Welcome to eplaya - A First Timer's Guide

[CornMan]

There definitely needs to be a First Timers Guide to those who sign up with eplaya. It should encourage new users to first post on Introduce Yourself. It should encourage burgins to make the first few posts about sharing excitement about this new wondrous thing called Burning Man and comment on other people's already existing threads about how much they appreciate the shared knowledge and ideas rather than start a bunch of new threads. Perhaps a bit later, after trying to glean information about camping logistics from past threads, the new eplayan might filter in a few inquiry posts about said camping logistics and how and/or whether he or she might get involved with interactive goings on at the Burning Man festival. The guide might mention how some eplaya users will employ the use of snark when they want to join topic conversations but do not have anything meaningful to add to the conversation and to advise the burgin that such snark is not based in hatred or contempt for the burgins, but that the perpetrator of snark wishes to appear fashionably edgy in a hipster kind of way in the presence of his or her contemporaries. Finally, the guide might want to advise the burgin to remember in the future that he or she was once an eplaya newbie him/herself.

[lucky420]

geez CornMan, why you gotta be all nice and shit?

[CornMan]

Well, ok, the FTG could have an element of snark in it. Why not? "And another thing you eplaya newbie shitfuck, don't be getting all needy and be starting a bunch of new threads asking the same newbie questions that get asked a half dozen times each month."

[BBadger]

A nice idea, but I doubt it'll have any real effect. There's already a survival guide, a bunch of stickies, and pages upon pages (or even just the front page) of posts that usually have the answers to their questions. The problem is a culture of people who want immediate answers without any research. Even if we add this first-timer's guide as a gateway to joining the forum, most users will simply scroll to the bottom of the rules page and hit accept to bypass the page.

The only remedy for this pattern of failure is to stop answering redundant questions and tell these people to do a little bit of research themselves. We need to stop feeding the bears so that they stop being dependent on hand-outs.

[CornMan]

It might not have an effect, but we could respond to a needy post by a newbie by commenting with a link to the EPFTG.

[CornMan]

And it could even have sections. Example: "Please refer to 2.B in the First Timer's Guide to better understand why you have gotten so many negative comments to your original post on this thread," if you wanted to bother to do something more than post a link to the guide.

http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=64170

[Turtleburp]

There definitely needs to be a First Timers Guide to those who sign up with eplaya. It should encourage new users to first post on Introduce Yourself. It should encourage burgins to make the first few posts about sharing excitement about this new wondrous thing called Burning Man and comment on other people's already existing threads about how much they appreciate the shared knowledge and ideas rather than start a bunch of new threads. Perhaps a bit later, after trying to glean information about camping logistics from past threads, the new eplayan might filter in a few inquiry posts about said camping logistics and how and/or whether he or she might get involved with interactive goings on at the Burning Man festival. The guide might mention how some eplaya users will employ the use of snark when they want to join topic conversations but do not have anything meaningful to add to the conversation and to advise the burgin that such snark is not based in hatred or contempt for the burgins, but that the perpetrator of snark wishes to appear fashionably edgy in a hipster kind of way in the presence of his or her contemporaries. Finally, the guide might want to advise the burgin to remember in the future that he or she was once an eplaya newbie him/herself.

Correct me if I'm wrong but this implies that new members are welcomed, nay encouraged even .

[Simon of the Playa]

There definitely needs to be a First Timers Guide to those who sign up with eplaya. It should encourage new users to first post on Introduce Yourself. It should encourage burgins to make the first few posts about sharing excitement about this new wondrous thing called Burning Man and comment on other people's already existing threads about how much they appreciate the shared knowledge and ideas rather than start a bunch of new threads. Perhaps a bit later, after trying to glean information about camping logistics from past threads, the new eplayan might filter in a few inquiry posts about said camping logistics and how and/or whether he or she might get involved with interactive goings on at the Burning Man festival. The guide might mention how some eplaya users will employ the use of snark when they want to join topic conversations but do not have anything meaningful to add to the conversation and to advise the burgin that such snark is not based in hatred or contempt for the burgins, but that the perpetrator of snark wishes to appear fashionably edgy in a hipster kind of way in the presence of his or her contemporaries. Finally, the guide might want to advise the burgin to remember in the future that he or she was once an eplaya newbie him/herself.

Correct me if I'm wrong but this implies that new members are welcomed, nay encouraged even .

[Turtleburp]

Dibs the little Welsh one

[trilobyte]

If only we had such a thing...
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=55553

[CornMan]

If only we had such a thing...
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=55553

Ah, I'm glad he took my advice and made the FTG. I bookmarked it.

[trilobyte]

Actually, the Overview of the ePlaya is something that was planned more than a year and a half ago, and rolled out last year in the spring.