ProBoards Support – Awesome Post
CheatRZ (aka. Ricky) over at ProBoards Support wrote this epic post.
While this was written for ProBoards Support, n00bs in every intarweb community should read it.
Hi. Are you a new(ish) member of PBS? Are you a new(ish) member of another forum? If you answered yes to either one of those questions, then please feel free to read through the following post. If you answered no to both questions, you may have no need to read as you should have already grasped this concept
So, you answered yes? Good, you’re doing the right thing in continuing the read as you’ll likely get a better understanding of forums and web communities as a whole. This thread isn’t pointing at anyone specifically, but pretty much all new(ish) members as a whole, so please keep that in mind. This thread has been sparked because of recent events, which resulted in abuse in my PM box, as well as various activities in other threads as a whole.
Web forums, like the Proboards Support (PBS for short) General Talk (GT for short) board, that have been around a while already have an established community. We know each other. We get along, we can joke around, we tend to have a good time. Something that tends to kill the fun is by having someone new (like possibly yourself) coming into the neighborhood and yelling for the police all the time. Think of it as if you were moving to a new city, say San Francisco. If you moved to San Francisco and you went to a local bar, club, or whatever to go out and meet new people, you tend to scope the place out a bit, and then socialize, and perhaps get to know people and groups of people to see how they interact and socialize. Don’t get distracted and lose sight of mind if you think you see something you belive is out of the ordinary, because chances are what is unordinary for you might be normal for these people. So instead of running in the middle of the group getting angry, or yelling for the police in your new city, you’d likely calmly see what the fuss is about and understand these people, or choose not to socialize with them at all.
The example above fits well with how a web forum community works too. If you’ve just registered at a forum, especially a relatively large forum (Say, PBS), you’ll likely have a lot to learn about the members in that community. You’ll have a mix and blend of different styles, all working together to form a little fun, after all, fun is the reason we’re here. One thing established members of the community does not like is when new(ish) people try to take over a thread being irate about something they perhaps know nothing about. If you see members making fun of each other, chances are they know each other pretty well and know better than to take each other seriously, which makes part of the fun. If you don’t like the thread, feel free to use the ‘back’ button in your browser and don’t disrupt these people. If the thread does happen to get out of line, the pretty members in colors will kindly lock the thread. When it’s done this way, no one gets angry, and everyone generally moves along pretty swell. If you decide to barge into a thread yelling “LOCK!!!111″, not only are you killing the fun between these group of people, you’re also taking on the role of “mini-mod”. If you want to be a mod, either work your way up, or have a dream and tell your mom about it and perhaps you might get the job, otherwise being a mini-mod generally won’t help your case, meaning you’ll likely not get a mod position as well as probably get looked down on by other members, which is generally not fun.
I think I said pretty much most of what needs to be said. If you’re new, please try and get to know the people around you first before making drastic moves, especially if they involve a thread you don’t particularly like and would like to stop yourself, or by PMing people established of that community calling them obscene names because of a situation you know absolutely nothing about. Even if you have 100 or so posts, if it’s a generally large community, like the one here in GT for example, it might take a lot more than that to understand the people around you. That’s okay, it’s normal, but please take the time to know the people. You’ll have a lot better time this way, and no one likes a mini-mod.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day
