Thread:MeohMy/@comment-30891950-20170517204045

Thank you for accepting this daunting task as admin on this board.

May I offer a suggestion? I was very active on several forums even acting as the mod and also managed the online sales division for one group. When I came here, I posted as I would in those forums. But this site has a quite different custom that may take many new members by surprise. That is the expectation that new members should read only and limit starting threads and posting comments. On many forums, the opposite is expected. Indeed, in order to prove that you know your stuff and will post quality ideas and material, many hobby forums REQUIRE that newcomers have a probation period where they must post a certain number of quality posts before they are allowed to participate in certain portions of the forum. When I came here, I jumped right in and posted energetically as I had been used to doing in the past. WOW was I shocked when I was chastised for doing this! I am just so used to members comments being encouraged, that I had and still have a tough time keeping quiet. I was upsetting people and I was completely clueless as to what I was doing wrong! I have seen this happen with others who introduce new things or jump in all enthusiastic and are told to basically stop. It is a very different culture here.

I would like to offer a solution that would make veteran members happy and give the new people a place to post their numerous enthusiastic posts with abandon. Simply create a new section of the wikia for newcomers. Call it the new members discussion area. This will solve the problem of the same questions being asked over and over. Instead of having to wade through all of that on the regular areas, they could clutter up that section. And perhaps you could request that veteran players not chastise new players for stupid messages. This could be the "there are no stupid questions" area. I know I would have upset many fewer members if I could have posted all of my blather in the newbies section. I see all this friction between the veterans and new folks, maybe this would help.

I would also suggest a little reminder for new members to refrain from spamming the boards like I did. I'm sure I'm not the only one who might find this board very very different and a bit of a culture shock. This change would allow the veterans to let the board go back to the way they liked best AND allow a welcoming area for new players to gush and gab about the game.

I hope you will give the idea some thought. We're all here because this game is so addictive and fun and I'm sure we can figure out a way to find a place in the forum to accommodate all the different styles of chit chat. 