A recurring predicament

[on:]

   Hello, guys and gals!

  I am new to this forum, as I am sure you are all aware! I have a question, or suggestion, that I would like to discuss with anyone with an opinion on the matter.

  First off, congratulations on creating a great forum for true Futurama fans, it is so well kept, tidy, and people have been very supportive to me since learning how to walk within the forum!

  One of the things I was told when I joined was to keep an eye out with regards to that things are done differently in here than in any other forum. This is certainly true, and I have tried as quickly as possible to get used to the way things are done here. I truly believe that because the forum is different in the way it is maintained and the rules (mostly) are respected, the forum really is as good and unique as it is.

  There is, however, one thing I would like to suggest. There seems to be a rather difference in opinion and attitude between the New Members on the forum, who presumably, like me, have liked Futurama for a long time or learned to like it recently, but have not come across this forum until now, and the Space Popes, Urban Legends and Doop Secretaries out there who have not only loved and worshipped Futurama for long, but have probably also been with this forum since it first saw the light of day, and helped build it to what it is today.

  I came across this thread earlier today, and realised the problem: http://www.peelified.com/cgi-bin/Futurama/1-004103-1/

  There are some people who are brand new to this forum who have ideas and thoughts about Futurama, which they would like to exchange with like-minded fellow fans across the world. I think Zmithy's idea at the end of the thread is a really good one: http://www.peelified.com/cgi-bin/Futurama/1-004103-1/#17

  Now I can completely understand people who say this has been discussed before, as I am sure you have probably realistically discussed everything there is to discuss about virtually every topic! However, whereas new members surely will get a lot from reading old forums and debates, as the opinions are very much still relevant, it does not create the same kind of joy and excitement as taking part in the debate and having an influence on the direction it takes. Zmithy in his post addresses the issue of talking about Futurama with your friends who like Futurama, and this of course is great, but at the same time, the forum is open 24 hours a day, and you will always be able to talk here with maybe new friends about new topics. Isn't that what the joy of participating in a forum is all about?

  So, following on Zmithy's idea, I suggest the following: Is it possible to make a new PEEL forum (or a sub one - whatever) for New Members who most likely joined because they want to talk about something that probably has been exhausted in debate by the Experienced Members? That way, New Members can talk about things, and have the same excitement in their debates that the Experienced ones had when they first discussed it? Who knows, maybe some of the Experienced Members want to take part as well? And, of course, if they desire, give links to old debates of that kind, so those interested can read. The good thing about this is that: If the Experienced Members would rather spend their time doing something else than see New Members reach exactly the same conclusions as they themselves did a few years back, then the threads in this seperate forum will not take up space in any forum they would like to participate in! They can simply steer clear from the "Noob" territory!

  I for one would like to use this great forum for all the great things it provides, but it would be a shame if it was difficult to maybe just air out an idea about Bender's feelings or whatever because that idea is exhausted. Maybe just stuffing me in a room with four other "Since Apr 2005" Members would keep us happy, out of the way from the Experienced Members, making the behavior rules in other forums completely clear to us. It would not even imply a change in forum policy, and the professionalism involved in maintaining this forum at its optimal would    still make it the awesome forum that it is!

  Sorry if this is a) Been discussed before - that would be ironic - or b) is very long-winded, I just want to make sure I am not offending any one or showing any disrespect here.

  What do you guys think?

  (P.S. I am hitting the sack, so apologies in advance for slow response, I'm sure you can handle!       )

[Reply #1 on:]

Okay, first off welcome to PEEL. I hope you stay long enough to become and "experienced member"

Second off, I'm pretty sure this has been suggested before if not something similar was suggested before. But if a new member has a question they can just post if in General Discussion, Human Resource Dept or Re check/Weird Scenes, then if it has been discussed previously one of the older members can provide a link about the topic to read, and possibly the new member can bump the old thread to add an important reply. Or,  if it hasn't been discussed before, that thread will be used to discuss the new members question or comment.

Usually when new members start posting somebody will provide them a link of the PEEL faq. With what to do and what not to do.

So basically, not a bad idea. But I don't really think the mods want another forum for that. I hope you enjoy your stay here Polymorph!

[Reply #2 on:]

Nope, a newbie forum wouldn't be a good idea, I've seen them on other boards... it'd be like dedicating an entire forum to mindless spam (guzzling bandwidth, and someone's bank balance)  .

