Don't lean on the newbies

This from a newbie's post.

A community, any community must atract & keep new members or it dies. This is a fun place, & the game that draws people here is getting a second wind due to the $10 rack. But if you idiots scare the new chums off, soon all that will be left will be Retard stroking his meat at the eternal joke thread.

Pulling flaming power trips on newbies is uncalled for as well as just flat ugly.

 

agreed! and while I may have a massive amount of posts in a very short tyme! don't hate me for it! I just talk a lot! besides, its ppl like me that draw other gamers in... why? because I'm currently working on getting some of my friends hooked on Arcanum (that way they help me with my mod ), so don't hate me for being a talker! my goal is to (hopefully) draw a few more people to the board!

 

A board without yelling, flaming and abusing others? BOOORING.

 

Ever thought of targeting the older, mature members instead of those soft and gentle cubs? Rules of the hunt, you know

 

I prefer fresh meat.

 

Shady's concern seems kindhearted yet misguided to me. I am. . . touched. . . in the head for reading this.

 

Chalupa siad:

WTF do you know-you've always been "touched in the head". I believe that shady's concern is very well placed and should definitely be looked into with more depth and earnest concern for the truth. Because all of what he said is little more than scrathing the surface of a gaping wound. While many of you do rather quite enjoy "fresh meat" has anyone ever thought that someone new to the board may not understand all of the undercurrents here at HoL!?! Any newbie(or n00b for ya older ones) has to really try to not take it to hard, because they do receive a lot of shit when they first start-kind of like hazing freshmen. They also walk into a lot of things unknowingly, which is not their fault, and are forced to become as vindictive as the rest just to stay alive. This board does have a kind of "kill or be killed" attitude though.

Perhaps we need to take a lesson from one of our founding forefathers: Benjamin Franklin. I believe that he was ahead of his time and a man of some amount of great wisdom! He could say so much with only a few words:

Stupidity is not to blame, ignorance is.

Ignorance is the fault of either the individual or society. More often it is society.

 

They take a lot of shit before they start. Have you read the stickys? They could be rewritten is a non threatning tone. And if the new chums lurk before posting, they can see how some here jump up and down all over the slightest transgresion. labyrinthian sounded shell shocked & battle scared on his first post.

For every new chum that posts, how many lurkers have the quick fingered back stabers chased off?

 

I got called gay on one of my first posts... and while it was just I joke, I nearly quit because it was soo offensive... pick on the older members Dragoon, leave us Noobs until we're closer to regulars... that way you have more material to shoot at us... because if you keep terrorizing the Newbs like you did Labrynth this board will slowly shrink into just the regulars, because all of us Newbs will be scared away.... and Chulupa, wasn't it you who said you hated being picked on? You hated being the scrapegoat? if you hate being the scrapegoat why do you try to turn the newbs into it? you'll just scare them away... you could easily turn SLeek into a scrapegoat... then you'd be not bothered... well, not AS bothered... I'm sure some of the moderators might bug you still, but you could easily shove the 'scrapegoat' mantle onto someone else's shoulders... and not mine, I still count as a newb. :lol:

 

I agree with everything Shadygrove posted. It's for the same reasons she outlined above that I left the board periodically in the past. It's just not fun reading that shit over and over.

Way back when, we managed to make fun of each other and ourselves without it turning into a "Fuck you asshole, die. Your opinions are worthless, why do you even bother posting? WHY DO YOU EVEN LIVE? KILL YOURSELF" kind of attitude.

It's not so bad now as it was for a while there, which I guess explains why I came back. When Jar, DU, Etalis, and all the others were going full bore non-stop, I just got sick of reading it. Call it a different sense of humor, or whatever. I didn't think it was "fun" in the same way as when we used to "flame" each other back when Quethim and Ioo were going at it a couple years ago.

If any newer people who are turned off by the boards care to look, go back a year or two in the archives and read some of the threads back then. That'll show you why some of the older members are still around; Because maybe the boards can be like that again. For the newer people who are completely turned off by some of the attitudes around here, I can't blame you at all. I'd have quit a long time ago.

