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I always thought we are a welcoming gang of people here, but recently I am a little bit disappointed. I came across some posts from first timers(, which were not too good to begin with, but they could have easily been salvaged). If nobody tells them that their post should contain more information, be clearer, where to find relevant help and what's it all about with the page in the first place, how could we expect them to stick around a little longer and make our community grow‽

With a reputation of 350 you have access to the first post and late answers review queue. If you want to do these reviews, be a little more thorough and leave at least a welcoming post pointing to the help center and the tour.

You can access the history of these review queues also:

And I saw that many questions were tagged as "No Action Needed", which is maybe fine for a couple of them. Unfortunately, there was also one question, which was put on hold tagged as this, clearly evidencing that there were severe problems with this question.

I think it is very important to immediately give feedback to new users. If you don't have anything to say about the question, just point them to the help centre and the tour. The likeliness, that they will come back is much higher then.

If you think I am overreacting here, please leave a comment, weigh in on the discussion.

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  • $\begingroup$ Sorry, but those "no action needed" post reviews, though done with my laptop, weren't mine! Long story it is [:-)] . I then, was begrudgingly flagging them as inappropriate! $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Dec 22, 2014 at 13:51
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    $\begingroup$ You are not overreacting. I, myself, didn't relize how this was a different site. Inactive for four month after I asked a question or two, when I got back, I understood that chemistry SE is sheer Q & A. Always there to teach you something. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Dec 22, 2014 at 13:56
  • $\begingroup$ @MARamezani No need to apologize, I just wanted to raise awareness. $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Dec 22, 2014 at 14:16
  • $\begingroup$ I think we need to be more welcoming! $\endgroup$
    – L.B.
    Commented Dec 22, 2014 at 20:08
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    $\begingroup$ Do these links only show reviews you've done, or am I literally the only one doing reviews? $\endgroup$
    – John Snow
    Commented Dec 24, 2014 at 9:12
  • $\begingroup$ @JohnSnow They should show all reviews. Your last one was on 2014/12/19 and there are at least 20 after that. $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Dec 24, 2014 at 9:23
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    $\begingroup$ This is curious because both links only show my reviews, i can't seem to look at others. $\endgroup$
    – John Snow
    Commented Dec 24, 2014 at 22:42
  • $\begingroup$ You know what; when I clicked on those links my reviews appeared. I was feeling like a criminal waiting for the jury verdict! I just wanted to punch my cousin for doing those "no action needed" reviews. @John Snow is right; both links show only the user's reviews, though they shouldn't. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 9:47
  • $\begingroup$ There is the option: show my review history; but clicking on it makes no difference on what will appear as 'history'. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 9:50
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    $\begingroup$ @MARamezani Maybe you need a higher reputation level to see reviews of others. But never mind what has been done, because it was done and we can go on making it better. Thanks everyone for understanding :D $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 9:54

2 Answers 2

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I am totally with you. We should do more to welcome new users. And to make them feel more welcome.

However, unfortunately that requires quite a bit of work. Downvoting and/or close voting are way to simple things. A click or two and it’s done. Being welcoming, saying what can be done to a post, requires actually thinking about the entire thing, about what makes you want to downvote/close vote and what could be improved. It is a much longer process than just downvoting/close voting. We should always attempt to do the long thing rather than the short thing.

Unfortunately², many especially new users do not feedback in a favourable way to those wanting to help their posts. A quick countercomment ‘Y U no halp?’ is not an incentive for established users to continue helping — and neither is blatantly ignoring what they say. So this does go a little bit into both directions.

Tl,dr:

  • Established users, please be welcoming and do not let yourselves get discouraged from people not following your advice.

  • New users, please listen to what the established ones have to say. It may sound weird/funny/unhelpful/unfriendly, but we are typically trying to help.

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I raised the same question. Can we please be friendlier at least in the beginning?.

Unfortunatelly the answer is NO. "Reputed users" (what a swear word) are here to humiliate beginners to deal with our insecurity on job market. Question is too easy - downvote and close as a homework. The answer is too difficult to you - downvote and close as off-topic.

Some questions slip through however. This has nothing to do with question quality, but a pure chance because "reputed users" were downvoting other questions.

This site turned into MMORPG. Like in any other MMORPG the official goal is to "together develop a strong community" but in reality - to use exp (pardon, reputation) to humiliate others.

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    $\begingroup$ What do you want to prove by making such gibberish speculations? Stop ranting if you can't think with a rational conscience. $\endgroup$
    – user5764
    Commented Jul 15, 2016 at 18:48
  • $\begingroup$ What makes you think we are worried about job insecurity? There are some long standing users here who haven't even left school/university yet. You are not helping your case by making wild, insulting claims with no evidence to back them up. $\endgroup$
    – bon
    Commented Jul 15, 2016 at 20:35
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    $\begingroup$ I'm a reputed user here. This comment is a tongue-and-cheek response and makes you feel humiliated. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Jul 15, 2016 at 21:11
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    $\begingroup$ "The answer is too difficult to you - downvote and close as off-topic." This is not true; from my observations and experience these are left unanswered. $\endgroup$
    – pentavalentcarbon
    Commented Jul 16, 2016 at 17:42
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    $\begingroup$ The point in your question is in no way similar to mine. I am asking our reviewing users to be more thorough while doing the reviews. Nothing more, nothing less. You are accusing (again) that our user base is unfriendly towards new questions. Considering the fact, that you are now a member of this community for 8 days I find it hard to believe that you have dug through all the struggle we had while finding common ground on some guidelines. We are here in our free time helping people, and while we do not always agree on everything, everybody deserves some respect for offering his/her advice. $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 8:46
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    $\begingroup$ @sixty trees I consider myself a new user. Do I get all my posts closed? No. Infact I have only one question closed as too broad. You clearly know nothing about Stack Exchange. $\endgroup$
    – Pritt says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jun 6, 2017 at 12:43

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