I'm just up for the occasional new thread about a particular episode. (not too many though, things could get crowded) There are old ones out there, but it's a bit difficult to talk to people that left PEEL years ago.

I just see it as a bit elitist: "We talked about this ages ago, and now we're sick of talking about it, and we're sick of seeing it, so you can't talk about it either"

I hope that made sense, I have a lot of wine inside.

[Reply #3 on:]

I love this guy.
On to your suggestion:
To put it bluntly, there's little chance of that happening. Slimmy and mArc probably wouldn't go to all the effort of making a new sub-forum for the newbies while the General Discussion exists.

[Reply #4 on:]

The main idea is money. If I'm correct, bandwidth cost money. The more threads, the more money paid. Unlike other message boards, PEEL is free to get on. This means that Slimmy and mArk have to pay for all the threads that newer people made and that were closed in a day.

I've created a few useless threads in my day, three tops, but when I came here, I felt like I fitted right in. Even though I was new to PEEL, I had learned from others (ie. GFF, M0le, N-O-R, Nasty) of PEEL's rules and other things. If there were a seperate "n00b" forum, it would make it only that when the n00bs came to PEEL, they wouldn't know the rules that well. Yes, being with other newer PEELers is good, but I learned most about PEEL by being with older PEELers(as in posting). In fact, I've made it from 0 posts to over 500(Starship Captain) in one of the, as I think, fastest time from starting on PEEL to become Starship Captain.

I'm not trying to brag or anything, but most of this is because of learning from other, more experienced PEELers. And also, I'm not trying to downplay your idea. It's just the money and such.

[Reply #5 on:]

well i'm a bending unit... i consider myself to be new as well... and it's true there have been times where i posted and some poster above professor took the burden upon themselves to flame at me... but a new forum is not the solution... try ur best to search the archives for previously mentioned topics... and if someone flames you, just ignore them... over time u'll become more experienced and all will be find  good to have someone like you here tho polymorph

[Reply #6 on:]

If you joined after 2002 you're fairly new to me... however there are lots of people who are "urban legends", "liquid emporers", etc. who haven't been there that long.  I can see the problem you're describing polymorph; it's because everyone wants things to be separated between "noobs" and "elitists"... this really shouldn't be the case, and people get out of hand on both sides.  Sure you can look at the faq and all, but do we need it posted 500,000,000 times?  And linking to other threads is cool and all, but are you any cooler for spending an hour of your time just looking through old threads to show someone up?  At the same time, new members join all the time, and they basically have the same complaints that you're addressing polymorph.  The truth of the matter is that a new person isn't going to have the same type of discussion that others did when the episode came out.  For instance, you can't discuss what planet leela is from during the first season and make up crazy theories and speculations.... because leela's origin has already been revealed and if you've found this place, you've probably already seen most if not all of the series.  My advice is to not just take everything so literally.  It's obvious that we work so well because we do subject ourselves to certain rules....  but at the same time we shouldn't go overboard and make the rules so strict that new members can't get used to it.  All of this said... I'm going to hedge all my bets on the fact that nothing new will be added to PEEL or any changes made... reason: marc and slimmy both don't have time to do such things, on top of that they hardly care as much to do so anyways.

[Reply #7 on:]

   Hey guys!

  Well...a nice sleep-in later...

  Thanks for the replies and info, guys! I was not aware of the money and trouble that goes into creating a new forum or anything like that, so that obviously makes things more difficult, and probably not plausible!

  I also buy the argument of the New Member forum being a capital for mind-less posting and spam, which would mean that the people who created this forum would have to work even harder to maintain its essence, which would be unfair and against the main point of making things more practical! In any case, I guess if this was possible, it would have been done before, anyways, so things will most likely just go on as they have!

  Can I in a final note then maybe just ask the Experienced Members to be patient and understanding towards the gazillion New Members who come here looking to debate whether or not Fox should continue running the show? I am New myself, and have no right to tell any of you what to do, or have no power whatsoever over this forum, but at the end of the day, the New 'uns most likely love Futurama just as much as everyone else in this forum. And with the rules being so different, it might be difficult for them to understand the differences without knowing beforehand!

  I was taken very good 'care of', by the likes of GFF (especially), cujoe, RS 2thou and Y_L_B, that it was easy for me to catch the drift, but not everyone can have that luxury, I guess, but maybe they should be spared of flaming, even if they get angry at you, because they are just expecting something different.

