New Travelers to The Forum

Encourage them to do a search to see if their questions have already been answered(often numerous times). Also, information about Schengen limits-I confess I wouldn't know about them if I didn't read this forum.

If they have transportation questions, how many in the party - any mobility issues, any kids (ages)?

A few ideas to help new posters:
• Proof read before you post.
• Does your heading capsulize your post? Think of it as headline.
• While spelling does not necessarily matter, it can change the meaning.
• Does your post give the facts of what you are asking? Who? What? Where? When? and if pertinent, how? and why?
• Do not put your email address in your post. This is a public forum so you are giving the whole world your email address.
• Be polite. After you get answers, thank the respondents so we know our answers are on track. Clarify your original post if needed. Ask clarifying questions to the responses.
• Do not add an off topic question to a post. It gets lost so you may not get an answer. Or it derails the original post. It’s better to start a new topic.

Thank you Threadwear for starting this thread.

In the search engine and digital timetables age, spelling matters a lot. The wrong spelling of a destination could mean you will never get there.

If one is asking a question, it is likely they don't know, what they don't know so they don't know all the details they need to give for a thorough response. Let's just be welcoming as the webmaster indicated in the other thread. Responders can always ask further questions for details. It seems unnecessary to put such detailed guidelines, which will likely be a hindrance for some first time posters (or many for that matter), on a new poster. This is just an amateur travel forum after all. Let's just relax, be nice, provide what we can, and enjoy ourselves!

Use a city or town’s full name, e.g., Stratford Upon Avon vice Stratford, Santiago de Compostela vice Santiago, etc. so there is no confusion.

I like your suggestions just fine, Threadwear.

How about...

• Forum members who respond to your questions are fellow travelers who volunteer their help, not professional trip-planning experts. They may or may not respond promptly and may or may not respond fully or appropriately to your travel question. If you find some advice less than helpful, feel free to ignore it.

I would add if they are talking or asking about airports, perhaps give the airport’s name, not just the code initials….as in: London Heathrow alongside LHR.
Oh, and if it’s a big city with lots of airports, also state the full name.
London comes to mind again, with many different airports.

There are some good suggestions here, and I'm sure there can be lots more, but maybe it would be wise to run this past our friendly webmaster and see if this is something he'd be interested in? Otherwise it's just an exercise without much value.

I think it's a wonderful idea.......but let's face reality. How many first timers are going to spend any time reading the rules or looking for their answers? How many similar questions do we find, sometimes on a daily basis, that could easily be answered if the OP spent a minute or two searching for an answer.

How many questions would come across better, and the answers as well, if people reread what they wrote?

Perhaps we as responders need to keep to the question. Quite often, side conversations start in a thread, that gets more responses than the answer to the original question. Perhaps that's what makes this board seem like a clique.

Let's take the question asked about eating American food in Rome. The OP got numerous responsed scolding him for doing so, then was told to eat at McDonalds, and then a whole side converstaion discussing McDonalds started. If I was the OP I wouldn't come back.

Let's remember that if someone wants to do something different than you, it's okay. If someone wants to only eat at McDonalds, let them. That's their choice.

I was once on a tour in Italy. One woman on the tour told us she loved Italy, it was her fourth time, but hated the food. This was surprising so I asked if she hated all Italian food. She said, no, just the Italian food in Italy. So I asked, "What do you prefer, the Olive Garden." With a big smile, she said "Oh yes, I love the Olive Garden."

And she wasn't kidding. To each his own.

Perhaps a separate "lounge" category on the forum where regulars, or anyone else, can come and discuss different topics related to travel. Not necessarily questions but ideas.

There are some good suggestions here, and I'm sure there can be lots more, but maybe it would be wise to run this past our friendly webmaster and see if this is something he'd be interested in? Otherwise it's just an exercise without much value.

I am reporting the post so the webmaster can monitor and perhaps the staff can use some suggestions to better educate first time posters. Can't hurt, all they can do is ignore them if they want or use them if they like. I think if the forum users can help improve the site for some newbies or others with simple communications it maybe will help curtail some of the issues that have been discussed lately. I agree responders are in control of responses, but OP's should have some responsibility if they want better answers.

