Yes, it would be much less traumatic for the new member to rather than just 5 downvotes to instead get 5 downvotes along with 4 replies saying something along the lines of "WTF?! Don't you even look at the preview?! Don't be such a lazy prick!".

If someone downvoted a new-member's node, then they likely aren't in a particularly eloquent mood. So I don't think that encouraging downvoters to add replies is productive in this particular case.

Perhaps a more useful response would be for someone in a calmer and more eloquent state of mind (and thus probably not one of the downvoters) to reply explaining a few of the problems. But the problems are almost always selected from the same set of typical new-member problems, so such replies boil down to boiler-plate spam pointing to any of the dozens and dozens of "wouldn't it be great if new members would read this before getting themselves into trouble" nodes. And such spam gets complained about, as could be seen when one member decided to make a habit of doing this regularly and anonymously quite recently.

Going a step further, it would probably work to have those like yourself who take the time to formulate a gentle and helpful reply to also help with the site-related procedural problems presented by the node, however unintentional. So if you had noted that they didn't appear to have made full use of the preview and the helpful suggestions and links included with it and perhaps point out the "Need Help??" link which will let them find answers to question such as what downvoting is about and where to find good site introductions...

Then the boiler-plate spam is folded in with a helpful reply which makes it easier to stomach for both the new member and the tired veterans.

But I doubt my hoping for such action on the part of others will be any more successful than your hoping that downvoters could just write polite and informative replies explaining why they downvoted or all the many people hoping new members would just read this wonderful introduction to the site that they wrote.

IMO we should decide which of the boilerplate nodes you mean is the best and then set it up so that newbies ALWAYS see it on the front page. I don't know if we would want to make it show up for AM though.

The other thing we could do is give Editors the ability to push a button that /msgs the user in question with a link to the appropriate docs.

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demerphq

I see you using the term "member" which I don't recall seeing around here much. Monk or user seem to be more common. "Member" kinda jarred, particularly with "prick" in the same post.

The following is from an email that went around the office where I work about one of the website's we built.


Just a reminder that on $SITE we refer to visitors as "members", not "users" (or "addicts").

I like "Querant". True about checking the user node, but registering just two days ago doesn't mean you're a newbie to Perl, just PMs.


—Brad
"Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up." G. K. Chesterton