One of my major pet peeves is when people post duplicate topics. It annoys me even more when people don't read or disregard the sticky topics. The most common example is asking how to become a Scratcher. I now see these topics daily, despite the fact that there are two sticky topics in the New Scratchers forum, and there is even one in the QaS forum saying to read it before posting a topic about how to get rid of the NS status.

One other thing that really annoys me is when users post suggestions on my “READ THIS BEFORE SUGGESTING ANYTHING” topic, even though the topic says in the subject not to post suggestions on that topic, and also says that in big red letters on the first post.

Anyway, my question is this: users are disregarding information that is emphasized for them. Is there anything that can be done that will be more likely to get them to read it?

I think you should close the “READ THIS BEFORE SUGGESTING ANYTHING” topic, but I don't know about the rest.

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Yeah - I have also noticed lots of topics like these….
Maybe we could have a pop up when someone makes a topic that says “please read the stickies before posting”.

Maybe on the user's first visit to the forums, force them to read the stickies?

Other than that, I think joshuaho's idea is good, although popups can get somewhat annoying.

Firedrake969 wrote:

Maybe on the user's first visit to the forums, force them to read the stickies?

Other than that, I think joshuaho's idea is good, although popups can get somewhat annoying.

The point is to be annoying.

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There isn't really much that can be done. The reality is that there will always be users who will not read anything no matter what kind of notification (bold letters, pop-ups, etc.), which kinda stinks.

One popular method I have seen to get people to read things is a trick password or link hidden somewhere in a huge wall of text (such as an FAQ or set of rules), in which a user needs to find the hidden link or password for further access to other website functions. I think that method would definitely get users to read and stop posting questions that have been answered previously, but in our case, that might not be a good idea - a New Scratcher might be totally fed up being forced to read through all the stickies just to get access to the forums in order to get help on project scripting.

Perhaps instead of tons of stickies, there would be “rules” about what to post above the text field for posts. Like how there's that summary of a signature, there could be a summary of what to and not to post.

ProdigyZeta7 wrote:

Perhaps instead of tons of stickies, there would be “rules” about what to post above the text field for posts. Like how there's that summary of a signature, there could be a summary of what to and not to post.

However, people can still ignore that.

So, I do not think their is much we can do about people not reading sticky topics.

Blueinkproductions wrote:

I think you should close the “READ THIS BEFORE SUGGESTING ANYTHING” topic, but I don't know about the rest.

Done.

Firedrake969 wrote:

Maybe on the user's first visit to the forums, force them to read the stickies?

Other than that, I think joshuaho's idea is good, although popups can get somewhat annoying.

That might be a good idea.

Blueinkproductions wrote:

Firedrake969 wrote:

Maybe on the user's first visit to the forums, force them to read the stickies?

Other than that, I think joshuaho's idea is good, although popups can get somewhat annoying.

The point is to be annoying.

I'm not sure if “annoying” is the right word. They're designed to get users' attention, but not irritate them.

cheddargirl wrote:

There isn't really much that can be done. The reality is that there will always be users who will not read anything no matter what kind of notification (bold letters, pop-ups, etc.), which kinda stinks.

One popular method I have seen to get people to read things is a trick password or link hidden somewhere in a huge wall of text (such as an FAQ or set of rules), in which a user needs to find the hidden link or password for further access to other website functions. I think that method would definitely get users to read and stop posting questions that have been answered previously, but in our case, that might not be a good idea - a New Scratcher might be totally fed up being forced to read through all the stickies just to get access to the forums in order to get help on project scripting.

Where was that suggested? I'd like to read more about it (although I still don't think it's a good idea).

Swampert11 wrote:

ProdigyZeta7 wrote:

Perhaps instead of tons of stickies, there would be “rules” about what to post above the text field for posts. Like how there's that summary of a signature, there could be a summary of what to and not to post.

However, people can still ignore that.

Yeah, that's the problem.


I think the best solution would be to have a message on the new topic page that only shows for new users, and it would include a quick list of things not to post. That would probably put a dent in the “How do I get rid of the New Scratcher status? ” topics. Including a link to the most important stickies (which ones are linked would depend on the forum) would also probably help at least a little.

