Matrix Games Forums

I think it would be a great idea to have a "newbies" sub-forum where rookies could shamelessly ask all questions they have, including stupid and redundant ones. I can definitely understand that some veterans are unnerved by "stupid/naive/repetitive" questions but I fundamentally think that there's not such a thing as 'stupid questions'. It all depends on who asks it and what is his/her level of knowledge in the military field (btw mine is close to zero). And I think that keeping CMANO in a sort of elitist club is definitely not the right strategy.

So having newbies/naive/idiot questions 'parked' in a specific sub-forum (where devs are not due to answer because they have a much more important agenda, like developing clickable message log and MP [:D] [:D] [:D]) would have two major positive consequences:

1- Lazy Rookies who don't want to RTFM would be able to ask whatever they need without fear of being shamed (and I can ensure you that it's NOT the case today). This would allow the community to develop quickly (and the devs/publisher to make big bucks, which
is what we all want).

2- Veterans wouldn't be annoyed by what they rightly consider to be inappropriate/simplistic questions as they could simply ignore the rookies subforum, unless they wanna help of course.

At the end of the day it's clearly a win-win. The benefits for the CMANO community would be considerable, imho.

What do you guys think of it ? [:)]

newbies asking questions are the only thing keeping the forums alive

Again, its not "newbies" asking questions that is the main issue. A bunch of us spend hours answering new player questions. Its the best part of the forum. And a couple of the least motivated people that are frustrating aren't even newbies.

I agree with Grazyn

The best way to navigate these forums is to use your block button A LOT

It won't take you long to see who treats everyone like a rookie. I have found, the more stars on the profile, the more likely I will be to block them.

Keep asking!

There are a couple of comments in this (currently short) thread that I find I disagree with -

keeping CMANO in a sort of elitist club

My main disagreement: CMANO or the community that supports it is definitely NOT elitist!

To show this, here is a link showing a recent example of a 'non-newbie' player asking a question - being given an answer straight from the pages of the manual - and thanking the person for providing that answer. tm.asp?m=4440249 [;)]
It was not a particularly stupid question but could have been found in the manual and the answer provided was not given in any form of elitist manner.

not such a thing as 'stupid questions'

Yes there is. I should know I've asked many in the past, including but not limited to Command.
But what I can say is that I have always at least tried to find the answer first. Sometimes I don't find the answer I need, sometimes I don't understand the answer I find or I need a bit extra ..... but I will try.

The War Room already seems to have become an unofficial 'questions' area, however, there is a benefit from having a dedicated questions sub-forum that was not listed.
If all the questions, newbie or otherwise, were in one location then with luck people might actually read that sub-forum (we can only hope) and get the answers they need.

So for that reason alone, I can see the benefit.

I still don't understand the angst about posting sections directly from the manual and links to answers. It seems to me the most effective AND efficient way to answer a question.

"The War Room already seems to have become an unofficial 'questions' area"

For, basically, one person.

I think part of the problem is that the forum doesn't position well when searching for cmano/command and then your question. Maybe trying to leverage https://gaming.stackexchange.com/ would help, as answers from StackExchange show in google instantly, and position very high on the list, and they are parsed correctly by the search engine.

In the new players section, I think there is already something like that. Its a dedicated and official Q&A for the exact purpose of what the OP's looking at. It started out well enough, but ended up with the same long term issues of some people coming in and kind of abusing the help that was being offered. It turned off some the people trying to help and fell into dis-use. Now its full of spam. That's how I remember it.

ORIGINAL: thewood1

In the new players section, I think there is already something like that. Its a dedicated and official Q&A for the exact purpose of what the OP's looking at. It started out well enough, but ended up with the same long term issues of some people coming in and kind of abusing the help that was being offered. It turned off some the people trying to help and fell into dis-use. Now its full of spam. That's how I remember it.

Why always negative? If lots of spam not user issue but admin. Look abandoned unfortunate.

Again, your lack of reading comprehension astounds me.

Wow, 50% error rate. You are really backsliding. You really need to focus or this will spin out of control.