Do You Think a General Q & A Thread Would Be Useful?

There are soooo many questions that occur to me, and I don't like the idea of starting threads for each one, so I was thinking it would be pretty cool to have a stickied Q & A thread in the DS General Discussion area.

If the general consensus is to go ahead and make individual threads that's fine, but if enough people think it'd be useful maybe a mod/ad will do it.

Throw in your two cents, if you will.

Dude this an awesome Idea! I see so many threads with just a simple and easy question...

It would seem a lot of people ignore stickies and research, preferring to post a question here and waiting for an answer. The wiki has a FAQ but we still get many of those questions asked etc.

I would not oppose you guys putting something together and it would get stickied, but don't be disappointed if people just ignore it xD

Can i throw in a general question?

why do people constantly use the phrase "my two cents".. it's like you feel the need to apologise for having an opinion. Maybe it's just forum behaviour to avoid friction but i don't get why it's so popular..

However, back on topic I agree with Fex, it will most likely be ignored by both people with questions and people with answers. The whole point of the topic titles is to get people who know about the subject to post, so the Q&A thread kinda takes away that ease of access if you like.

Yeah I agree with you two, I've seen many a question that could be answered with a quick search, or if an advanced search if you knew what words to look for. I guess some are just not familier with the site buttons, it actually did take me awhile to notice the search button myself :|

Serious_Much wrote:Can i throw in a general question?

why do people constantly use the phrase "my two cents".. it's like you feel the need to apologise for having an opinion.

Humility. It does seem to bother some people. Never could quite figure out why.

Actually some people don't even search the wiki before creating a thread. Plus there are a lot of useful stuff in the archives too. I'm curious to know if creating a thread is faster than just reading the wiki page

I bet some part of that is they come to the site via the normal address instead of through the wiki. You would think with 2 links to the wiki, one being an infinite loop that can crash your browser, emergence that was totally funny by the way, people would at least check first before asking a question. Oh well it's the way things happen, at least people will answer the question instead of just saying "Check the wiki lolnoob!" or something as stupid as that.

knight, i didnt even know there was a search button on the forum until you said just now :|

Fex could we have the search bar just visible at all times possibly? that might reduce numbers of duplicate threads

Yup, between FAQs and Members.

I started compiling a whole Newbies sticky, full of links back to the wiki. Would that be a better alternative to putting alot of time into a detailed thread? My thinking is the answers are mostly on the wiki already, so linking to them would save some time. I don't know, worth the squeeze?

That would probably be wiser. An ask all questions sticky would probably get quite cluttered pretty quickly (what are the chances people would look at all the pages to see if theirs has been answered yet vs. just posting a new one?). This way, you are both making a less clustered thread, that will probably be more efficient and expedient for the people using it, and you are giving due respect to the effort people already put into working on the applicable wiki sections. I would say it is an all win .

Emergence wrote:I started compiling a whole Newbies sticky, full of links back to the wiki. Would that be a better alternative to putting alot of time into a detailed thread? My thinking is the answers are mostly on the wiki already, so linking to them would save some time. I don't know, worth the squeeze?

that might be permissible.

I was actually considering making sort of a new player guide due to how many of the same questions I'd see, certain aspects I would leave out since of course with a quick search you can find the answer, but also I want some things to be learned. The guide would more so help in matters where things might be confusing, like next area suggestions, and guides in confusing places. I remember when I first got to Anor Londo I had to look up on the wiki a few times where to go and couldn't discern anything, then I watched a few videos and found out you go to the left and run across a strut that looks like it is just a part of the background haha. It might be useful to make something like that, and it shouldn't be too difficult since all of the information needed to do so should be on the wiki.

I think I just have too much time on my hands though haha.

Guides and FAQs are great, but if I'm wondering how to spell a word and i'm sitting next to a good speller I'm going to ask them before I pick up a dictionary. Members here are the DS equivalent of good spellers, so I doubt very much you'll see a decline in repeat questions.

That said, anything any of you do along those lines I'll read (repeatedly, probably), because I can't get enough Dark Souls.

The other option of course is that the mods could just merge all the random 'question' threads people make without bothering to find out if there is already an answer into the stickied FAQ/Q&A thread. That or lock them and say 'Please post this question in the following thread: 'linkylink'.

I know if we did have a thread where people are asking nooby questions, it would be the first thing I'd look at after my initial pass through the moderation section to see if I could be of any help. Always nice to do something helpful before you start reading through thread after thread looking for moles to whack

There's also the New Player Help page that was created. I often link people to that when they have simple general questions. It seems to help but its still a bit incomplete.

If you're not familiar with it its on the sidebar of the wiki. It has general FAQ of questions that a lot of people seem to ask such as: whats the best weapon? It has basic PVE and PVP tips and some other stuff to help newbies out.


darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/New+Player+Help