I think it's important to accommodate newbies, and yes some of the questions are eye-rolling material. But if it's not your cup of tea, skip it. I do. ;)

My thought (and I never push too hard when it comes to making forum changes) is to perhaps leverage the tagging system better. A moderator could tag repetitive new posts accordingly and give the OP links to the appropriate tagged pages. If you could have pinned topics per tag it would be a good way to channel similar people together with good answers. Bonus points for "exclude this tag" for the grumpy amongst us. ;)

We all were noobs at one point and asked those questions. What if you got scared off by the same elitist attitude? You might not have even been where you are now. Something to think about.

I think it's important to accommodate newbies, and yes some of the questions are eye-rolling material. But if it's not your cup of tea, skip it. I do. ;)

My thought (and I never push too hard when it comes to making forum changes) is to perhaps leverage the tagging system better. A moderator could tag repetitive new posts accordingly and give the OP links to the appropriate tagged pages. If you could have pinned topics per tag it would be a good way to channel similar people together with good answers. Bonus points for "exclude this tag" for the grumpy amongst us. ;)

This is a great idea. Moderators could tag posts like I mentioned and add a button to the for beginners forum which filters all those posts out (for the people that can't figure out how to do it themselves). That way these people can get their questions answered, but those of us who'd like more constructive discussion aren't being bombarded with the same posts.

This is a great idea. Moderators could tag posts like I mentioned and add a button to the for beginners forum which filters all those posts out (for the people that can't figure out how to do it themselves). That way these people can get their questions answered, but those of us who'd like more constructive discussion aren't being bombarded with the same posts.

And there we go again, taking a system that should just add additional information, and converting it to something horribly elitist.

Is it really so hard to use the other forums, that you need to ruin For Beginners for it's intended audience?

Whether you choose to interact with a thread of "dubious" or "naive" content is up to you. If you choose to involve yourself in such content then expect to meet with behaviours and/or replies that might not be the "norm" in other threads. Most importantly though, don't troll yourself by engaging in such a thread. It is a choice.

I have been a gamedev.net member for... wow! Over a decade! That's nearly one third of my entire life! And I've never been bothered by beginners asking beginner questions. I just scroll past them if I'm not interested, just like with any other forum topic.

If this is something that really bothers a lot of people, why not enable users to include and exclude topics on their view of the New Content page? If I feel my time is too valuable, or that I'm too good to be arsed with scrolling past questions from people who haven't got a clue, I can just open the list, remove the check next to "For Beginners," and call it a day. Maybe we already can do this? It's not something I've looked into.

Edit: It turns out that we can. Just follow the "Filter by forum" link on the left side of the topic list then check all the forums you care about. Leave For Beginners unchecked. Done!

Well, maybe we could update the FAQ, with a part per language, because A LOT of the posts I have seen since my almolst two years here have been "where do I start", "What language should I learn" and "What is the best engine". I would write the C part. It would age, but there is not much we can do about it.

Also we could have a stick saying:

"IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO CREATE A MMORPG, YOU ARE NOT READY TO MAKE ONE!",

bold and red color would be a plus

Also we could have a stick saying:

"IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO CREATE A MMORPG, YOU ARE NOT READY TO MAKE ONE!",

bold and red color would be a plus

People ignore stickies (and FAQ) because often they can't tell that their little precious snowflake of an idea/question/query is precisely the same as all the other instances it has been asked; they simple often lack the knowledge to make that connection so there isn't a great deal which can be done about it.

This is why you get post which start "I've seen all the other posts, but here is my situation..." - as yet they can not see that the other situation is basically the same as their own.

It's not obligatory for a beginner to make those kind of posts. They COULD just read the FAQ / pinned posts / search forums which cover the usual questions and do more of "lurking" in lack of a better word before they start posting.

I'm not sure how to handle the fact that we still get so many posts of this kind. But I'm sure that taking more actions on the extremely repetitive topics isn't going to reduce the flow of new blood on the site. It's going to (hopefully) block some 101's posting but in those cases the chances are they weren't going to climb any higher with such effort / motivation anyway.

Indeed what I am more worried about with the phenomenon more is along the OP's lines and also there has been another topic on this subject recently. Seeing the same stuff asked day after day is not easy on the people that want to help. How many times have we re-iterated the answer to "which language should I use?" Where are those people now? Are they here among us, helping the new users? The gut feeling I have tells me that for most part they've come and they've gone regardless on the answer.

Also we could have a stick saying:

"IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO CREATE A MMORPG, YOU ARE NOT READY TO MAKE ONE!",

bold and red color would be a plus

People ignore stickies (and FAQ) because often they can't tell that their little precious snowflake of an idea/question/query is precisely the same as all the other instances it has been asked; they simple often lack the knowledge to make that connection so there isn't a great deal which can be done about it.

This is why you get post which start "I've seen all the other posts, but here is my situation..." - as yet they can not see that the other situation is basically the same as their own.

Maybe we could force new member to watch the posting and you?

On a serious note, with an update FAQ, we could simply link it and answer most of the questions.