It's common on most forums. What's more unusual is that should a newbie drag up an old thread, everybody posts in there saying 'why have you resurrected this old thread, it died ages ago!'. Can't win, lol. I often find it useful to have an old subject brought up, you can think up new ideas that you didn't think of in the previous thread.

"If it aint on fire, you haven't shot it up bad enough yet" - my old teacher on Planet Housten.

I'm in total agreement with you Visconti. Many times I've opened a thread that looked interesting only to find it spammed and ridiculed by long time members of LR. Granted some topics are flat out lame, incoherant and a waste of everyones time. But some topics are just good ole topics. Good enough to be reserected for the benefit of newer members. I see no reason why someone who's not interested in reading a thread has to take the time to responde to it or whine that it should be... how do they say here, "Clicked?"

If you ask me they should just shut their faces and move on to something their interested in. If the topic is a loser it will move down the list and be out of site in a matter of days.

Something else to think about. Many of these topics have been closed. Seems there's no way to actually respond to it unless you dig through a mountain of scrap to find the original or one that hasn't been closed. Perhaps some of the newbies have an original thought concerning an old issue or idea. Might even be good for those making the mods to see some new ideas eh?

Freelancer is a limited universe and some things are going to be rehashed given enough time and new members.

People don't really mind some things digging up, but immediately jumping to old timers defence here:

Some poeple dig up threads around 6 months old just to post "great idea" - or "sounds good" and even "wow - how can i do that?" - the answer is usually - thanks for bringing up a 6month old thread to post that little gem. Talk about spam - yes, there we go - spam but wiht extra...

Also - in editing (not called into question here) we flame them because some of us have probabily spent around 100+hours posting answers to questions on "how to do this and that" - only to have someone come on the next day and post "how do i do this" - our leeway is that IN THE STICKIES we have threads JUST for them - and they contain ALL the info - but the newer members suddenly expect you to post the answer to them again - which takes vast amounts of time.Now you might say something in their defence, but its all stated in forum rules - look and search for the stuff first....don't post. If you ignore them - they usually post in the threads again, flaming everyone for not answering........

Now with regards to some topics.....there was a time when the same question got asked about twice a day...........in a new thread each time.....
IF that continued you would just have hundreds of identicla threads. The stupid thing was that people posted a question without looking - as litterally TWO posts down was an identical post. Then they get pissy when it was pointed out that to come and start joining in, it would be curtious to have a look, read the rules and fit the general population - NOT barge away and let everyone adapt to you.

Some of these old habits though die hard. Its true that the last few months have FLOWN by, os some topics are new to some people, and personally i don't mind too much - but wihtout the odd light flame about forum rules - it would turn from a trickle to a flood. LIke the Joystick. Poeple got VERY bored of reading EACH individual persons questions about joysticks, and their view on it.........in their own threads. Hence why that topic is banned. Next - best ships......these are always popular - but they ALWAYS end up in flame fests of hate and abuse. This is a family site, so its not appreciated, but no matter HOW many times they are asked to keep it clean etc, they post more abuse. So they got banned. Same again - best ship/Freelancer 2 threads. Now - not only for abuse/flaming, its just that they are nearly ALWAYS the same - identical. If something new crops up - then people like to see it, but most is very old........and also you may say let them have a chat about it, but then again - have you seen how many FL2 threads there have been in the last two weeks? About 6 or 7.......some when the same thread is just 5 below it...............

Now tell me that IF EVERYONE new started a thread about their views on joysticks and FL2 and best ships when they first got here, how annoyed would you get? I mean you have to look in perspective.......what would it be like? There could possibly be TONS of new threads about FL2 and so on EVERY week.....and if half just say "are tehy making an FL2 or not" - try and tell me you wouldn't get annoyed.

Now i have rambled from one place to another, crossed why some poeple flame about stuff (for me its cause i am used to general editing - kinda where i reside i should say) some do it because its hard to break a cycle, because they also know what will happen if nothing is said (deluge of posts).

Some do it beacuse the new members just haven't paid attention to the stickies and admin requests NOT to discuss certain things, or just ignore it. Now without some old timers to give a light grilling - it could go unchecked, or even just become the norm.....................have a question - start a thread then.
Result - 60 new posts a day....which also used to be a problem. Start a thread in the morning, and by the night time you have to scroll down about 30 threads to find it. Yes - it really would start happening again if there were no "reining in" on some members. Trust me, we have seen it happen...........and i am not even an old timer

Wow that was a long post

Oh - just out of general interest, i first came here, read posts, read whole threads about modding, tried to do it, read more, read more, and researched into stuff - then after nearly 2 weeks from first arriving at TLR and reading stuff (admittedly i only came about once every day to check and see if i could find a post that would help me to learn to mod) i then joined. The reason was because someone made a thread entitled "newbie questions - look no further" - where you can still see my first ever post - made on the day i joined. I really read rules and regulations here, and i stuck to them like glue. I never started a thread until i had been here for about 2 months..........

