Basically, I've noticed a tendancy for some person(s), who are very very helpful at times - to be very rude if not vindictive with their approach to a newbies questions.

I think it might be a good idea to add one more forum, for newbies to ask free questions. Seriously, when I first started using LS, I was afraid to ask questions on this forum, especially after reading some of the particularly snide remarks that some posters have made... As an example I will make special mention of the "Litestep might not be for you if..." post. Anyways, as I see it, if we can seperate the newbies and thier repetitive questions, the worst thing that can happen is that LS.net will have a couple repetitive messages. The converse, however, is new blood, that could potentially turn into themers or dev's!

Basically, the idea behind it is - if you don't have anything nice to say, don't go into the newbie forum... whereas, if you are willing to help the newbie who doesn't read the docs - or doesn't search the forums, for whatever reason, by all means help them!

IMO, it would do alot to stimulate use of this website becuase with almost 90000 users there are only 2500 topics in the forums... I'm sure that if the tone of the forums was slightly different veterans and n00bs alike could suggest and discuss new and old ideas and directions for litestep - that's what this site is all about isn't it?

Regards,

1beb, I love your idea. Have you told DeViLbOi about it? He is the one that could make it happen. It would keep the forums a little cleaner and still the noobs could get the help they need. That is one of the best ideas I have seen on any site. Thank You for thinking of it.

The problem with seperating the two is that they tend not to come back together. The thread that you point out started as a very serious post. I know pika very well and he was trying to watch out for the new users and dodge some of the repetitive questions we used to get. I for one have been known to flame a good newb here and there and each and every time I have had a reason. If you catch me on irc and ask a legit question you get a legit answer...if you don't...well look out.

Now as for the forums and stuff...I really don't want to split and label the userbase. LiteStep users are to me LiteStep users. Everything is in presentation.

Keep one userbase just have one forum that says something like noob forum and the other say something like experienced user forum. Then we, the users could go to the one that applies to us. If noobs don't want flammed then they go to there forum. Everyone else is happy not to have redundent questions from noobs. Everyoine is happy then.

yes...but then the newbs never get the advanced knowledge of those LS elders that can't stand the dumb questions and the community goes down the toilet

good point
but if you ever found a way to make it work its still a good idea
all im sayin is keep an open mind about it

About the only questions that I've seen answered with rude replies were repetetive ones such as "Why do my title bars still look the same?". A new forum won't help there. And even if it is created, who's supposed to answer the questions? The same people who answer questions right now I guess.

Besides... in the words of Raymond Chen (M$ dev):
The original is here. A nice read.

I agree with dev/ilm. the only questions that we give rude replies to are the repetitive ones. mainly because we see, on average, 10+ new posts per week dealing with the same things we see day after day. we're not going to stop being rude, because people SHOULD be cehcking through the forums first, reading the docs, etc. it's common sense people. if there's information available to you, read through it first and try to fix it yourself. if someone reads through the docs, reads through the forums, and still has questions about something, we're more than happy to help them out, push them in the right direction. but we're not babysitters. we're not here to do everything for these people. we're here to help, as a community, not to hold their hands and wipe their noses.

Separate LS users into categories will help nothing! I think the site is quite complete and has plenty of information (specially the forum section). What should change is the lazyness of some people. A lot of the repetitive questions are already answered in the "important topics" right at the top of every section, but people don't care to read it.
I use LS for about 5 years and sometimes, in many ways, I can't say if I'm a noob or not, so if there's two foruns, I'm gonna have to read them both. Anyway, it's just my opinion ;)

maybe we could have a clearly visible "newbie's site" where information is given to them.
i can sometimes understand newbies (oh, how i f****** hate that word ;) ) not finding what they are looking for or not even searching. when i started with litestep, i had an article in a magazine (must have been in '99) introducing the basic facts. with this knowlegde, i had a good starting point. i think this is missing for most of the newbies. imagine you just registered and enter ls.net, the official ls website. there's just the forums, the themes section, the links, but nothing to really start with.
i know, there're so many tutorials and stuff, but many of these sooner or later are outdated. example: still today coders tell about step.rc settings, even though nobody puts them in there anymore because of OTS. if a user doesn't know about the "old" concept of themes, he (or she? ^^) will be confused or at least wonder about it.
it's just too many too confusing things to newbies. there's so much you have to know, and most people won't understand. they just have to be introduced - (lite)step by step ;)
and if they find basic information and links on ls.net, in big red letters, they will try it themselves ... hopefully.

(just before anybody sais: well, why wouldn't YOU do this...? i'm out of time for the next... let's say 2 months :D)

maybe at the top of the forum catagory selection screen you could put a line that says something like have a question read the docs for the best answer. and have a link going to the site. well i think it would have to sound better than that though but it might get more people to read the docs
its an idea, just trying to improve things for the best

I think what should change are the newbies :) A lot of people just want to install the software and just run it with no need to configure it, or learn to configure it (and the LS learning curve is very steep). I remember installing LS for the first time back in march of 99 I guess, and having the message I'll have to reinstall windows and I thought I screwed my machine, then I read the docs and read everything in the Floach site at the time and found about the system.ini thing... from that point I start reading everything I can find [I think I survived at least :)]. This difficulties for the newbies was always there, I think, right now, we have much more information then we have back in time, but the problems for the new users will always exist and I don't think separating users will help. I think LS.net is doing a good job helping solving people's problems. I think the newbie's actitude when facing a problem have a lot to do with the success or not, I've learned a lot screwing my system :)

LSnet is NOT the offical LiteStep website. I don't know how many times I have to say that but it is not. We are a theme driven website that happens to have a pretty busy forum.

>I don't know how many times I have to say that but it is not.
He-he... It is too late now :)

BTW 100% agree with ilmcuts

er... oopsie ^^
so which is the official ls website ... is there one actually? :D
sorry, but hey, it used to be, didn't it? didn't have internet access when i started with litestep, and when i had, the site went down... so i could never know :(

Elk: there really isn't one. LS is community driven, so there is no one "official" ls site. and, as far as the current incarnation of ls.net, it was never the official site, but I doubt that the old version was either for the same reasons (although granted, I wasn't on to ls at the time, so I'm not sure, just a guess).