Topic: The Customer is Always Right (Read 1988 times)

Things like that make me wonder if we should all be allowed to post there still :p

FWIW, I clicked report on it like, ten minutes after he posted it.

Don't troll the newbie forum...unless you know it's Atlas.

If it's a good idea, welcoming communities will form around it too, that's part of the process. And members of these communities will warn each other when they are offensive to newcomers, etc. You are actually thinking in reverse, people will use it even if you scream "do not use it", but not everyone will do it, since it contributes absolutely nothing.

It's analogous to the usability topic. If it's a good idea, people will build user friendly tools around it. I would fail to comprehend how not contributing to building such tools (because it's a good idea anyway?) would help. Same with this.

Bottom line is, you don't need to respond if you think it's a dumb question.


Although I think you are right on that general idea, I'm not sure it maps well to this topic. What does Education 101 tell you about this kind of reaction? The asker could have been offended. Geek communities quickly form this kind of cultural barrier around themselves, and it's one of the problems. I know people who are very competent at their own thing and yet are unable to read any kind of documentation about an external subject prior to taking action on it. It's a personality trait. Yes, I can't relate to it either, but that is the reality.

Positive encouragement to take the proper action doesn't have to involve excessive nursing. Gabi's "Newbies should read faq and guides before opening threads" is IMO one of the good responses to such people and it's pretty much neutral. There are people who would be offended by even this, but we aren't payed for PR anyway, so I think it's a good line to draw. Again, no one is required to respond either.

Are you seriously implying bitcoin will succeed or fail basing on what we do? If it's a good idea then people will use it even if everyone here start screaming "do not use it"


And greyhawk is TOTALLY RIGHT

Exactly this catering for and wiping the ass of every bumbling fool that is too lazy and/or ignorant to use google/wikipedia or look for FAQs/Stickies is what made the Internet such a horrible mess of stupidity in the first place.

Here's something to consider: Excessive nursing of dumb people makes dumb people even dumber in the long run. This is like Education 101.

Well, it's the Newbie section for a reason. Trolls open senseless threads all the time and people seem to respond to them with more rigor. A link to a proper source and maybe an additional forum guideline would be harsh enough.

They should.  That doesn't mean they will.  If they don't, do we simply exclude them from Bitcoin?
Interest in BTC is dropping in the outside world... and what are we doing about it?!

Newbies should read faq and guides before opening threads...

Yes, you're free to say it.  Doesn't mean we should be doing so.
This thread is not an attempt to get the mods to ban/kick people who post such replies. 
Not all people who we want using Bitcoin are active forum members!  If you want people adopting the technology, you have to be friendlier.

It's the internet - people are free to say whatever they want to. It was a mediocre response to the question, but the questioner clearly knew what to expect from internet people (he wasn't offended).

Meh, the customer is NOT always right, but that said, we need to be welcoming to newcomers. Bitcoin *can* be confusing when you first encounter it.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/newbie-requiring-bit-coin-help-urgently-50670

In that thread, a noob asked a rather stupid, trivial question.  kokjo immediately responded with this:


Awesome! "Fuck you!" is sure to bring more people to Bitcoin!
Was the question easily answerable by FAQs? Yes, of course.  Did a thread need to be posted about it? No. 

However, would a good customer service rep handle that question that way!?  Is this approach likely to help bring "normal people" (aka grandmas) to the Bitcoin community?  Even though the question is stupid, we can't brush off every stupid question like that.  It's rude and the "customer" will leave.   

I suspect our internet-forum approach to "customer service" isn't helping Bitcoin growth at all.  Although this forum is not official and is also not a customer service page, it's really the only place some people know about where they can ask questions.  Let's all be more polite and welcoming.