Can we improve the way we treat newcomers?

Question

Lately, I'm encountering the following situation more and more often (at least three times this week):

1. A relatively new user (rep of less than 150, sometimes rep of 1 [ = first post ever]) asks a question.
2. The question has some problem with it, sometimes it is downright unsuitable for this site (too broad, opinion based, inviting a discussion etc.), but at other times it is something minor such as omitting some details needed for a specific answer, unclear language or even merely not using the style we are used to see on most of our higher quality questions.
3. The question is voted to close because of said problem, sometimes without any comment, sometimes with a problematic comment - either a vague one ("I can't understand this") or one which won't mean much to a newcomer ("this seems highly opinion based").
4. The question receives more VtCs and is closed, sometimes along with down-votes. Even at this stage, it is sometimes clear that the newcomer has no idea what did he do wrong.

While I appreciate the need for keeping the Q&A high-quality and on-topic, I am concerned that not only are we missing out potentially good questions which just require some editing to meet our standards, but we are also driving away newcomers - or at the very least are being very uncivil towards them⁽¹⁾.

I think this is problematic.

What can (and should) we do to improve the way newcomers are treated? Specifically:

1. How can we help newcomers improve valid but low quality question?
2. How can we help newcomers with non-valid question understand where did they go wrong?
3. Can we do this in a way which won't seem like a sanction taken against a serious offender?

(I'm not linking examples at the moment as I wish to keep this discussion focused on the general issue - please comment if you feel such examples are necessary)

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(1) keeping in mind that to an outsider, our VtCs and downvotes may be perceived as a sanction taken against a serious offender - equivalent to being muted or banned in a forum. And that for good intentioned new users, this "slap on the wrist" seems uncalled-for and unduly aggressive.

Answer 1

There is a misconception in the question

Improving an improvable question is definitely the first step. But it's not always possible; not every question is improvable without asking the asker to improve it themself directly.

And in the meantime, we have a more important priority: preventing other well-meaning users from posting answers to a question that is incomplete, unclear, too broad, or otherwise problematic. Question-closing is to stop answers from being made, not to stop the question from existing. Editing versus closing is a false dilemma because closing doesn't prevent editing. We close, always, based on the current form of the question, not what it maybe might be someday. Editing can happen regardless of whether a question is open, held, or closed.

Putting questions on hold is fundamental to the health of the site

We can't hold back on voting to close. As the SE article "Optimizing For Pearls, Not Sand" says, contrary to most people's intuition, questions are not the most important part of the SE design — the absolute top, #1 priority is always, always, always retaining experts who are willing to write answers:

[…] asking questions on our site is a privilege, not a right. […] If we don’t do our part to cull the bad questions, then we risk alienating the true experts who provide what really matters: the answers!

Questions are a dime a dozen. We will never lack for questions, and can afford to be choosy about them. As poor questions drive experts away, we can not only afford to, but we must reject the poor questions, leaving them to either shape up or ship out. This is a core, fundamental, central, non-negotiable part of the design of SE and every single feature of our site derives from that core principle.

We have to close questions that have issues, no matter whether it might be taken wrong by the asker. We must, or the site dies.

A high rate of quality questions is what makes us different from forums, from Quora, from Yahoo Answers. It is the only value we have to offer over the competition: we are attractive to experts. Being soft on questions means a front page laced with poor questions that experts don't want to answer — but non-experts are happy to add their 2¢ noise to — and that is unattractive to experts. Avoiding that is why SE was created in the first place, closing poor questions (until they improve, or fall off the front page) is the primary mechanism for fulfilling SE's design goals.

Avoiding maybe making a new user feel uncomfortable is necessarily of secondary concern. Our goal has never been to be the most popular site, only the most useful — being more popular degrades usefulness. There is nothing that can be said to change the order of those priorities, while remaining a Stack site.

Answer 2

We Value Quality

Here on RPG.SE, we strive to generally uphold Stack Exchange-wide best practices as the best way to keep a civil, information-rich discussion going in a community - gamers - that is somewhat easily tempted to schism and argument, if every single RPG forum ever is an effective gauge.

Moderation will always turn some people off. But The Trouble With Popularity is that it's not necessarily the best thing long term. We deliberately Optimize for Pearls, Not Sand and value well crafted questions and good answers over raw traffic or popularity.

This doesn't mean we're dying off - even though people are always "certain" this is impacting the growth of our community, our site traffic is doubling every 2 years, so IMO we're certainly not striking the balance so far over that it drives away most folks. But it will drive away some - and that's OK. Stack Exchange is not for everyone. There's nothing wrong with wanting to discuss and argue and brainstorm - but there's dozens of forums and Reddit and whatnot out there to do that. We hold to our unique format to provide a unique value.

But Also Being Nice

But of course, we want to be nice to folks (in fact, Be Nice is our entire site code of conduct), and not drive them away unnecessarily. SE has struggled with this dichotomy over time, see Stack Exchange is not a forum: the role of "niceness" on Q&A sites. The network even had a "Summer of Love" event to try to remind folks to be welcoming and nice in addition to (but not in place of) upholding our quality standards.

Meta.SE posts like Etiquette for posting civil and informative comments help us understand how to better communicate with new users. On our meta we've tried to refine the FAQ, generate pro forma comments as suggestions for people to use when suggesting changes/putting on hold questions or critiquing answers.

We still need to vote to close, downvote, etc. as is merited. But if you have some extra time, please add friendly, detailed comments. Brief comments are often more poorly recieved than no comments, but not everyone has the time to walk a new user through the paces. If you do, we'd appreciate your help in doing so.