 

Yes, somewhere along the line, we went wrong. I believe (although feel free to correct me) that I'm not flaming newbies at the moment, but I may have done so in the past - it's hard to remember everyone I've had an issue with . But I really have been trying to lay off people in recent times, so I call upon the other would-be-flamers-but-are-just-idiots-now (like Sleek Jeek) to target people who have been here a while. I'd also hold off on it for a while yourself, until YOU also understand the board better. It's one thing if Dragoon and I have it out - it's another thing if Sleek and Dragoon do.

So yeah, I personally wholly endorse newbies. If you're scared by my FAQ thread, well, maybe that will stop you doing something stupid (and thus make you a more acceptable member), but not scare you away.

 

Yeah, I feel bad for being harsh too.

But guys, don't you ever get tired just once, just once of seeing a post that you made instantly buried in 7 replies that don't reply at all to your post?

When I was a newbie, I was in awe of the older guys. They were sharp witted, cool, hilarious... I wanted to be just like them. After a rough start on my part, I came back and started over. I built my way up, dreaming of the day that I would be referred to as "funny like Milo" or "perverted-funny like mrnobodie" or "hilarious like Sheriff_Fatman" or "able to spin a good yarn like Windmills"

Well, it seems that that day kinda sorta arrived. I'd been accepted. One of the 'clan'. Funny, maybe, to some. But there was one thing that I'd always been referred to as. And that was a general nice guy.

Well, something's changed. I still get that excited feeling whenever I post something that I feel is humorous, hoping Milo will read it, and laugh. Or Jarinor, all-around-tough guy will read it, and actually chuckle, and respond back with some biting sarcasm, or mrnobodie will read it, and the two of us will play back and forth off of one another's similar ways of responding, perverted, yet funny. But I feel that in my excited rush to become one of those revered as "funny", I kinda lost my "nice guy" status, by biting the heads off a few newbies along the way.

Be that as it may, I'm still disinheartened by having my posts buried in idle chatter.

So, to those of you who have fell victim to my want of "belonging" over the course of almost 2 years, I apologize.

Milo, don't hate me. I know that you feel a little differently than I do when it comes to the whole "newbie, don't spam, watch what you post, flaming" thing, but I'd be crushed if you had ever grew tired of any of my rants or disgruntled postings. Sheriff Fatman, Windmills, and Jarinor seemed to feel the same as I on the issue, but if I thought for a moment that I had ever made you like, "Dude shut the phuck up", I'd die.

Sad? Maybe. Pathetic? Umm, yeah. So what. People have their idols, people they look up to.. Mine happen to be the forementioned regulars.

So guys, thanks for having me along. It's been an emotional, fun ride. Had it's ups and downs, but has given lots of laughs, especially to this southern redneck wanna-be.

 

Dude, not to sound srcastic, but that was fucking beautiful man
:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

Now go into the when I was your post count stories, PLEASE uncle old posters!!

I think it is hard for a n00b, even I'm mean to n00bs, and I still am one. Maybe you could be less threatening at the get go, but I still think it's important that new people recognize who the more experience posters are, so they don't just repeatedly make fools of themselves. I'm sorry if I bury your posts, they probably are alot more important than mine. However, I do also think that wanting to post, and be active, and keep the boards alive is a good thing. There aren't too many people who still play Arcanum, or are active in the Arcanum boards, and we all kinda sorta have to be active, lest the game fall entirely into the void.

 

The thing is, imo that noobs who jumped into various topics and joined mostly regulars' discussion got treated just as a regular would. And among us regulars it's basically hard to get offended taken into account what things were written in the past about each and everyone of us oldies (for example in famous 4 word stories and on many other occassions).

Oh yeah and another thing is M_T when someone writes that he doesn't find Ana Beatriz Barros interesting.

Seriously though there's not much real flaming going on nowadays. There was quite a lot in the past especially in political threads.

 

Oh god yeah, the flaming that went on in the Bad Ole Days (always the best sort of days) was amazing in both quantity and quality. Surprising as it may sound, it took me (after my registration date) about 2 months to venture into GD...whereupon I gazed in awe at the likes of Jinxed (not yet the admin we know and fear today) and friend_al_23 (still spamming 30+ posts a day and getting away with it). Very few people had high post counts - you could probably count yourself a regular at around 300 or so - but I didn't really feel part of 'the gang' until I'd hit 750 or so. Even then, I didn't really settle in till I'd hit 1000.

