Nobody reads the stickies...?

[Mandoli]

Background: My forum has a games section. In it, there are two types of games. One's the standard free-for-all kind, where anyone can jump in at any time. The other kind is where someone "hosts" a game, and wants people to sign up before the game can begin.

Because the "sign-up required" games haven't gotten much attention, I made a sticky. It pretty much says that all sign-up games are banned from the board. Even when I made a "look, you really haven't read this" post, people still decided to make those kinds of games. Someone who's part of the staff team wanted me to drop the ban and make a test thread. I told him no; he still made a thread.

How do I get everyone to read the sticky? It makes no sense for me to stand on a soapbox, because people just won't listen.

[Pebbles]

Nov 24, 2017 5:33:51 GMT -8 Mandoli said:

Background: My forum has a games section. In it, there are two types of games. One's the standard free-for-all kind, where anyone can jump in at any time. The other kind is where someone "hosts" a game, and wants people to sign up before the game can begin.

Because the "sign-up required" games haven't gotten much attention, I made a sticky. It pretty much says that all sign-up games are banned from the board. Even when I made a "look, you really haven't read this" post, people still decided to make those kinds of games. Someone who's part of the staff team wanted me to drop the ban and make a test thread. I told him no; he still made a thread.

How do I get everyone to read the sticky? It makes no sense for me to stand on a soapbox, because people just won't listen.

to make sure people notice important threads/info
just pinning it won't do much indeed

to make it global clear, i suggest you do the following when you want to announce important changes;
- mass pm people about it  / make the pm title clear enough and perhaps add ; important or read please
- make the thread a global announcement so it shows up in every board
- put a link to the thread in your own signature area with a big enough font size so it is noticeable 

hope this helps

[Kami]

I am going to be blunt with you: you can’t. In the 12 years I’ve been a forum admin / staff member for a variety of forums with a huge variety of member bases (ranging from small startup forums to the hundreds of thousands here on support), people as a whole simply do not read stickied threads or other important information. My advice to anyone with content that requires people to take time out of their days to absorb is to assume their users will be lazy and avoid it. It’s not a very charitable mindset, no, but it’s a similar phenomenon as to people purchasing an item and then opting not to read the manual prior to use. It will be a lather rinse repeat you will do for the rest of the time you remain a forum administrator.

Personally, I disagree with Pebble’s suggestions above. I’m not saying they don’t work, but in my experience mass PMs and signature links wind up being an annoyance to the members who do follow the rules, and unread anyway by the people who can’t be bothered to read the original content.

Here are some of the things that I’ve done to mitigate this without being excessively obtrusive:

1. Used CSS to make stickied threads stand out

2. Set up my templates so that the create-thread page for that board has explicit information that outlines what content is required / prohibited, along with a disclaimer stating that if they commence creating the post and it breaks the rules, the content will be removed without further warning.

3. Requested this plugin that disables the “create thread” button until the user checks off a predetermined amount of items — basically used as “did you read these things?” for my forum, or a simple sort of TOS (“by checking this box and creating a thread you are confirming you have read and understand the rules”).

Example: on my forum under the checkboxes it says “By submitting a new application, you confirm you’ve done the above tasks”. Then on the posting page, above the submit post button you see “Reminder: please [do the things in the checklist]. Applications that do not demonstrate this will be automatically deleted”

Does this stop people from not reading? Not entirely but it does help cut it down a bit to start.

But, more importantly I feel, what it does is force user interaction to confirm they’ve read the required content so they can no longer claim ignorance or not seeing the sticky or whatever else they try to claim, which leaves you free to simply remove content as it crops up without having to bang your head on the wall reminding people to read the sticky. Remove the content and say nothing. What I find happens in this scenario is someone will submit a bug report or something saying their thread keeps “disappearing” at which point I say something to the effect of “Your content was intentionally removed, I’m afraid. I encourage you to pay closer attention to the posting page and stickied information”

Eventually, people will get the hint (though it might make some time) and will begin policing themselves.

[Pebbles]

Nov 24, 2017 11:09:43 GMT -8 Kami said:

I am going to be blunt with you: you can’t. In the 12 years I’ve been a forum admin / staff member for a variety of forums with a huge variety of member bases (ranging from small startup forums to the hundreds of thousands here on support), people as a whole simply do not read stickied threads or other important information. My advice to anyone with content that requires people to take time out of their days to absorb is to assume their users will be lazy and avoid it. It’s not a very charitable mindset, no, but it’s a similar phenomenon as to people purchasing an item and then opting not to read the manual prior to use. It will be a lather rinse repeat you will do for the rest of the time you remain a forum administrator.

Personally, I disagree with Pebble’s suggestions above. I’m not saying they don’t work, but in my experience mass PMs and signature links wind up being an annoyance to the members who do follow the rules, and unread anyway by the people who can’t be bothered to read the original content.

