Hello everyone, I wanted to talk about some things involving new members in seek of help, some thoughts I have, and people who claim to be some fluffy thing from Fantasy. No personal attacks towards anyone are intended.
We get new people everyday, all of asking for help in some way, but all we do is tell them about our Basics post and that "You should read it and learn it by yourself." I myself have done this and it always makes me feel bad. Many of these newcomers are young and curious. They just want someone to be there to get them started, they ask questions in the forums and either don't get answers or are just moved to a different forum topic. I imagine that this hurts them, and makes them feel ignored or unimportant. Isn't that a tad harsh? Just having someone tell you where to go read something and be done with it. They are people as well, who just want some answers. It's sorta like those insurance commercials that address how people don't get quality service.
In terms of this, I was thinking perhaps we could do a bit more. For example, we can ask them what they want to learn, briefly explain it while making sure they understand, and then send them to the source material. That way we can know that we have done more than just being like monotonous tour guides. Sure it gets annoying having people ask the same questions repeatedly, but we all were probably like that at some point.
One thing I see a lot is people challenging other people's knowledge on a subject of faith. (Some popular topics are religion, gods, spirits/Demons, and mythology) There an infinite number of faiths in this world, some big and many small. When we say people should learn something by themselves, they tend to develop their own ideas on these things that can be taken in part from a source, or self formulated. When two people who study the same topic but have different interpretations collide it tends to start arguments. Both could be right or wrong but they still argue because they believe that their information is absolute. Fixing that can be both hard and simple because as someone said (We are primates, and primates need to change things), not an exact quote. I would suggest maybe allowing them to form new Covens or changing old ones so that they can have a way to speak privately in their own chat rooms/forums. This will allow people who study the same topic to share their knowledge and prevent public arguments.
The last thing I'll mention for now is the people who make fluffy claims. (Otherkin, Vampires etc) This is something that may never change for obvious reasons. I think the "Your human and will always be human." quote has been used hundreds of times, and while it is very straightforward, it somehow doesn't work for everyone. It doesn't need changing, but maybe people who make these claims should just be ignored. Making a comment feeds them, gives them attention which motivates them to do it again.
That's all I have to say for now. Big thanks to all who read this.