EDIT: Oops, I actually can't report my own post. Maybe someone else will.

EDIT: Oops, I actually can't report my own post. Maybe someone else will.

Your wish has been granted.

My Opinion.

1. The OP has no “responsibility” other than to obey the rules of the forum.
2. The responders have no “responsibility” other than to obey the rules of the forum.
3. If the Webmaster wanted other requirements, I suspect that he would have stated such in the rules of the forum.
4. The OP may get better responses if they provide more information.
5. No matter what the OP posts the OP may (will) still get erroneous responses and should check everything with other sources.
6. No matter what the OP posts, the requirement of “exceedingly polite” is the primary operative for responses.
7. The only one who can modify the requirements is the Webmaster.

"OP, do your research first"

This is their research. If they want to ask "I want to go to Europe, where should I go?" Its the start of the research. Its a good place to start? Better than the Encyclopedia Britanica? If the rule is they come with all the questions formulated and and the research done, then Google might be just as useful as us.

Responders have a rare and precious opportunity. The opportunity to skip over that which we dont want to fool with. Use the opportunity if you choose to. Or be helpful while trying to be exceedingly polite.

Hey, new OP. If your first question will be "I want to go to Europe, where should I go?" send me a PM and after a long conversation in a few dozen PM's maybe I can be a little helpful.

Somehow weired to me when people do not like that other forum members such as OP come up with something which can be seen like additional forum rules and they answer with 7 own rules. And of course not clearly stated as an opinion.

I agree that I do no see enough serious measures taken by the forum owner and administrators to improve quality of posted thread questions and headlines. Being aware of the different ambition levels everybody is free to participate or not.

The easiest way is to ask with one sentence about missing info, the other is to write a short pm to OP what you think about quality of their posting.

The other one is to suppport forums which have a different ambition level - likely less saturated from core business.

There is already a "Get Started" link on this forum intended to help newcomers, with some of the suggestions that are mentioned above. But it's a fact of social-media life that most people dont read forum instructions, and in some cases, just don't understand how things work - that replies are just opinions of other travelers. They just have questions. And the questions are always new to somebody. Not everyone wants to hang around and join the choir.

Yes a FAQ section could be edited and updated, but no guarantee people are going to jump through hoops to ask their burning questions. They just want help, even if they dont know how to communicate a good question.

And of course not clearly stated as an

I clairified it for you.

Threadwear, the bickering got us a bit off track. So back to your post. Yes, your ideas are excellent and would help. I also sort of like the idea of the Forum bouncing a PM or an Email to new users with the rules and with your suggestions. Age group might be helpful too as might traveling solo or with another/others and past trips might be useful.

One way of acheiving some of this might be a brief questionaire that becomes part of the member profile. That way they dont have to repeat themselves with each trip regarding some of the basics. Probably a bit much to expect of the forum, but maybe if we did that on our own ..... Then I could say I want to go to Malta in June and before someone answers they could check out a little about me. Maybe not a great idea. Just tossing things out, not sold on all of it myself.

"OP, do your research first"

Well, this is their research. If they want to ask "I want to go to Europe, where should I go?" Its the start of the research. Where would you have them start? Encyclopedia Britanica? If the rule is they come with all the questions formulated and and the research done, then why even come here? By those standards this place would be no better, less useful even, that Google.

The real purpose of this post was to assist the forum staff to create a better list of helpful hints for newcomers to use the forum to get the best results for their questions.

IMO this forum is not a place to start research by asking such broad questions. Why not go to a search or AI site and research places to go in Europe. To use your example, "I want to go to Europe, where should I go?" might produce answers that the OP has no interest in seeing. What if 40 out of 50 responses state Italy and the OP is thinking, my wife has no desire to go to Italy. The other 10 responses is Switzerland and the OP's budget is $200 a day. Such a waste of time the post was that asked, "where should I go in Europe?"

I know some folks like to go one on one with OP's, but I find most people just want to answer specific questions. There are many generous souls who will plan itineraries for people and that is why many people ask such general questions hoping responders will become their travel assistants.

I like to plan my own trips and will offer suggestions to friends, but I personally have no desire to do it online here on the forum and my hat goes off to those that do. What's the saying, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

That's my theory on travel. Teach people to research and plan a trip on their own and supplement with your experiences on their choices.