Here are some of the things that I’ve done to mitigate this without being excessively obtrusive:

1. Used CSS to make stickied threads stand out

2. Set up my templates so that the create-thread page for that board has explicit information that outlines what content is required / prohibited, along with a disclaimer stating that if they commence creating the post and it breaks the rules, the content will be removed without further warning.

3. Requested this plugin that disables the “create thread” button until the user checks off a predetermined amount of items — basically used as “did you read these things?” for my forum, or a simple sort of TOS (“by checking this box and creating a thread you are confirming you have read and understand the rules”).

Example: on my forum under the checkboxes it says “By submitting a new application, you confirm you’ve done the above tasks”. Then on the posting page, above the submit post button you see “Reminder: please [do the things in the checklist]. Applications that do not demonstrate this will be automatically deleted”

Does this stop people from not reading? Not entirely but it does help cut it down a bit to start.

But, more importantly I feel, what it does is force user interaction to confirm they’ve read the required content so they can no longer claim ignorance or not seeing the sticky or whatever else they try to claim, which leaves you free to simply remove content as it crops up without having to bang your head on the wall reminding people to read the sticky. Remove the content and say nothing. What I find happens in this scenario is someone will submit a bug report or something saying their thread keeps “disappearing” at which point I say something to the effect of “Your content was intentionally removed, I’m afraid. I encourage you to pay closer attention to the posting page and stickied information”

Eventually, people will get the hint (though it might make some time) and will begin policing themselves.

the link you gave them leads back to this thread

[Kami]

Nov 24, 2017 12:00:36 GMT -8 Pebbles said:

the link you gave them leads back to this thread

Thanks, apparently iphone is now auto-changing straight quotes to curly quotes which breaks the ubbc. Should be fixed now!

[wanderingjedi]

I agree with Kami. You can't make anyone do anything but you can do your best to make things noticeable. Good luck to you!

[Short of Daybreak]

Some people just don't bother with stickys. I personally will read a sticky of a board if I see it. Sometimes it could be legitly missed, but most of the time people don't bother. And in all honesty, there will always be people like that. Best thing you can do is when you add new stickys, be sure to mass PM members. And of course, enforce in the main Forum Rules that you must read the stickys of a board. Those who repeatedly break a rule is subject to verbal warning, suspension, or even banning, and a member can't complain if they decided not to read up on the rules. By joining any forum, you agree to abide by the rules.

[Mandoli]

Dec 30, 2017 13:22:09 GMT -8 Short of Daybreak said:

And of course, enforce in the main Forum Rules that you must read the stickys of a board. Those who repeatedly break a rule is subject to verbal warning, suspension, or even banning, and a member can't complain if they decided not to read up on the rules. By joining any forum, you agree to abide by the rules.

That may be one person's opinion. I don't want to force warnings/ban levels on someone, just because they didn't read a thread. (If it was the rules, yeah. But not some general sticky.)

I did decide to lock all threads in the section in question that didn't follow the sticky's guidelines. I'm hoping that helps, but you never know.

[Short of Daybreak]

Mandoli Ah, I think I didn't clarify what I said properly ^.^;
What I meant concerning the warning levels is the repeat offensives of breaking the rules, not so much not reading the threads. Basically meaning, if a member is repeatedly breaking the rules and gets in trouble, they only have themselves to blame for not bothering with reading the stickys (of course not knowing is more forgiveable, but when they KNEW and still break it).

[Mandoli]

Dec 30, 2017 23:50:26 GMT -8 Short of Daybreak said:

What I meant concerning the warning levels is the repeat offensives of breaking the rules, not so much not reading the threads. Basically meaning, if a member is repeatedly breaking the rules and gets in trouble, they only have themselves to blame for not bothering with reading the stickys (of course not knowing is more forgiveable, but when they KNEW and still break it).

Don't worry about it. I don't know if I want to make another rule somewhere in the laundry list I have already. I have some people who don't read them as is.

[Pebbles]

Nov 24, 2017 5:33:51 GMT -8 Mandoli said:

Background: My forum has a games section. In it, there are two types of games. One's the standard free-for-all kind, where anyone can jump in at any time. The other kind is where someone "hosts" a game, and wants people to sign up before the game can begin.

Because the "sign-up required" games haven't gotten much attention, I made a sticky. It pretty much says that all sign-up games are banned from the board. Even when I made a "look, you really haven't read this" post, people still decided to make those kinds of games. Someone who's part of the staff team wanted me to drop the ban and make a test thread. I told him no; he still made a thread.

How do I get everyone to read the sticky? It makes no sense for me to stand on a soapbox, because people just won't listen.

there is something else you can do that i do sometimes myself as well and it sure encourages people more to go read it

put up the thread in a html link somewhere at the top of your forum in a semi big font , maybe make it bold or underline as well
i suggest between the header and the first category area
and then give the link a suitable text, inviting text so people hopefully click on it and read it

that way it gets in people their faces and its hard to miss
obviously i dont put things up like that all the time and not for tooooo long or else it just gets ugly to look at xD