Be kind to the newbies

[Opcn]

I am a forum junkie and In every good forum I have been to (garden web forums being the best) about 1 out of every two newbies is chased away by over zealos veterans. They are just overwhelmed by the amount of abosolute Information that they are bombarded with in the begining, you need to remember that most of these newbie come to the forum and are immediately told that they have done eight seporate things wrong. once you have begun to tell them that they are wrong they fly off the handleandstop listening.

We often forget that it is very difficult to put your emotional state. While you may be writing a post as a helpfull bit of instruction they may view it as an attack on them for abuse (through ignorance) of there fish. The best way to present newbies with info on fish is to talk about yourself as a newbie or other newbies that you know. And of coarse if they dont know the lingo use alot of kind and apologetic and kind words when you point it out to them. remeber they are new and they dont know where to look to find out about Cycling Its our responsability to tell them.

Thankyou for reading this post

Opcn

 

[Loboto-Me]

As a newbie to this forum and in behalf of many other newbies, I'd like to say that you gave ppl a very good reminder here.

I have to tell you that my experience on The Tropical Fish Forums has been extremely kind and helpful... THANK YOU ALL!!!

Everyone has been right there to help me correct my many mistakes and to encourage me as well... these members have been so kind!

I also belong on several other forums at different sites, and most of all ppl have been pretty nice, but you do encounter some who just don't understand newbies, and even less "newbies to the internet"!

I'm very grateful that ppl can remember when they themselves were new to the internet or certain hobbies here.

I give this place 2 thumbs up

 

[Gunnie]

Me too! I am a forum junkie as well, and have been treated very kindly as well. This is one of the exceptional forums on the net!

 

[sharkbait]

AGREED

fishfolk seem to be generally very helpful, concerned and nice. Shame same can't be said about world leaders eh?

 

[Juggernaut22988]

Fish people are nice like the fish they have...

 

[aschueler]

I trudge around the garden forum too.

People here are actually nicer IMO

 

[Cian McLiam]

Very good and timely point opcn. It can be hard to hold your fire when someone has been misinformed or seems determined to do it the hard way and yes w've all been there. I dont think theres anything but good intentions behind it though, so I think I for one could take a step back every once in a while and remember when it was all too confusing and I thought my gut instinct would get me through.

Thanks again,

Ken

 

[Eelzor]

true in quite a few ways actually. Though when I first came to this forum I was gently welcomed by quite a few and liked the start. However, I wasn't really familiar with the entire fish thing at the start. So I asked questions, and one of them I believe started quite a fight. Which at first I thought was joking around, but after I realised that this type of thing doesn't really happen often because a mod came in and sorted the 'fight' out. Well, I now prapare for the unexpected, but trust me on this though, the live chat is quite a bit different to forum posts. Rude people are not what we need here. :smb: 8)

P.S - I'm not exactly sure I answered or really commented correctly on your post, but I trust in it an believe it entirely.