Smart Mouth Responses to Innocent Questions
 

I know that we do get many new members who are asking questions that have been asked numerous times in the past or seem obvious. It is becoming way too unfriendly around here with how we are responding to these members. These smart mouthed responses and hostile dog-pilings have to stop.

Before you type up some venomous response to one of these poor sods, please ask yourself: How is my response helping this community? Am I being welcoming? Whose needs are being met?

I'm not commanding this, but asking you all as a favor to please quit belittling folks for asking questions.

Oh, man!
* Malechi kicks a rock as he heads to stand in the corner ... AGAIN. *

Thank you for mentioning this, Grungebob.

Ditto. This is the only forum I've ever done anything more than lurk in, and that's because it seemed to have a pretty friendly atmosphere.

And because I'm a hopeless Heroscape addict. If I could shoot up liquid plastic minis between my toes, I would.

Well I feel it is our duty to collect all those folks who are just starting to play Heroscape, and turn them in to junkies like us... Being mean to them, undermines that objective.

At the same time, I think we need a good way to (gently!) reprimand people who post questions that can be answered directly from the rulebook or cards. If you look at this thread, it's obvious that the first two posters did not even bother to read the rulebook, or if they read, did not understand. In this one, Cavalier tried to educate the first poster a little bit by showing him where the answers were, but no luck. At some point, people are going to signal a little disapproval, and I think they have the right to do that. We shouldn't be mean, but we shouldn't have to pretend it's good behavior, either. We need to correct both the rudeness of the answer and the ignorance or laziness of the question.

I'm fine with not mouthing off to people who ask such questions. I don't come to this forum because I want to see, or take part in, flamewars. But while we're being civil and helpful in these threads, we need to civilly and helpfully indicate that yes, you did embarass yourself and yes, we do expect you to read the manuals and cards and comprehend them!

Maybe we need a stickied basic faq, made up only of questions that are answered in the rules, on the cards, or in official rulings posted on this site. How do common squads work? Do special attacks get height advantage? Can my Zombies eat my own Marro Warriors? Each answer could very prominently display the source of the information, so that while the newcomers are getting their questions answered (politely, very very politely!), they're also learning where to go with further questions. Then when one of these threads comes up, refer the poster to the Basic FAQ and BAM! Lock it. Yes, I realize we have a lot of helpful information on here, but it's written with the assumption that the reader knows the rules. We have a lot of Heroscape 101 information that picks up where the rules leave off, but we need something more remedial, like a 100-level class. READ THIS FIRST! I would be more than happy to take a crack at a first draft of such a FAQ if you think one would help.

While that sounds good on paper, if the people in those two cases were too lazy to even read a rulebook and card, respectively, I don't think it would help much then. It sounds nice, but who garuntees they read it? We need that kind of garuntee for that to work. It's nice if you have them read it, and in fact works very well then, but the problem is getting them to read it in the first place.

Speak of the Devil...

Yes, that is a problem. No one thing is going to solve it, but we do some things to help ourselves:

1. We can sticky it with a READ BEFORE POSTING in the title.
2. When someone posts a question answered in it, we can make sure to not answer the question right there, but link to the FAQ, so they've got to read it.
3. Aldin could plug the Much Too Frequently Asked Questions page in his greetings, or in the welcome message that he already directs people to.

We still won't stop all the pointless threads, but that might get us part of the way.

I beleive these FAQ threads have been tried before and never seem to work. Maybe Aldin or someone else who likes to greet people could send a pm with the faq.

Less-than-complete understanding of the rules is bad behavior? Since when?

Look, I'm as big a proponent of reading comprehension as anyone and as much of a rules lawyer as the best of 'em, but we're all human and we all make mistakes. In the two situations you cited, I don't think that it was "obvious" that the posters didn't read the rules. It was "obvious" (as you point out) that they didn't understand them. Big difference, and that should change how we as a community respond to them. What I would have done in those instances was answer their question and inform them that a careful reading of the rules takes care of 99% of all such questions. I would then cross my fingers and hope they get the message. Posting pictures of a couple of army cards and presenting it as a puzzle to be solved isn't very friendly or helpful.

Thank you for the reminder, Grungebob.

Nothing more really needs to be said, I believe.

(And, "yes," if the person has 200 posts in three days and is asking, "What are teh blew diz 4?" you can make fun of him or her all you want to.)