Why "READ THE STICKIES" fails.

**EWiggen** · Joined: 27 Oct 2006 Posts: 868

Feel like you've been here a while? Feel like your knowledge of Scorehero is vast? Feel like preying on some "N00BZ", so people will think you know what you're talking about- leading to an exponential increase in E-peen?

Bad news. You're a prime candidate for "RTSNS" , which stands for "READ THE STICKIES, N00B (SYNDROME)". The symptoms of this disease are somewhat varied, but ususally boils down to this:

1. A new person makes a post.
2. It is apparent that they don't know much about Guitar Hero and/or Scorehero.
3. In your infinite wisdom, you deem it necessary to post the following: "READ THE STICKIES"
4. You think to yourself "I've done a good deed. They'll go read the stickies now, and the forums will be better! Maybe I'll be promoted to MOD someday!"

Unfortunately for you, the "N" in RTSNS does not apply to the new person in #1. It actually applies to you. You see, it is very probable that you don't know exactly what you're saying when you say "READ THE STICKIES." Allow me to demonstrate.

I have taken the time to go through ALL of the stickies. It's no easy task. Originally, I was going to try to copy/paste all the posts in all the stickies into a single word document- but I quickly decided that it would be an absurd undertaking. Instead, I copy/pasted the FIRST POST from all of the stickies into a Microsoft Word document, and ran a "Word Count." These are the results.

Website discussion:
12,234 words
32 pages

Bug Reports
258 words
2 pages

Official GH news
10,744 words
29 pages

Technique, Style, and Gameplay
26,213 words
63 pages

*****
597 words
2 pages

Rivalries
1167 words
6 pages

Leagues
12,848 words
41 pages

Misc. Game Discussion
11477 words
49 pages

Hardware
5,823 words
18 pages

Software
34,601 words
99 pages

General Chat
1449 Words
4 pages

Totals:
117,411 words
345 pages

You'll notice I left a couple of forums out. This was because they had either too few stickies (or none at all), or they were filled with meaningless lists (custom songs subforum). I didn't intend for this to be an overly exact count, but a reasonable estimation for the amount of info contained in the "Stickies".

For comparison, there are approximately 770,000 words in any given Bible. Take out a Bible, and try to guesstimate about 1/7th of it. Pretty hefty chunk of reading, eh? You bet it is. The average novel is less than 100,000 words.

The average person reads about 250 words per minute. This calculates to about 470 minutes, or a little under 8 hours of SOLID READING.

Now, think for a minute. Do you think your previous advice of "READ THE STICKIES" is going to do any good? No. It will simply send them on a wild goose chase, and give them a negative impression of our community (which is *incredible* for the most part.) You might as well tell somebody asking for directions to your house "GO GET A MAP, N00B." In reality, it works much better if you simply point them in the right direction.

The best cure for RTSNS is a little bit of perspective. I hope that this has given you some. Rather than to tell you NOT to post, though, I have provided a better transcript of what should occur:

1. A new person makes a post.
2. It is apparent that they don't know much about Guitar Hero and/or Scorehero.
3. In your infinite wisdom, you deem it necessary to post the following: "Hi! Welcome to Scorehero. HERE is a link to a relevant sticky. Also, you might want to try this sticky.
Hope that helps!
4. You think to yourself "Boy, I'm glad EWiggen spared me from the wrath of the mods! I'm sure happy to be a helpful part of the Scorehero community!"

Once these steps start happening, congratulations! You should be cured of RTSNS.

_________________

Having trouble with the Scorehero search engine? Try SCOREHERO SEARCH, powered by Google.
www.ewiggen.com is my website.
Grilled cheese sandwich party rule.

**bloodrose** · Joined: 04 Dec 2007 Posts: 78 Location: joliet, IL

so very true and good advice for peple with RTSNS (made me lol a bit)
_________________

WWW.callofduty4tournaments.com

go there and join in the fun

**bananaman300** · Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 386 Location: Marshfield, MA

I agree that would be the nicest way to do it, but that runs close to saying something like

**thecaptainof** · Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 7571 Location: ¯\(°_o)/¯

This is particularly true of the Software forum where there's a multitude of sticky topics about different things. Someone asking a basic question on how to make a custom disc will often be told to read the stickies when, in actuality, there's really only one they need to read to get themselves started and most of the others can be read later as their knowledge develops and they want to move onto different facets of customisation.

