Forum Members - How to relax

[damhooligan]

actually assuming the forum has the sort of word censor that PHP forums usually have, censoring a whole forum is really as easy as adding the offensive words/acronyms to the word censor. admins can even be creative putting colours/images into the censored words if they wish as well. just takes some creative thinking. one forum I was an admin of, I had the word "heart" change to this icon . big sale of fart rate monitors at the time.

I like the way you think..

[wombatK]

No probs. @WombatK did a fantastic post a couple of weeks ago on a noob posting "buying a new bike" in that folder. If I can get his permission, I think that would be a good start. Is that ok @WK? I'll add a TM at the end.

There is a sticky on buying a new bike ... it can be found here. Maybe it needs updating/highlighting in some way.

Andrew

If my recollection as a noob is correct, the idea of "sticky" threads isn't too obvious to noobs - who often first visit via google searches etc.,. It's hard to think of how it might be highlighted - maybe you need to hook into Facebook's or Google's data matching technology to identify noobs and cleverly use that to direct searches. It's a long shot, but maybe some low-technology solution like having a "buying a new bike" sub-forum might make things clearer.

In the meantime, those of us with the patience and/or boredom with TV and other alternatives will just have to keep politely steering noobs to the right place. Have to admit that it can be hard sometimes discerning trolls from noobs, and my patience might run out a little too soon in some cases.

I honestly can't remember what post of mine it is that commurider is referring to, but as long as it wasn't one where my fuse was too short, I'd be happy for it to be recycled.

As for members getting wound-up and/or too sensitive about things, I can understand where Chris's coming from. The forum would be pretty dull if everyone agreed completely with each other, but we don't need the other extreme of too many people arcing up and launching full-on personal attacks on others. And even one abusive post in 20 (i.e. 5%) is too much, so Chris is not setting the standard too high.

[CommuRider]

This one.

http://bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=43188

[Kalgrm]

It's a long shot, but maybe some low-technology solution like having a "buying a new bike" sub-forum might make things clearer.

Sorta like this one?