Theory.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but can you make it so that new members are automatically placed in a usergroup.
There could be a rule saying "In your introductory topic, copy and paste the rules."
This way, they would have to read the rules to know, and they would inevitably end up seeing them on their own topic.
Now, for why they would have to do that. People in that usergroup, can't view anything other than the rules, news, and introductions sections.
Of course, taking them out of that usergroup when copy and paste is where the biggest downside comes in.
Unless some mod could be found that checked what was in the first post of their topic, it would have to be a monitored section...

If the monitoring, or the automatically placed usergroup is a problem, I'll lock it (or a mod/admin will lock it, either way)
Also, could you add a "How to survive in these forums" under the rules. It might stop some people. Like:
- No smilies after every sentence.
- Keep chat speak to a minimum.
- Capitalization and punctuation are important.
- If you have a good knowledge of the English language, grammar would be greatly appreciated. If not, do the best you can.
- Keep the caps lock off and don't get butthurt every time you don't like someone's post.

Good Idea.
We should put them in a group, where they would look at nothing but the rules, and then leave because they would have no f*** clue what to do next.

Is it the whole rules or is it just a link to them or something.

The entire rules, or else they'll never even have to scroll down, not to mention it won't be on their topic.

Your bias reeks so bad you need some body wash when you shower.

-You don't like smilies? Don't use them, I personally don't use them, but I would if I wanted to.
-Chat speak? I guess this is a total laugh out loud moment. OR, you know, I could save time saying "I guess this is a total lol moment." Saving time is a good thing since you don't have unlimited amounts of it. Are you trying to kill us?
-You do realize not everyone in the world can afford/have an education. You shouldn't exclude people because you don't like the way they type/the way the know how to type because they never learned.
-You just f*** said new users need grammar, now you say only English speaking countries need grammar. GG.
-Pretty sure if someone trolls you, you would get butthurt.

I don't know how many people complain about new users, but here is the best part of it all. The part you say where they need to read the rules? Check this out:



Hmm. 18. You seem to be complaining, quite the hypocrite. As for 19, if you don't like new user topics, why even bother going into the section.

Would a decent solution for this be a Welcome PM containing the rules? I could install that mod

Yea, make it so all newbs coming here get PMed the rules or a link to them.

And so I say to you, I am not upset with your little criticism of my idea, but I do wish you would truly read it before making such crude statements.
Thank you.

@ Cleod: Well, that probably would help, but I don't know if people actually read those things...

Again, the solution to this whole dillema is really simple. Leave it the way it is, if they break the rules, warn them and tell them to read them, if they're too stupid to do that, and they get warned again, and eventually banned, it's their own stupid fault.

This. We don't need complainers or people who don't accept newbies. It would be their own fault, we did what we could (make a topic just for them) and if they don't read it, it is their fault. There isn't much you can do more about it.

What we could do, is put a mute on newbies until they read the rules.

Not only that, but it also helps us weed out the stupid people faster.

So you are saying stupid people don't deserve to be on the internet? Or just forums?

Soul just owned the f*** out of that Living f**.

or we could just leave everything as is and stop complaining

It's not that I don't accept them. It's that I'm trying to help them learn what not to do before they get themselves into trouble.
Maybe they won't think about reading the rules because they're too busy looking at the exciting topics.
If they can't see the topics, however, then they'll have to think about what they need to do to gain access, and will end up reading the rules.

@Belth: How do you figure? He gave like 10 arguments, I put down all but one of them (which I corrected), and his response in a nutshell was: "Leave it."