  In time, they will learn, or they will disappear   

  Thanks again!

[Reply #8 on:]

Actually I honestly doubt this has to deal with money of any sort.  We're going to use approximately the same amount of bandwidth with or without this special forum you speak of.

As far as being patient, I wholeheartedly agree and generally I don't just outright tell somebody new off.  At the same time however, if someone does happen to flame you, it's probably just in humor and you really shouldn't take offense; what you should do is ignore the post entirely, unless you want to be mischieveous and make a mean spirited reply.

[Reply #9 on:]

  Thanks, Winna!

  By that last sentence I take it you mean in true Bender style? Nice Avatar, by the way!

[Reply #10 on:]

Maybe not cost in bandwidth, but we all know that PEEL can't deal with masses of spam and posting, we've learnt the hard way with lots of crashes.

[Reply #11 on:]

polymorph... not sure what i did to make you feel welcome but i'm happy to oblige... and uh... i feel the exact same way you do... just because my pc is under 1000 doesn't mean i'm not an active participant, it just means i don't post every freakin opportunity i get...

[Reply #12 on:]

At least the threads aren't summarily cast into oblivion letting us newbies bump into a few walls while we find our way around. Still it does have an air of the Bot Planet mingled with Morgan Proctor. Maybe she'll let me use one of the scooters.

[Reply #13 on:]

 

Originally posted by cujoe169:
polymorph... not sure what i did to make you feel welcome but i'm happy to oblige... and uh... i feel the exact same way you do... just because my pc is under 1000 doesn't mean i'm not an active participant, it just means i don't post every freakin opportunity i get...

I actually appreciate that.... we certainly have enough spam monkeys around here.  Back in the older days, bending unit was a rank to be proud of... now a days you have to be prof or to some extent liquid emporer to get any recognition.  I liked it better before actually, and I had always aspired to be a liquid emporer, and I've achieved that (it took me a long time since I'm or maybe used to be a slow poster), but now you all probably aspire to be one of those doop secretaries or something which is probably just a pipe dream for most.  Truth be told... I like the stars better 

Oh and thanks for complimenting my avatar polymorph; I like it so much, I've had it since I joined.  I also had 2 other variations of it on two message boards that no longer exist (futurama in nature of course).   

[Reply #14 on:]

well... there's a lot of people who are liquid emperors who joined after me, either they have a lot of good points to make... or i don't even know... it's kind of trivial actually the ranking system*

[Reply #15 on:]

What? I can't even name one Liquid Emperor who joined after you...

The ranks don't reflect anything but how many posts you've made, and together with your registration date, it's a simple way to tell the general rate at which you post. That's it (Although I'm not sure if some certain PEELers overlook this, or what  ).

[Reply #16 on:]

 

Originally posted by cujoe169:
well... there's a lot of people who are liquid emperors who joined after me, either they have a lot of good points to make... or i don't even know... it's kind of trivial actually the ranking system*

Ranks are just a bit of fun really. Except DOOP Secretary! Those are teh 1337!

[Reply #17 on:]

Wow. I post very often. 18.44444444444(It keeps going and going) times a day. That means...carry the two...about 9 days until I'm a Professor! Woo-hoo!

[Reply #18 on:]

Not before me you don't! * mad dash to the computer *

Just kidding. That would probably cause a spam fest.

As for the realtopic at hand, I can't see why we would need a new memeber part of the board. What's wrong with being new in general disscusion?

[Reply #19 on:]

It would cause a spam fest if we had a contest of sorts to get to 1000 posts. I'm about 100 posts behind you, so it would cause alot of posts in(looks at watch)a short time by myself.

[Reply #20 on:]

you freaks... just post on important issues!!!  lol jk do what you want

[Reply #21 on:]

Okay, I will. The whole idea of a "n00b" board isn't really needed. I just went in and posted. I don't remember when I posted for the first time, but I think it was the AFF thread in the General Disscusion area. Anyway, the General Disscusion area is a good area for newer people to find out about PEEL. They have to learn about searching, editing, and the occasional rules for games, but otherwise, but other than that, PEEL was pretty easy for me to get into, even as this was my first message board that I've been on.

[Reply #22 on:]

I remember where I first posted. It was in the AFF thread (it was actually the only reason I wanted to join at the time) and I got a nice welcoming from Zoidberg227. To bad he's not around as much.

