole and burn yourself' !!!! Terrible and very sad.

A lot of people here do have an attitude problem.
 
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This has been an issue here for as long as I've been around. It's also an issue on many other forums - there's never any getting away with it.

A few facts are:

1) People rarely read FAQs etc.
2) Search tools are infrequently used
3) People often phrase questions in a way that can be construed as hostile, purile or just rude.

I suppose a (fictional) example of all three are posts such as "WTF?!!? Ur all l4mers were R da r0mz"

As a community, we can take it upon ourselves to act by not rising to the bait or by simply posting a link to a newbie FAQ. It pays not to engage and it pays not to be offensive with replies.

Mark.
 
psj3809 posted on Mar 31 2005 at 11:38 AM said:
I dont read all of the 'readme' file but just look for important stuff, eg what to call the folder where to put the roms. Obviously for NES, PCE, GB, Speccy, C64 this is always different. It said clearly MAME034 yet there were still problems from newbies. The rest of the readme i just ignore, once i know where to place roms then bingo !

As for people being a bit kinder to newbies , how about this one ? ....

One of my friends posted here a while back....

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=14690

Totally new to the GP32 scene , found some file formats which he didnt think were roms, got some sarcastic messages back, was SOMEHOW accused of being racist, got some TOTALLY over the top replies from Vimacs ("go burn in hell") and spray (hey dickwad FUCK YOU!) and the worst ,most over the top reply ever from V3X (why dont u do us all a favor and go dig a hole, burry urself in it and burn urself to death) and FINALLY GeneralNMX came back with a sensible reply to his question and said it 'could' have been a warez incident but it wasnt.

Now that person thinks the majority of GP32 users are twats (and who can blame him) and thinks this forum is full of a bunch of tourette speaking kids.

Like i said before the kids who act like Rambo here are sad as anything as its so different in cyberspace than in real life. If you think peoples responses are a bit rude to newbies at the moment then how about former replies to newbies like 'burn in hell' and 'dig a hole and burn yourself' !!!! Terrible and very sad.

A lot of people here do have an attitude problem.

Ah yeah, that's the Retro Gamer guy. If I'm right in thinking so, there had been alot of requests for Warez etc. the weeks before hand, and I think everyone was at the end of their tether. Still, it has given GP32x quite a bad name.

I have noticed flaming over the last week or so, but I'm not sure if it's any more than usual. I can't ever remember personally being flamed, but perhaps the community is at an age where the same questions have been asked SO many times that everyone is pissed off?

The GP32 appears to be attracting younger and younger audiances.
 
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Personally I love this forum. I've never been poorly treated - despite the fact I recently asked for roms, and even then two people went out of their way to help me.

Every forum suffers from elitism, gp32x.de is no different I guess. Though imagine how bad it would be if the gp32 was as popular as a Gameboy?

This isn't really a criticism of the site, more a suggestion - but the 'search' button is right at the very top of the page in quite a small font, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people simply missed it.
 
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Anbu_2 posted on Mar 31 2005 at 11:04 AM said:
Every forum suffers from elitism, gp32x.de is no different I guess. Though imagine how bad it would be if the gp32 was as popular as a Gameboy?

I know what you're saying - just look at the official Playstation UK forums :(
 
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how about create a forum called "ive red the FAQ and done a search and ive still got a problem"
 
There is some great information on these forums but it does require searching. What would be nice is to have a section, say "New GP32 User" (like General, gp32dev, etc) and have just the facts (no user replies). Anything that is entered into the other forums (which is usefull) can be appended. I.e step-by-step guides for setting up certain emulators, etc (taken from the various readme's). Before I purchased my GP32, I spent my time jumping around the different forums so it would be handy to have all this usefull information in one place. Just an idea.

:)
 
The replies were probably too harsh, but there is the age old adage "ask a shitty question, get a shitty reply".

Seriously it's not too much effort to just read the readme, which would answer 45% of the shitty flamed questions. The majority of the answers that you get will simply be answered there, or even directly taken from the readme. Countless times I have seen a question such as "wich directry do romz go????" followed by replies of "from the readme gpmm/snes". It would have been quicker and less embarassing to just read the readme.

Oh and if someone is considering buying something as mysterious as a GP32, is it really too much to ask that they would read the FAQ? Hey guess what that stands for: Frequently Asked Questions. You go into an "FAQ" and find answers to questions that are asked frequently, which as you are a new user, you are likely to be looking for the answer too.

Many threads are verging on the utterly incoherant:

"were do i fond romz for teh gp 32?????!!!!



help me plzzzz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

or similar, which I imagine makes veterans that have seen the same thread many times less willing to help.

Perhaps it would be useful to inform people that, despite having read the FAQ and attempted to find an answer, you still require help. Also, give the information required: what programme are you playing, what is wrong etc. Give your thread a decent title; "i need help" as a thread title followed by "my gp isnt working wot do i do" is a worthless thread.

This is a good piece of advice on how to use the internet :rolleyes:
 
I reckon that if someone took it upon themselves to post a brief and reasonable response to EVERY dumb newbie question that appeared on this forum for a full year, that person would still have spent less time doing so than a devver like Reesy has spent working on DrMD.

Having to answer the same questions every few weeks is the least that non-coding nonces (such as myself) can do to put something back into the community. If it really gets your goat you could always save good responses and copy & paste them in when appropriate.

Flaming newbies makes the community a worse place. We shouldn't be doing that. Simple.

J(ohn)
 
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