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[Felblood]

All hail King Toady I! Long live the Toad!

I've never given Toady anything I'd consider a deifific honorific, let alone worship, bit I make a habit of addressing people with respect (If wacky respect) when I'm standing on their digital turf or working on their project. It's only polite.

That said, I think the OP is missing the real problem.

We can reference the dev notes without being rude. Indeed, we should all strive to be civil to one another at all times, but providing information that may be beneficial to the direction of the conversation should never be outright banned.

If you're scrolling through the dev notes and come across an entry relevant to a thread you were just reading, you would be remiss, not to contribute it.

If there's no one involved that has insight that goes deeper into the issue, then this will sadly end the conversation, but it will have accomplished no less than if we had spent several pages debating an aspect of the design that has already been decided, without producing anything that expands it meaningfully.

A reference to the dev notes, properly delivered, should only end the conversation if no one has anything further to add, anyway.

[Kanddak]

These are the invariable natural laws that govern internet forums:

For as long as there are forums, there will be newbies who post without searching first, and there's nothing that can be done to change it.

For as long as there are newbies who post without searching first, there will be people replying with links to previous discussions and telling them they should have searched first. This might educate the particular newbie in question, but will not prevent future newbies from posting without searching first, and there is nothing that can be done to change it either.

For as long as there are people replying with links to previous discussions and telling the newbies they should have searched first, there will be people replying to tell those people that they're being too harsh and chasing off the newbies. This turns the thread into a flame war, but does not change the general situation, and there's also nothing that can be done to change that.

For as long as there are people replying to tell the people who were telling the newbies that they should have searched first that they're being too harsh, there will be people starting new threads about their Completely Original Idea of how people should think about posting on a forum so that none of these things happen. Although this generates a great volume of debate, it changes nothing, but there is still nothing that can be done to change it either.

And for as long as there are threads about various approaches to the social problems caused by newbies not searching first, there will be people replying to remind everyone that these are the invariable natural laws governing forums and their discussion is not going to change anything. There will always be newbies who post without searching first, people telling them they should have searched first, and people telling them they're being too mean to the newbies.
This, too, doesn't change anything, but here I am.

[Draco18s]

Makes me pine for ShadowRun, where Eternal September never occurred and the concept of it being "September 23919, 1993" doesn't exist (yes, that's an approximation of the current date in the ShadowRun universe).

Ah...a world where noobs only get online during fall term...

[Mikademus]

These are the invariable natural laws that govern internet forums: ... And for as long as there are threads about various approaches to the social problems caused by newbies not searching first, there will be people replying to remind everyone that these are the invariable natural laws governing forums and their discussion is not going to change anything. There will always be newbies who post without searching first, people telling them they should have searched first, and people telling them they're being too mean to the newbies.
This, too, doesn't change anything, but here I am.

Wow, nice teleology you've got going there. Of course, that entire causality chain can be voided by changing the message posting screen.

[inaluct]

I think that as a group we could make a concerted effort to be nicer to people. I'm in favor of every time some noob suggests a really common suggestion, we do the usual "Oh, that's power goal #353424," or whatever, and then we can discuss the idea. They might have something new to bring up.

[Granite26]

I think that as a group we could make a concerted effort to be nicer to people. I'm in favor of every time some noob suggests a really common suggestion, we do the usual "Oh, that's power goal #353424," or whatever, and then we can discuss the idea. They might have something new to bring up.

Or more likely, there'll be a long discussion rehashing all the same points, and maybe by the third page something new will come up.  Even odds whether anyone (other than the other new users) will get that far into it.

[Mikademus]

I think that as a group we could make a concerted effort to be nicer to people.

Tried that, didn't work.

I'm in favor of every time some noob suggests a really common suggestion, we do the usual and bite his friggin' head off

There, fixed that for you.

[Kanddak]

Wow, nice teleology you've got going there. Of course, that entire causality chain can be voided by changing the message posting screen.

Nah, it doesn't matter if clicking post throws a huge dialog box with flashing neon letters reading "ARE YOU SURE YOU SEARCHED FIRST?" and the search results for some key words from the person's post, newbies will still ignore it and post without searching. That's what makes them newbies.

Now, I'm going to say this exactly once and once only. This is like global thermonuclear war, the only way to win is not to play. When newbies post without searching, I just ignore them and don't post in the thread. When people bite the newbies' heads off for not searching, I ignore them and don't post in the thread. When people tell the people who are biting the newbies' heads off that they're being mean to the newbies, I ignore them and don't post in the thread.
I'm just here to talk about DF. I respect the work that forum mods do but I never, ever want to be one again. If people are misbehaving on the forum, that's a job for the mods and I'm just going to ignore the thread.

[Granite26]

I disagree with ya Kanddak.

1: It may not stopping every new poster from failing to search, but I think it would stop a few...  Especially if necromancer were encouraged on the front page

2: The only way new posters will learn is if they are instructed.  The post at the front may be insufficient, but being told directly seems to help (not that being a jerk is ok).

3:  If we don't (calmly) correct the people who go overboard, well, that's also bad.

4:  We are not a moderated community, we are self organizing.  There are mods, but they do not interfere all that often

[Tormy]

There are mods, but they do not interfere all that often

I thought that we don't have mods at all in most of the subforums. [General/Suggestions/Dwarf Mode for example]

[Bromor Neckbeard]

We have mods?  I thought Toady was the only moderator, and we only see him once in a blue moon.

[Granite26]

See what I mean?

I don't know if there are mods other than Toady, but he still counts as one.  At the end of the day, we are self-regulating and responsible for creating and maintaining our own culture.

[Toady One]

Consolidating these issues here, where there's been some productive discussion.

Edit:  Now here (other thread is still a reference).