Basic information in forums

Question

Hi Experts,
As I was going through different threads in the coffee corner, I realized that it is tough job for the moderators to keep an eye on all the threads and at times lock those threads which violates the rules of the forum.
Most of the threads which got locked are because of the newbies asking basic questions which can easily be searched. Moreover people provide answers to those threads with some copy pasted material sometimes without even giving credit to the authors. Such type of threads really spoils the forums. And also for the newbies it becomes a point of concern as they may fear that their thread might get locked or their question might be too easy to answer.
What I feel is we can put some effort together and along with u2018rules of engagement in a forumu2019 we can put in another thread having the basic information about the topic of the forum which can include the links to Library or Blogs explaining the basics.
This would be able to help the new joinees of the forum to understand the topic better.
Please suggest if this could be feasible to do.
Regards,
Alpa.

Answer 1

>
Graham Robinson wrote:
> Hi,
>
> what about picking up from the OSS model?
>
> In OSS you have to pass through the search page BEFORE you can post a new message.
>
> The process of posting a new thread might look like this...
> 1. Enter subject
> 2. Subject rejected if not specific enough
> 3. Perform automatic search using subject line
> 4. Present search results to user for consideration
> 5. If no suitable answer found let user post new thread.
> 6. Allocate thread to forum(s) automatically based upon subject
>
> Cheers
> Graham Robbo
Soo far, I like the above suggestion the most.
This will actually ensure that the OP searches the forum before he posts a question...whether he likes it or not.
Moreover making post a new thread a tedious task, it would discourage at least half of the members to blindly open a thread. They would be convinced that searching is a better/faster option. Common... I mean its human mentality
Im really skeptic abt Mark's suggestion. Because no matter what, you cannot throw Moderation out of the window. For that matter, when members know theres a Beginner's forum then SCN will be flooded with "how to implement Workflow in my organisation" type of question.
Its like giving a free passes to Disneyland. And the way I see it, the Moderators are going to be overburdened with more work.
Personally, my suggestion is to delete the ids of those who answer very basic questions. Yeah I know Im those war-mongers, always in a billigerent mood
But can prove very effective. Why? Because most regular members know every other member by name or personally. And im sure theres always a competition among members to go one-up over the other. And to achieve this they try to make every post/point count. And one fine morning when they see their closest competitor guestified, he would actually stop and think as to why that happened. And that should motivate him to tone down IMO.
You know it makes sense.
pk