Just my opinion.

Yes, what Stan said.

For almost 20 years now, part of my volunteer job is spending a week answering people's questions at an Info Desk for a giant event. There is also someone year-round answering phone questions and another two or three who answer emails. We also have a free catalog, a website, a Facebook page, maps, signs, emailed guidelines, etc. Maybe 3/4 of the 17,000+ people who either volunteer or attend or both take advantage of some or all of this information and the rest just show up. People are just different. My husband, for instance, would just show up. It's a sure road to frustration to expect other people to be just like me, and read stuff or research stuff.

I feel that both at the Info Desk and here it's my completely voluntary job to answer people's questions, even if I've heard the same question for what seems like a zillion times or it's phrased badly or it's so general as to be almost meaningless without more details or it even sounds kind of accusatory (like, "Why don't you have x here?). Actually, here, I can skip questions I don't feel like answering, so that's a bonus.

I've been reading this forum for years but am I relatively new poster. I've had many great answers to my questions and some responses that have led me in a different direction or to more research. I'm thankful that other travelers are willing to share their opinions and experiences. If I choose to follow that advice and it turns out wrong, that's on me, not them. I am a planner and a researcher but some things you want to ask a "real" person and not some AI. If someone is snarky, I just move on to the next comment/answer.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

I've just done that tonight with a new OP- if the OP takes the bait great, if it becomes more intensive well so be it. I gave a draft and suggestive itinerary, for that OP to flesh out or swap about with clues as to how to fill in the holes.

Personally I like the more intensive should it come to that. I've just done about 3 weeks as a travel assistant with another new OP- which developed totally by accident. Emphasis on the assistant. One response kind of ballooned. But it hugely benefited the OP, which is all that matters- and will lead to a return visit to the UK sometime in the future.

And behind the scenes I am now into Day 4 of a query about WW2 airfields in East Anglia. On that new OP's side the enquiry is over and closed, but it showed major defects in the recording of the war memorials relating to those airfields. So there is a major back office update going on for anyone else (whether from this forum or not) interested in the 3 or 4 airfields.

Lots to say in this thread!

"IMO this forum is not a place to start research by asking such broad questions." I respect your opinion as such broad questions are not why you contribute here, but that is not RSE's position. This forum is intended to be open to all travel questions (within guidelines). Yes, it's best when folks can provide more detail as they'll get better answers, and I also think that our own forum members can recognize what threads they want to participate in. The unofficial golden rule of forum behavior is to move on if you don't like (or aren't interested in, etc) a post.

"Teach people to research and plan a trip on their own and supplement with your experiences on their choices." We don't necessarily disagree, but we also find that encouraging travel in the first place can be the best teacher. It's one reason why this forum is open even to those broad questions. Encouraging those people to travel by being polite and doing your best despite limited information will do the most to help them learn to research and plan a trip on their own.

I'm open to making changes as I fully recognize that more can be done to make the forum experience better for OPs and contributors. There are some good ideas here. As with many things, though, there is a reason why we do or don't do various things. For example, we want to encourage OPs to give more info so that they can get the best answers. We also encourage them to use Search so that they can get their answers faster than waiting for a community member to answer, and to avoid community members duplicating their efforts. We do this in the Get Started page, and remind them when they're starting a topic. The examples noted by Threadwear in his opening post - what's in the Get Started page - are just to get people thinking about what more they can give as it will widely depend on what the question is. As such, adding more specifics doesn't necessarily help to solve the issue. That's especially true if we're already trying to garner the attention of those that are moving too fast. Making lists longer reduces the likelihood of reading the list.

What I would like to do the most is a variation on the "send an email" option. I don't wish to send more emails as they are too easily unseen until after your first posts, though a 'welcome' message with some pointers wouldn't hurt. I'd prefer to have some sort of popup advice for first time posters, or a step-by-step walkthrough of a few things. This is more immediate and commands attention better. This has a knock-on benefit of making it harder for spammers if they have to wade through a few steps each time they make a new account. But this isn't about spammers. The drawback is that this is a custom solution requiring developer time (aka it's outside of what I can change). We have IT on hand to handle forum bugs, but there will be no movement on feature requests for some time given their workload and priorities. In many ways, we as a company are still trying to dig out from the multi-year hole that was the pandemic.