[Reply #23 on:]

 

Originally posted by i_c_weiner:
I think, fastest time from starting on PEEL to become Starship Captain.

<-----
Ahem! 

[Reply #24 on:]

Actually Zoidberg227 is around a lot... just not as much on peel... if you ever visit #fc (which is better than peel in my opinion) you can find him under the user name flamekiller. 

Yes nasty, you are a spam monkey.

[Reply #25 on:]

lol... one year and your an urban legend...

[Reply #26 on:]

If you keep spamming at this rate you'll beat his record.

[Reply #27 on:]

i highly doubt that... 

[Reply #28 on:]

Before cujoe169's spam prompt Tweek to close the thread entirely, I'd just like to commend Polymorph for his great effort and wellreasoned post.

I too would wish people would give newcomers a bit more leeway. I know I'm partly responsible for starting the whole "linking to older thread"-thingy. Back then PEEL was a a lot smaller (I mean when I joined the Human Resource Dep. section had 40-50 threads) people had no excuse to not search to see if older threads existed. It would take 20-30 seconds tops to do it manually, so it made sense to keep relevant discussions in the same thread rather than create a new one.

Since PEEL has grown 10-20-fold since then it's understandable if new members don't want to go through 50 pages of crap. As a rule of thumb I'd say it's better to post in an existing thread than to create a new one, but if the thread is older than 12-18 months it's debatable since it would most likely die anyway. It's all an individual judgement and I think older members should be a bit more tolerant.

However it pushes my buttons if people create new threads for something who either are on the 1st page of a forum or if logic dictates that such a thread already exist (Favorite Character, Favorite Episode, Favorite Season, etc). It gives the impression the thread-creater thinks his time is more valuable than mine (ie. he'd rather I read redundant thread than he should use 5 seconds to do a search).

Also keep in mind PEEL have been around practically since the start of the show, so the collective memory of the board is huge. The good thing about this is practically ever question about the show newcomers have will be answered. The downside is we all moan when people triumphantly announce they've discovered Nibbler's shadow in SP3k or Leela's parents in "I Second That Emotion". It's a delicate balance. 

Well, hope someone can make sense of this post, because I'm lost... 

[Reply #29 on:]

  Don't worry, Teral, I totally think there might be a possibility that I could stand a good chance at having understood what you meant!     No, but seriously, I appreciate your post!

  Just like to round that off by thanking people for their insight (and random scribbles!   ), I am glad that so many Experienced Members took time to respond and take this post seriously, and advice on my behalf has been taken to heart.

  I hope I'll be seeing most of you around anyway on here, I intend to stay (but please kick me in the butt if I am annoying you... uh...somehow I am sure you will)!

[Reply #30 on:]

 

Originally posted by Nasty Pasty:
 <-----
Ahem!   

At my rate, which is about 18 threads per day, I'm posting faster than you. You're posting at about 13 posts per day. One of those weird things.

[Reply #31 on:]

^You do mean posts right?

[Reply #32 on:]

 

Originally posted by i_c_weiner:
 At my rate, which is about 18 threads per day, I'm posting faster than you. You're posting at about 13 posts per day. One of those weird things.

Still Nasty hase been "worse". The time I joined back in April last year, he has already been a Starship captain. I remember calculating his post/day count at around 25+.

It was more or less a wonder that he didn't get banned of trolling, since he posted in every single thread there was and the "last post" column on every boards summary page was filled with his name.

[Reply #33 on:]

Not to mention that I went from Delivery Boy to Bending Unit in ONE all-night posting session.

50+ in one night.

[Reply #34 on:]

u freak... how'd u do that?

this is why rankings are bad, people get post happy

[Reply #35 on:]

I don't remember how or why exactly I did that all-nighter.

All I remember is reaching Delivery Boy in the afternoon and being a Bending Unit by the next morning.

I admit back then I was ALOT more post-happy than I am now, but I've seen the majority of PEELers slow down after about a month or two.

But it took me about 4 months...

[Reply #36 on:]

I remember it very clearly. I was thinking "that delightful little scamp! His comic antics amuse me to no end! I wonder, perchance, if his unrelenting quest will end in an untimely banning?".*
*rough translation from "fuknig n00b lern 2 speel!

[Reply #37 on:]

i don't get the very end mole... what are you trying to say?

[Reply #38 on:]

It means I flamed him.

[Reply #39 on:]

haha, thanks for the response m0le delayed as it might be...