3 day wait was worth it

[Master Ki Adi Mundi]

G'day

The "You must wait 3 days before you can post rule" not only stopped me being a complete lame ass, but forced me to actually learn something. To do my own reasearch and use my own brain, now I have a much better understanding of the processes involved.
I thank Doom9 and the moderators of this forum. I am really quite impressed by the way this board is run. Other forums could learn a thing or two from you guys.

:D

[Doom9]

I'm really glad to hear that. Seems that we're reaching our goal here, despite actually encouraging some people to find ways to circumvent this measure (the most popular is to pm moderators and admins.. and to whomever who is considering this now.. we will either not reply or slam you for forum rules violations if you do so).

[MaTTeR]

I think I speak for all of us when I say we hope to see more of your kind Master Ki Adi Mundi:)

[twistee]

I never even knew there was a 3 day wait...thats a good idea :) I must say, when I first found this forum...a long time ago...i didnt post for AGES, as i was too afraid of not being up to the standard.

[David Hwang]

Even 3-day waiting period seems a bit longer, 5-day is definitely too long!

What about if the new user has encounted an emergency problem?
What about if the new user wants to reply a post that he/she knows?

[TactX]

Originally posted by David Hwang
What about if the new user has encounted an emergency problem?


Come on. This forum is AV-related. We do not save lives here (AFAIK).

And these 3 days delay prevent people from signing in just to get a small problem fixed, without the interest of coming back to help other people.


Anyways... Welcome both of you !

[Doom9]

@david: we're aware of the negative influence this rule can have, however, we are convinced that it does more good than harm. The amount of "lazy newbie looking for a quick fix" post has gone down quite a bit since we introduced this restriction.

As for the other remark... quick fixes are often found using the search button. And as TactX said, we're not here to save lives. If it takes you 5 days for your first problem to get fixed, and the solution works then maybe it was worth the wait. I recall trying out everything that came to mind and bugging people for weeks to get certain problems fixed. That may have been in the old days but it cannot hurt to remember how ripping used to be and then be grateful about what we have these days.

[David Hwang]

I agree there's some lazy newbies. But not all newbies are lazy.
Your restriction is NOT FAIR for those people. Besides, lazy
newbies will still ask questions in FAQ after the waiting period.
What can you do about that? Eventually, we will need some
kind of newsgroup etiquette rather than the waiting period.

[bkST88r[CTL]]

i agree with this rule. Being a veteran to VBB boards myself, I am very strongly aquainted with all the features, and i was browsing like crazy for three days cause i had nothing else to do, and learned a lot in the process =) I support keeping this (like you were ever gonna take it away ;-) )

[Discerner]

Well, here goes nothing.

I like the 3-day rule. It should cut down on redundant posts and that will make it easier for newbies like myself to browse the forum posts.

I have a confusion to make: when I first found your site, just a few days ago, every thread I clicked on returned a null result. The screen was the original screen but said that there had been no posts to that forum for the last 30 days. Actually I joined because I thought it was required in order to read the forum! I didn't really have a question to post.

Now everything works OK. Anybody know what I did worng?:o

May I say that I particularly like the design of this forum. I have a dial-up connection so the more I can see of the whole site, or the whole thread, on each page, and the faster they load, the better I like it. Perhaps you could give us a little info on how it's done?

This is my first post on this site so I can't say much about the tools available for posting but they look very useful and comprehensive. Good job.

- Chris

[BizUser]

I love the rule. I tried to do something with dvd2svcd, got lousy results, tried a few things, failed, so felt I was justified in posting a question. My heart sank when I saw the 5 day rule. But then I really rolled up my sleeves and worked hard - really hard - to solve my problem. I hit Google big time with all kinds of searches, and spent 5 days immersing myself in the issues and concepts. And, of course, I solved my problem! The fact is, it's a very complex process and takes a while to get a handle on. Reading and experimenting is still the best way to get a handle.

I did hit a few glitches with the site (this is NOT a complaint, but hopefully constructive criticism). One simple example - on the download page, you say 'hit crtl-F' and search. This didn't work for me. I finally realized this was due to the use of frames on the site, so you have to click WITHIN the frame in order to search. The download page actually tries to address this, by saying 'And a hint: Click on this page, press Ctrl-F...' - but you have to click WITHIN THE FRAME (I happened to click in the zone to the left of the main page, which restricted my search to the left navigation bar!). Same happened within the Avisynth html docs (which are fantastic!). I tried to search for info on a filter; didn't find it. Same reason. Is there any way to make the 'main frame' the frame that has focus by default?

I've also tried searching the forums for error messages (eg, "error 46"). Got a response to the effect that the term '46' is too small. I re-wrote the search to use the error message text, and got hits, but it would be great if you would support 'quoted strings' such that "error 46" would not be an illegal search. Of course, you are using 3rd party forum tools so maybe this is not within your control. I happen to run a support operation for a living so I'm very committed to searching before asking!

I've visited lots of forums over the years, and many are simply too litered with lazy posts arriving with amazing speed. If more than a page or two of new posts arrive between visits, it's hard to even read the subjects, let alone open the message itself.

One other suggestion - another forum I use forces 'preview' before post. May help prevent poorly formatted/written posts, especially when you use quotes, links, formatting, etc.

Thanks for the amazing site!

[Doom9]

@Discerner: We use gzip compression on all servers where the required modules are installed. This cuts down the size of html documents considerably so loading a page is much faster.

@BizUser: You are correct about the searching, it should be pointed out that you need to click in the frame of question. I do not know if there's a way to make a frame default.. I think not as by default not one of the frames, but the frames page is active (the one document that loads the 3 frames).

As for the 64, it would be possible to change the minimum search length but then again short searched usually return less usable results. And there's no way to make it accept quoted search results.. that would require rewriting the search engine.

[Master Ki Adi Mundi]

A javascript focus() on an element in the main frame might help the Ctrl+F issue, probably not worth the hassle though.

I often use the * wildcard in my searches and have noticed that doing a search for say 4:3 the colon is stripped out and the search falls to 2 and is not performed. If you do a search like 4*3 then only alphanumeric characters match in place of the * so it'll match 4x3 or 413, but not 4:3. This limits the wildcard functionality quite a bit.

Searches with less than 3 characters is bad for server loading, however searching for 'the' hammers the server too. Using a list of common words reduces what strings gets by and could even make searches below 3 character an option. eg 'the','as','do','at','how'.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[ReTroAcTive]

didnt it used to be 5 days? i thought i had to wait 5 days, not just 3. anyway it seemed like forever. i came to the forum everyday and looked around. i thought about what i would post first.
Retros first post. (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38675)
i like the wait, its good for the soul.

[Doom9]

when the first post in this thread was made it was 3 days, since then it has been increased to 5.

[ReTroAcTive]

i c
hell week

[Doom9]

hell week
indeed... but you'll get the week-end off ;)