TL;DR

In the end - everyone should try to be nice and communicate with some extra "How To Say It At Work" flair. But some people will take downvotes, edits, closes, etc. personally and hate our format. When that happens we have to overcome the Geek Social Fallacies and let them go. We don't want everyone. We want people who will build something that's not like Yahoo Answers, and not like Reddit, and not like RPG.net/ENWorld/Dragonsfoot/TheRPGsite. Our site appears to be super healthy - views/users are growing, new questions/answers are steady, so there doesn't appear to be significant hindrance to our mission. Fine tuning to ease in more newbies would, however, always be appreciated.

Answer 3

Optimizing is important

We should optimize for quality like any SE site. I think in that regard RPG.SE works fine. It's hard to distinguish what should count as "opinion" because after all, apart from the simplest rulebook questions, everything here is opinion in one form or another. But the other close reasons are well understood even by people new to the site. They just need to know them.

Communication is key

This is a problem that all SE sites face, but only the smaller ones actually are at a limit where it counts (on SO for example, a bad question is closed in minutes): if someone casts a close vote, that's totally unhelpful. It may become helpful the second that 4 others vote to close, because then, and only then a helpful text is presented. It might well be that a post sits at 3-4 close votes, without any indicator what might be wrong. The poor fellow has to wait for hours until a fifth member thinks the post is bad. In the meantime, he could have already improved it, so it didn't get closed from the start.

Already existing feature

The review queue already has this feature. It will review with a comment attached to the post that gets upvoted when another one votes in that direction. I think that's very nice, because the comments are pre-written, they do not take the time of the voter and they are nice and constructive including relevant links. The same behaviour could be implemented for close votes. The description is already pretty comment-worthy.

People said that this invades their anonymity of voting, but I do not really think that's a point. If the vote goes through, the people who voted are listed by name anyway.

There is a proposal on the SE meta here. This is a feature I would like for all sites.

Answer 4

Yes. We can and we should improve the way newcomers are treated.

I value quality information and quality Q&A very highly. But, like always in life, quality comes at a cost. In the case of Stack Exchange models, quality enforced by community and mod policing comes at an opportunity cost:

Basically every negative comment/vote a new user gets, however appropriate it might seem to the veterans, will have an impact on that users perception of this SE. And thus, every negative comment will lower the chance of this user writing further questions, answering questions and generally staying active on RPG.SE

I honestly believe that the RPGSE community takes the "striving to generally uphold Stack Exchange-wide best practices" (to quote @mxyzplk) quite a bit too far at times. I am active on maybe a dozen different SE sites, and compared to most RPG.SE sometimes feels like a totalitarian police state...

--> Yes, Q&A best practices compliance might be fabulous around here. But at the same time this is having a big impact on the growth of the community.

I feel if RPG SE wants to stay active and alive on the long run community growth and development must be a stronger focus point. This might also need for some of the quality standards being somewhat lowered, as I feel that these goals can be conflicting, especially when it comes to SE newcomers.

Suggestion

I suggest to show a bit of leniency towards new users when it comes to the RPG.SE policies. I'd rather leave a question open, even if it is not 100% optimal and abiding by our rules.

• How about leaving a comment with your suggestions/remarks/... without putting the question on old or closing it?

I'm not saying do this all the time, but for new users this could go a long way in making them feel welcome: when you come here from other SEs, you are likely not be accustomed to the strict on-hold and close policies around here and such 'drastic' actions might be seen very negatively.

Compare this to using your cars signal-horn: there are societies on earth where this behaviour is very common, expected even, in essentially all traffic situations. But in some other societies, using your horn can be seen as aggressive and an affront.

Answer 5

Here is a situation I've encountered several times. It's not quite identical to what you describe.

1. A user posts a question which nobody can answer according to the rules of the site. Maybe it's asking about a houserule, and we're not allowed to talk about houserules unless we have practical experience of playing with that houserule, which nobody has. Maybe it's asking for an opinion, and of course any answer would be opinion-based. Maybe it's asking for a list, and of course any answer would be list-based.

2. I have a good answer for this user's question. For instance, last week there was a question about "modern games similar to Heroquest", and I could probably name six or seven off the top of my head. Would it be an exhaustive list, such as StackExchange would expect for a high-quality answer to the question? Heck no. But would it be enough to make the user happy? Heck yes.

3. I'm not allowed to post my answer to the user's question. Maybe I start typing up an answer and the moderators close the question before I can finish it; maybe I don't bother.

4. I could just post my answer in the comments, y'know? I wouldn't get any points for it, but at least the user would get an answer. But a moderator would try to delete my answer before the user could see it, and I don't want to get in a situation where I'm trying to outwit the moderators.

5. I watch as the question gets closed for being "not suited to StackExchange". I imagine the user wandering away frustrated because they didn't get an answer to their question. I feel pretty frustrated too.

What I want to do is be helpful and give answers to users, and sometimes the site really works against me.

-- and, I mean, I'm a member of a few other stackexchange sites, and most of them are ghost towns where questions go unanswered and answers go unvoted. So, whatever the moderators are doing here, I have to concede it's working pretty well.

But it's -- y'know -- it's really frustrating sometimes.

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Here's a solution that probably won't happen. Remove the karma requirement to read chatroom contents (but keep the karma requirement to post in chatrooms). If someone's question gets closed and is unsalvageable, people could comment: "I wrote you an answer in this chatroom, here's a link to my answer".

Answer 6

We should permit opinion questions. They're the only interesting questions, and they're the only questions that matter.