I think that if someone makes a topic about something mentioned clearly in the title of a sticky that it should be locked. In the newcomers, I see lots of merit questions yet their totally oblivious to the stickies that could answer their questions in about five seconds. I know that they don't know, but if they don't know that, then the stickies have lost all meaning. It rarely seems to be the case that there are new observant users, judging by how many "how do i earn merits?" topics or "how do i make games?" I think that these types of threads should simply be deleted, or you might as well get rid of the stickies. See what I'm saying?
Newbies will be newbies. Also, a lot of people don't even read the instructions on how to play a game, so should we also do away with game instructions? That would be sincerely amusing, but the amusement wouldn't last... kind of.
It rarely seems to be the case that there are new observant users, judging by how many "how do i earn merits?" topics or "how do i make games?"
So what you're saying is you want newbie to make a thread, "I have read about how to get a merit!" or post "That was helpful." in all the stickies?
I think that these types of threads should simply be deleted, or you might as well get rid of the stickies. See what I'm saying?
Deleting the threads would be of no use. The newbie wouldn't know what happened and just make a new thread. Of course there's the case we tell the newbie what happened. Then there's the people who respond to those threads. Having your post deleted after helping someone out isn't any encouragement to help out any further if your help will just disappear.
Getting rid of stickies makes it all the more difficult to just point to them, so everyone would look for the sticky, bookmark/save a link to the sticky, type out a new answer every single time, or just not answer it anyway because it's not worth the effort.
Funnily enough I have seen more questions about something in those stickies. Like asking what Carlie meant by this or that, or wanting to know about something they seemingly could not find in the sticky.
Trust me, even though newbies have read the sticky, they are still likely to make newbie questions. Also, to elaborate: You see the questions by the ones that does not read/understand, but how are you going to know if they have read it, and simply moved on because they understand? I don't think I ever made a "Oh, I see" post in those threads. Illusion of statistics.
I think all is said in these comments, still I want to add my 'Newbie-opinion' to it! uhuh... :P
You see, I'm fairly new to ArmorGames (being a registered user since 9/10/2009 that is) and I'm still learning new stuff about/on/around Armorgames every single day! I was on Armorgames since the beginning of april 2009, but I never felt the need to register then... only later when I wanted to comment on a game, I had to register in order to do so and with that found out the benefits of it! In my own experience on ArmorGames so far, there are only a few things you know and understand right away and some others you find along the way or simply stumble upon.
For instance, I never contributed to the forum for the first couple of months or so, since I never knew there was a community behind ArmorGames! I only saw the games on the front page and added comments to them and that's it... Only later when I discovered the forum part, I started exploring that and found out a lot of things by asking them to other people or reading about it in threads, so I understand the value of a 'help, how do I...' thread for a newbie...
I think it would be a good thing to send a newly registered person a short email with a basic explanation about ArmorGames and where to find stuff. It shouldn't be long, just in short terms and with links. I suggested this in another thread some time ago but that got bumped and I don't know where is is right now... =D