How do I get rid of the New Scratcher status? I've been on for four years, but I'm still a New Scratcher!

Just kidding. It annoys me that traffic on my Scratch 2.0 Modding tutorial topic really decreased after it was stickied. It seems like users automatically look over stickies since they always sit there at the top of the screen, like the navigation bar.

jvvg wrote:

I think the best solution would be to have a message on the new topic page that only shows for new users, and it would include a quick list of things not to post. That would probably put a dent in the “How do I get rid of the New Scratcher status? ” topics. Including a link to the most important stickies (which ones are linked would depend on the forum) would also probably help at least a little.

I think this would be a good idea, but then there might be topics asking “How do I get rid of the annoying message asking me not to post stuff? I've been on for two weeks, but it still doesn't trust me!”.

jvvg wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

There isn't really much that can be done. The reality is that there will always be users who will not read anything no matter what kind of notification (bold letters, pop-ups, etc.), which kinda stinks.

One popular method I have seen to get people to read things is a trick password or link hidden somewhere in a huge wall of text (such as an FAQ or set of rules), in which a user needs to find the hidden link or password for further access to other website functions. I think that method would definitely get users to read and stop posting questions that have been answered previously, but in our case, that might not be a good idea - a New Scratcher might be totally fed up being forced to read through all the stickies just to get access to the forums in order to get help on project scripting.

Where was that suggested? I'd like to read more about it (although I still don't think it's a good idea).

Nowhere. It's just a popular method I've observed a couple of times on other websites.

cheddargirl wrote:

jvvg wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

There isn't really much that can be done. The reality is that there will always be users who will not read anything no matter what kind of notification (bold letters, pop-ups, etc.), which kinda stinks.

One popular method I have seen to get people to read things is a trick password or link hidden somewhere in a huge wall of text (such as an FAQ or set of rules), in which a user needs to find the hidden link or password for further access to other website functions. I think that method would definitely get users to read and stop posting questions that have been answered previously, but in our case, that might not be a good idea - a New Scratcher might be totally fed up being forced to read through all the stickies just to get access to the forums in order to get help on project scripting.

Where was that suggested? I'd like to read more about it (although I still don't think it's a good idea).

Nowhere. It's just a popular method I've observed a couple of times on other websites.

Oh. I thought you meant it was suggested here.

Someone should make a short project outlining the do's and dont's

A popup (like when we remix other peoples' projects) near the topic title when creating a new topic? The popup could say “READ THIS BEFORE POSTING!” And it wouldn't go before 7 min or so.

I've already made suggestions to try and prevent these

• duplicate posts http://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/55302/
  
• not reading stickies http://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/55282/
  

Techno-CAT wrote:

Someone should make a short project outlining the do's and dont's

And maybe have this show in the “New Scratcher” area.

It should be an animation so that people will at least watch it.

Maybe this could be implemented but that might cause the opposite effect as per what dolphin said:

djdolphin wrote:

Just kidding. It annoys me that traffic on my Scratch 2.0 Modding tutorial topic really decreased after it was stickied. It seems like users automatically look over stickies since they always sit there at the top of the screen, like the navigation bar.

Making duplicate post can be plain ignorance or a complete accident. I mean, I made a forum post about the hunger games, and it got closed down because there was another one like it from about 6 months ago. It can be annoying for people that know it's a duplicate, but sometimes even more for the creator who didn't know .

Infinity- wrote:

Making duplicate post can be plain ignorance or a complete accident. I mean, I made a forum post about the hunger games, and it got closed down because there was another one like it from about 6 months ago. It can be annoying for people that know it's a duplicate, but sometimes even more for the creator who didn't know .

There's such thing as the search bar…

AonymousGuy wrote:

Infinity- wrote:

Making duplicate post can be plain ignorance or a complete accident. I mean, I made a forum post about the hunger games, and it got closed down because there was another one like it from about 6 months ago. It can be annoying for people that know it's a duplicate, but sometimes even more for the creator who didn't know .

There's such thing as the search bar…

It doesn't work that well.