Common Forum Mistakes--and How to Avoid Them

[EricH]

As a flood of new members begins to arrive, I thought it would be a good idea to post this list of relatively common forum mistakes and how to avoid them. I’m starting to see the number of these go up once again, as happens around this time of year. So, here's your reminder for the year.

Failing to search before you post. Searching can uncover the answer without your having to post a new thread. It can also uncover related material. To search: Go to the orange bar at the top of every page. Search is the middle button of the three with arrows. Click it and you can enter your topic. If you have an idea of who would have posted a thread, or when, or where, click “Advanced Search” below the entry field. CD-Media and some other places on the forum have search features, too.

Asking a question that could have been easily answered from the current rules. The first thing to happen will be either a “Search before you post!” because 47 other people asked the same thing, or a “Read the manual!” because it’s staring you in the face if you do. See, most PDF readers have this little feature: hit CTRL-F, and they have a search feature.

Now, if you can’t find something, or it’s questionable, post away with some evidence you’ve searched. We’ll do our best to answer. If we can’t, go to the FRC Q&A. Bear in mind that none of the answers you’ll get here are official unless they quote or reference an official answer from either the manual or the Q&A, and even then, take them with a grain of salt. Hotly debated items that could go multiple directions will probably wind up on the Q&A pretty quickly. Oh, and speaking of the Q&A: checking there for the answer helps too.

Resurrecting an old thread. Sure, searching is good. But it can turn up old threads that haven’t been locked yet. If you forget to check the date, you might revive a dead thread inadvertently. My personal rule of thumb is, one year old or more is probably worth starting a new thread and linking back to the old one. Shorter times or spinoff topics could also warrant linking the old thread.

Anonymous/duplicate accounts. If you MUST vent anonymously, or deal with an issue without giving a clue that it’s you, there is a forum called “First-Aholics Anonymous Mailbox”. This forum is moderated; a moderator will get your post and post it under their name. Duplicate accounts are often merged with your old one by a moderator or deleted because duplicate and anonymous accounts are prohibited by forum rules.

Atrocious spelling and grammar. Can I read it? Yes. Can others read it? Yes. But it’s not professional, and it makes it harder to read what you want us to read. Please make an effort to spell things correctly, or use proper capitalization and punctuation. We’ll be much more likely to read your posts then. Oh, yeah—CD does have a spell checker. That might help.

“Bump” posts. “I need help with XYZ!” followed almost immediately by something to the effect of “Is anyone going to answer?” is a bump post. They are prohibited by Chief Delphi forum rules, probably because they are annoying to others and won’t get your question answered any faster.

<font face="Verdana"><font size="2">Attack posts. Every now and again, someone will come around and say something to the effect of “The refs (GDC, other teams, volunteers, etc.) made ABC mistake and it ruined our event, blah, blah, blah!” Guess what, the above-named groups are human. They make mistakes. You’re human, too. You make mistakes. Give them a break. Sure, you may have had a call go against you and it may have even been a bad call. But you can’t change it after the fact. Live with it and grow stronger.