How many newbies can say that they have come, read around, checked rules etc - probabily not that many to be fair..........and you can tell by their posts that they are not familiar with the place, because they do ask the banned questions, they do ask questions that have been answered in a thread that is only hours old.

Basically show the forum the respect you should, and then you won't get flamed.....some poeple are flamed needlessly - it does happen, and not all old timers are good guys, cause long membership doesn't mean a nice / helpful person. Heck - some poeple think the ranking system means something - and refer to people in a derogatory way by rank - but that is the kind of person who does flame for no reason



EDIT : And just for those that have never bothered to read them (please by honest, cause otherwise the topic of this thread would have been explained ) - visit this link here

Edited by - Chips on 3/10/2004 6:00:14 PM

I read them. I'm not even a newbie -- I was here in the days of Starlancer, I just lost my username and password to the annals of history... I make a point of it. I don't like stepping on toes -- a moderator had a go at me for the length of my name a couple of days ago; it changed almost as soon as I realised this is one of the only forums I've encountered that allowed spaces in your name rather than '_'s.

I'll grant you, those Freelancer 2 threads are annoying me a little and I've only been back a couple of days...

"If it aint on fire, you haven't shot it up bad enough yet" - my old teacher on Planet Housten.

Nice post(s) Chips. Only one thing to add, generally speaking a high percentage of people who visit here and post replies in threads are not the type to go for the jugular vein. If they did, they'd hear about it from others (right Chips?). Self-policing is rampant here and that's a perfect situation for a fan site.

I think there's quite a bit of mutual respect amongst those of us that "get it" and it ain't all bad to know that even brand new posters really are welcomed if they follow our very simplistic rules and regs.


Rob "Stinger" Lordier
Moderator - Lancers Reactor
Creator Privateer FAQ
no good deed will ever go unpunished

"Old Timers" Have a weath of knowledge to share. When I was a neewb, my first post was in the wrong forum and was moved. One oldtimer gave me a little fun hard time, but another deffended me and say give him a break, he's a newb. When I post, I check back for feedback and learn from it. When I learn something, I try to help someone with what I learned. If the imput was impurfect, someone like Chips would show me the right way to answer. I just learned then what to do and how to do it. These days, I try to help more because it means I have to dig to find the answer which means I then learn because I found something new, mod, thread, ect. I apreciate all the feedback I have gotten from the "Old Timers".

Finalday

It's a Queen......she'll breed......you'll die.......Any Questions? /Keith Green\ (1953-1983)

Speaking of 'digging up old threads', hasn't this been said before?


BlazeME: Flameus Muchus n00bus

Help me on Outwar.com

lol, i dont even reply to them

Wolfy when he's happy...........................wolfy when he's mad

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If they did, they'd hear about it from others (right Chips?).

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whooopppsss - yeah, recently i have been getting on a high horse a bit, its just that we seemed to be getting a semi flood in Editing forums of new questoins for anything going........when the answers they are looking for is right there already

I don't mean it personally (well - there is one who i did, but that is cause he was a really big a............not nice person ), its just that posting "please check this thread here before starting your next 20 single line questions each in a new thread" seems to get you NO-WHERE. So i jump hard sometimes, but if it stops half of un-necessary threads continuning (which usually just encourages MORE to post the same threads) then its worth it..........although not for the reciever.

The one that annoys me most is the type that asks for a link to a download that they know exists. Thats just cause they post a thread to get YOU to spend time searching for what THEY should be searching for. Its only because they don't want to sit and scroll...............but you have to do the same, its not like we know the exact location of every mod here......so THAT i REALLY resent - cause it just shows how pathetic and lazy some are - those are the ones i post hardest about

I too, spent (and spend) a considerable amount of time searching the previous posts before posting a topic and/or asking a question. I do not know however, whether or not you would classify me as an "old timer", as I have only been posting since October 2003. Still, at least TLR is tolerant of "n00bs" .

We don't get n00bs here... if we do we pwn them.

some good point Chips. I didn't even think about how much time you all probably already put into answering some of these old topics. I'd probably be like..."Psst. Hey! The answer you seek is over there! Take a look!" heh. And you guys do post alotta text to correspondence here.

Midaus