Therefore I'd propose that people don't automatically tell new members to read the stickies, rather it ought to be more like "This topic is what you're looking for (insert link), also you might want to at least glance at the titles of the sticky topics to make yourself aware of what else is available in this field".
_________________

yksi-kaksi-kolme wrote:

Wow Mr. Mad, who fucked your buffalo?

**Brockbfball1563** · Joined: 29 Apr 2007 Posts: 3245 Location: Rochester, NH

One of the most usefull and most needed topics I've seen in a while. Yes, it gets frustrating seeing the same topics over and over again, but it's not that difficult to post the link that will answer their question. They will get their answer and the mods will then lock the topic.
_________________

Brock's Youtube Channel - I upload new videos often, so be sure to subscribe!!!

Guitarist for vVv Adrenaline - Check out our newest accomplishments!

Brocky 'n' the Chief - RB2 Coop

**goldengoal7** · Joined: 07 May 2007 Posts: 1355 Location: New Jersey

Wow, this is a great topic. Awesome job. Hopefully everyone reads this. (also made me lol a little)

**sukergod** · Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 2:20 am Post subject:

Its a very good point and is the prime reason that whenever a new person comes to the site, I always point them in the right direction instead of being an ass.

A good question though is how many people have actually read through ALL the stickies. Like you said its a daunting task. I generally tend to read up on the ones that are relevent to what im looking for, but to remember them all is alot.
_________________

**xSergeantMINORx** · Joined: 06 Jun 2007 Posts: 1656 Location: Fremont, CA

Well composed, EWiggen.

_________________

My Custom Charts

**jscott1324** · Joined: 12 Aug 2007 Posts: 750 Location: Southeast MO

**bballcenter7** · Joined: 09 Jul 2007 Posts: 1313 Location: in IN

In my opinion EWiggen is one of the most eloquent (if you can call it that) posters on SH. Very nice guide to people who post to quickly without thinking first. I myself have had many times where I am typing paragraphs and then think "why am I writing this at all?" and press the delete button.

Oh, and that post you had about the budding poets at SH? priceless.
_________________

**Gotsmack** · Joined: 01 Apr 2007 Posts: 1693 Location: Manassas, VA

**ImmortalX** · Joined: 14 Sep 2007 Posts: 392 Location: Massachusetts

The only thing that irks me more than the same questions being asked over and over are the people that tell them they're stupid for asking. Great guide/cure.
_________________

Drunken Javery Mann: If we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man on the sun. We can put all the men in the world on the sun. There'll be a textile factory there, with wings. Inside that are all the women of the world. On the outside, there's an inch-long chain that attaches that textile factory to the one with the men in it. All 3 million of them. And then we will colonize the sun and make little communities. Because if we can put a man on the moon, then obviously we can do this.

**Crononaut** · Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 484 Location: St. John's, NL

Yea this is great, I hate seeing people merely say "read the stickies", it's like oh good, my beloved SH is becoming another condescending noob-bashing site, which it isn't, which is why I love this place.

I think, like thecaptainof said, it could be advisable to direct them to the thread they need, then mention to glance at the stickies in the future to try and find what they're looking for first.

Another one that really irks me is the "the search button is your friend (insert sarcastic emoticon here, e.g.

)". Yes, they need to learn to use the search button. No, you don't have to be such a dick about it.
_________________

**MasterBlaster** · Joined: 01 Jul 2007 Posts: 720 Location: Florida

Yeah, I was very fortunate in this area. One of my first post was some n00b question, about what FC meant or custom songs or something. I got a few "read the stickies/use the search button" posts, then some mod came in, gave me the link and killed the thread.

If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have hung around and made around 300-odd posts right now.

It's very important to give good information to new people, or they'll leave-and they might have became new mods or huge contributors.

I'mmm gonna go help someone.
_________________

You know what I hate? When people write stuff like "Harmonix to produce GH4!" or "Rock Band 2 setlist released!" and make it a link to that weird "Lost" site, or "The Game", or whatever the hell it is. What the hell is that site, anyway?

**JetsterDajet** · Joined: 01 Jul 2007 Posts: 718 Location: Norcal

Two words: Quality. Control.

The ridiculous amount of stickies in the Software forum is an effective countermeasure to weeding out people who would otherwise make shitty charts.