Back in those days, I actually visited Hints'n'Tips, where I dispense non-sarcastic and very helpful advice. Then I just got pissed off with everyone asking the same questions ad nauseum, and stuck to GD. Somehow, I experienced a sort of extreme shift in behaviour, and became grumpier, more sarcastic and more flame-happy with each passing day.

Anyway, time passed, and everything was good. Apart from the Explosion of Eros Rex, and the Whinging of YeaYea2001, everyone here was pretty cool, and there was much fun. Then so many things happened that I can't remember clearly, because we had what I'd consider a Golden Age - everyone in the right place, at the right time, for half a year. Then, thanks to some fucking dumb server admins somewhere, the server crashed. Half the members disappeared, and I think the forum has been trying to recover ever since.

Blergh, enough with the history. The point is, like retard, I wanted the same things at some point, and at some unknown point I achieved them. Now, like him, I'm also annoyed when I see potentially good ideas buried under the weight of the useless chattering of philistines. That said, I still hope people find what I have to say funny, informative and generally appreciated.

 

Well, I'm at 215 or so, and I don't feel like a complete outsider anymore. More like a 7/8 outsider, with 1/8 of annoying guy down the block.

 

nice terry pratchett pull! even if it was unintentional!

i'm not really sure what you mean here...

but as for my own experiences, i was completely taken by surprise when it comes to the flaming i recieved wh n ifirst started posting. i remember i got into some back and forth garbage with jarinor and this other poster that doesnt come around any more for some sad reason or another (aura emanator), but i guess the years and years of psychological abuse my parents have subjected me to kept me from leaving (if not the innate quality of most of the forum's threads).

i know i flamed a couple of people but mostly it was just a joke... i remember the first time i did it was when someone was grave digging and i just typed in "dont gravedig motherfucker!" in the biggest possible text, and then underneath in a smaller font i put something like "wow! my first flame! am i an official forum member now?" and got flamed for doing that... which i understand, but didnt expect at the time. i think a lot of it comes from people "joking" but not sounding like it. i've typed a few things i thought had a "joking" feeling to them and have had people either misunderstand, or completely take offense. i think a lot of this boils down to the fact that we need to throw in an emoticon or too in a couple posts now and then (but not with Matt_Thorn style frequency or quantity) i mean, i can hardly tell when jarinor is pissed off or trying to be funny sometimes.

and i really do thnk we need to be more civil, one of my earliest forum memories was the banishment of "backstabber" <shudder>

another thing that could help is some feedback when someone says something funny or has a good point, if you thought something someone else wrote was hilarious tell them (of course if someone has already pointed out how funny it was dont add to it, more than one would be to much) but i think positive feedback from other forumers would be a nice progressive move. we sound like the evening news, we only address a subject if its a crime against humanity. we dont give enough pat on the backs etc.

 

I dont like pats on the back though... can we do pats on the foot

So who wants to start, crimes against humanity. We can start a mock debate thread. Let's go, we can vote on topics.

 

I think you all raise important points, so I'm stickying this. I'm not always around, so if somebody starts to get out of line, tell them so. Don't sit back and let people get into flame wars, then say how we shouldn't be doing it. (This isn't directed at anyone in particular, just a general.)

People, don't flame n00bs. Most of them don't know what they're doing, so cut them some slack. If they do something we consider against the rules, tell the politely. I'll even write you a generic post you can use.

"___________, please do not do ____________. You may be uncertain of the rules, but here at HoL, we consider this against the rules. Please keep this in mind. Thanks, and have fun at HoL."

 

I try not to let my points wander astray, but I, like most of the rest of this board, have a problem with this, and Dragoon, you just have bad taste in woman. :lol: :lol: (sorry, I had to throw that in just because of his comment about me ) so while I may argue with Dragoon about woman when it doesn't fit, I try, in the most, to keep a topic on topic, unless it strays off by itself, in which case I go with it. :lol: :roll: :lol: