Of course, I’m not a new member myself (unless a serious error has occurred) but I often see new members go against some unwritten rules of the devforum. These things aren’t really noted anywhere, but we still expect everyone knows these things as regulars.
Do you have any of these unwritten rules you want to share, for the benefit of our newer members?
I’ll start:
Posting to WAYWOC? Show, don’t tell. You’ll get much better and more useful feedback if you post a picture, GIF, video or place link so people can see what you’re working on. Just describing it tends to leave out lots of critical information.
Don’t always find posts aggressive - I find a lot of users here do not primarily speak English and therefor may be a lot more blunt and may appear slightly aggressive in there posts and their responses, since we English tend to beat around the bush these blunt posts can often be viewed as aggressive at no fault of the poster’s own.
Exempla: ‘Why your help no work’
This post could be more politely written as ‘Sorry, I tried what you suggested however the problem is still occurring’, yet we must respect not everyone is so fluent in the English language and not take the posts negatively.
Before posting anywhere, please do ensure that you’ve used the search bar.
Asking for help in one of the #help-and-feedback categories may occassionally take a long time to get support when the question could’ve possibly been asked before and the solution to your problem might as well be on the devforums already.
Additionally, if you’re going to post in one of the Post Approval restricted categories, you may be waiting for a post to be declined because it’s already been made.
Please don’t just search a really exact problem though, use keywords in your search and you’ll have a chance to find a post you’re looking for.
I don’t have much advice to give to new members of the DevForum, but whatever you do, please don’t shy away from conversation in any form. The best of us have had to integrate ourselves into the community, and we can only do that by talking and contributing!
You shouldn’t be afraid to get things wrong too, whether it’s writing a post or replying to a comment. Even I, as regular member, sometimes make mistakes. Most people on this forum will have your back if you do something you didn’t know was wrong, or if you could’ve done something better. Once you learn to fit into the community, it can be a really nice place to communicate!
My ultimate recommendation is to simply follow the rules! It will seriously help you during your first days on the forum, and for eternity. I would also make sure that you accept all comments from a neutral perspective, nobody on the forums has a hatred against anyone and won’t discriminate against you. Everything is in good nature, and if you don’t think it is, there are plenty of active Community Sages on the forums too.
Adding onto that, I tend to not use the search feature on the forum. Instead, I use google. Google not only gives me more results but also gives possible solutions from other websites such as scripting helpers!
