I was about to post a 400+ word rant I’d written moaning about the repetitive questions and comments that take up so much space on this thread. ‘Read the Thread’ or ‘Read the Opening Page’ are great advice and to regulars here like me might seem to be the only answers necessary in 99% of cases. I certainly haven’t got the patience to write personalised replies to posters knowing that that same question or comment will almost certainly come up again….and again….and again….
Then I thought, am I being unfair?
When I started retyping this there were more than 330 pages here containing over 6600 posts – that’s a hell of a lot of reading! The F95 search engine is very good….especially if you already know what you’re looking for and any technical terms that might apply. Similarly the various notes and links on page one are a great resource but are not always totally up to date or totally complete. Add in ‘Patreongate’ and v1.99995 and I can understand how life in Teacherspetland can suddenly become very confusing – especially to newbies and even more so if your first language isn’t English.
So, what can be done to help everyone visiting this thread have the best possible experience?
I have a few ideas myself but as a relative newcomer too (joined October 2017) who hasn’t ventured often on to other threads, I do not feel qualified to suggest a definitive answer. Obviously keep page one as up to date and comprehensive as possible. Perhaps a text document there that briefly explains the essentials of the game and a short history of recent events and changes would help too? Maybe then ‘Read the Opening Page’ will genuinely be the only answer required?
Do other (maybe even larger) threads have a system that works well?
I’m not so naïve as to think we’ll ever get rid of the trolls but surely we can at least do something about the lazy, confused or foreign?
Any thoughts?
I've never seen a popular thread in any forum anywhere that doesn't get bogged down from time to time with repetitive questions and comments. It will never completely go away. In a game thread, part of the problem is the developer's fault. The less intuitive the mechanics/feedback/choices of a game, the more likely people stumble (becoming confused or lost as to what they must do to continue) and request help. The more user-friendly a game is, the less questions get asked (and thus less repeat questions). And, frankly, searching for an answer can often be time consuming (although I agree some effort should still be put forth to try a search first).
And sometimes people just want to vent/discuss. Just because it has been talked to death by 10 regulars to the thread doesn't mean that the 100 thread visitors that haven't been here in a month need to keep their silence because they are late to the party.
Maintaining a FAQ is great. At times fans do keep one going, but they are a lot of work. They really aren't a fan's job. And even when there is one, the FAQ often isn't found/noticed and the questions get re-asked anyway.
One thing that could be done (although I've never seen it done in a forum like this) is that a flag system to mark particular posts as "answers" could be implemented. The first post/thread title/some nifty location on basically every thread could then have a FAQ hook. Clicking the hook would take one to the FAQ. The server would auto-generate this thread-specific FAQ from all posts flagged as "answers". Users moderate this FAQ by liking answers to more common questions or when they find an answer they needed (obviously with the understanding that the auto-generated list is in Like-count order). Even though the FAQ looks like its own thread, replies to post made while looking there go to the end of the standard thread.
Also, the search functionality would then get an obvious option to search "answers" so that searching for walkthrough won't come back with 95 hits for people requesting walkthroughs.
I'll add that "answers" isn't necessarily the best choice for a flag. This post is an "answer" to a question, but certainly doesn't belong in this thread's FAQ. As to whether it is just the responsibility of the responder to flag appropriately, or whether the flag actually gets a title like "FAQ," who knows. And possibly likes shouldn't be used either. Maybe someone shouldn't be voted up or down simply because they answered a common question first (or because their answer was also funny, even though not very important to the FAQ). Maybe the FAQ flag gets its own Up/Down vote on each post to rank it.