Agreed, I think it's a great environment, and people coming here have to adapt to us, not us adapt to them.

I take offense to that.


You see, I didn't even know about that.
It should be a little more official.

Are you telling me you have never seen Duh's sig until now?

Yes...

Anyhow, I think we shouldn't adapt to them, or have them adapt to us, just adapt a little to accommodate the average user to join the community.
Don't tell me you're afraid of change.

Take a look at the stickies in the support forum then. Those stickies have been there for... a long time now. I don't even remember when they were put there.
This and this, in specific.
You see, this is the problem. The information is aggregated.
I cannot say if all new people simply don't read them, because we never hear a "Thanks, those stickied topics really helped me out", but since we only hear "How does I fix this?" I can't help but think that none of them read the stickies.

EDIT:
Logical contradiction?
Honestly, we have been changing. Slowly, and that is proper for forum community stability. Have you heard "OMFG THAT IS THE WORST MOD EVAR" in a while? I don't think so. The worst that happens now is "Wow, those sprites are pretty bad, here is a suggestion on how to fix them..."

Maybe put some ALL CAPS in the thread title.
I see a lot of other forums have a static forum section where they have all the FAQs, rules, etc, and they point newcomers to it.
As I said, PMing new members the FAQ, a link to the other FAQs, etc will probably fix this problem. We just need something that sends all new members a PM.

They'll ignore it. They'll either read the Important Announcements that pop up the instant you register, or they'll never care enough to read links sent through a PM.

That's why you have the FAQ in the PM.
and you know, 'ALERT! READ FIRST: Welcome to DRLFF!'
As I said it could send them E-mails, make a pop-up, it'll go crazy. A special thing could probably be set up where Admin PMs makes sounds or something.
I'm thinking rave party.

Also, Duh, Metal was making it sound like we'd adapt for every member. I meant to say we could try to meet them half-way.
(EDIT: Yay! I think I just pointed out a fallacy. Saying there are only two options when there are many is a fallacy! Yay!)

This is WJ's territory. If he can do some php trickery to make them go to the FAQs first, that might help a bit. But, as MM said, if they're not inclined to read in the first place, they're not going to read when you force them to that page.

HOWEVER, and this is qualifying all I've said before, we don't have any statistics on how many people do read the stickies. Perhaps we shouldn't worry at all and just continue to forward them to the FAQ, if they are the vocal minority.

Just because something is flashy, it doesn't mean it will be read. Ultimately, this is beyond the control of the Admins/Mods, since it relates more to the kind of person the new member is: if they are willing to be cool and learn, they'll read the rules without them jumping in their faces. If they aren't... they never will read the rules/FAQ, no matter how flashy it is. Hell, you could force them to scroll to the bottom of a page which contains the rules/FAQ and it won't make a difference, because they'll scroll down completely without reading a thing.
[edit] Ninja'd by you again, Duh! And no, MLC, I'm trying to point out that it's not up to us to adapt. It's up to the newbies TO NOT BE ♥♥♥♥ STUPID.

If we make a disco rave for the FAQ and they don't read it, that's okay, but if they ask something that was on the FAQ I think that constitutes a warning or even a short ban.

AKA
We save those who DO read it, and those who don't read it can go to hell.

Please excuse my misread. I read
which is an argumentative fallacy, when really you seem to have meant
which makes a bit more sense. My apologies.

Which is... kind of what we're already doing, albeit in a way that Seraph and TLB don't really appreciate. Can't really say I blame them.
You might have noticed that newbies who ask stupid questions get flamed to death... whereas guys like UnsubRedun don't get flamed at all. Because they DIDN'T ask retarded questions.

Report button. Greatest invention evar.

Thank you!
But mainly I meant Metal's fallacy saying that we have to adapt or they do.

Metal: Maybe I have to spell it out for you.
D I S C O___R A V E
Flashing forum page if the users ignore it.
Techno music.
Neon lights.
Flashing IMPORTANT! READ FIRST!