Perhaps we could provide templates for OPs. There would be nothing requiring anyone to use them (aka, it may not work), but it could help prompt users to give more info if e.g. they select a 'where should i go' template. Lots of thought would be needed to do this right. And it may open pandora's box for folks asking for templates. Again, this would also be custom.

"I agree that I do no see enough serious measures taken by the forum owner and administrators to improve quality of posted thread questions and headlines."

I do accept the criticism, but I don't have enough information to understand your position. What sort of serious measures are you thinking of? Are you thinking that moderators should be doing more to change others' posts? Are you saying other forums do more to train users... or that they have other technical features? Is it that you've seen other forums have a specific feature that does something to affect/change what OPs post in their question and headline?

As a reminder for all those reading along, this forum was written from scratch. It has no "out of the box" features like other forums, so I can't flip a proverbial switch to make something available. Our forum's format is also quite different from others, so other forum features don't necessarily apply here. We've considered many features in the ongoing development of this forum, and it really just depends on what the feature/measure is.

Thanks for the feedback and reading the suggestions. Good insight into the depth or lack of, the RSE capabilities because it answers a lot of "why don't they...?" Since the forum is a great addition to your Company website, it is understandably not your bread and butter for the business. Again thanks.

I am pretty much a Darwinist who also believes in courtesy, and who also believes that courtesy is in danger of becoming archaic if we don't (as a society) shape up. So my opinion on all this is as follows:

1. If someone asks a question that you believe is too vague to answer, don't answer.
2. If you think the poster should do more research before posting the question here, say so ... but politely.
3. If you think you have input that could help the poster and you're inclined to do so, do so. But politely.
4. If you think the poster is a scammer, report the post to the webmaster.
5. If you think the poster is an ignorant buffoon, congratulate yourself quietly on your superior intellect and/or superior work ethic. But do so without posting anything whatever that would allow anyone else to know that.

You may regard this post with admiration, disdain, hilarity or any other reaction; won't hurt my feelings. And it's worth precisely what you paid for it.

I think we would all like newcomers to read the "what to do" section prior to their first posting. However, I doubt that's going to happen.

What I do is look at the question. If it's obvious that the OP has done zero research and asks something like "I'm going to Paris. What should I see." I move on. I used to write things like, "How about getting a guidebook and figuring out what you want to see." but that could be seen as rude. So I stopped.

If I choose to respond, I try to give them some basic ideas and lead them to more information. How much I respond is my choice. I enjoy sharing my experience, but I also have a life to lead and don't have the time to handhold someone. We need to let them fly and even make a mistake. We learn from our mistakes. I know I have.

Keep in mind we were all newcomers at one point. I remember when I started on this forum, years and years and years ago, I had a very rude response. I called that person out and was told by others he was trying to be funny. (Transfering humor from out heads to the page can be very difficult.)

Let's look towards our leader, RS himself. He considers himself a teacher. He wants to teach you how to travel. He's not going to plan your trip for you. That's what a travel agent does and is somewhat the antithesis of what he is trying to do.

So, if Andrew wants to add a few suggestions to his recommendations for newcomers, that's good. But the reality is.....few will see it. After all, how many are too lazy to even search for their answers before asking a question?

After all, how many are too lazy to even search for their answers before asking a question?

But Frank, remember that a "search" can consist of heading to an online message board forum and asking a question. I believe Mr. E pointed this out upthread. Plus most beginners here don't know how to use the search function (and as has been pointed out, it's not a very good one).

I go to message board forums a lot for quick answers. If I need some quick info about a business in Duluth or finding a good dentist, I'm going to head to Reddit, because I believe the answer will be more accurate and I won't have to wade through a lot of ads on websites. And by the same token, if someone is planning a first trip and getting a bit overwhelmed by the guidebooks or websites, they may come here for clarification. Just because they ask a question, doesn't mean they haven't looked elsewhere first.

Regardless, it's none of our business whether the OP is too "lazy" to search or thinks we might have better info. We can answer it or not. But if we do, then courtesy demands that we answer politely. And if you don't feel the question warrants a polite answer, then pass it by.