talkmagic.co.uk

I dont think I was known well enough around here yet, but as a few of you may know I havent been around in a long while. Every once in a while ill come here and just browse but I havent posted and a while and certainetly not like I used to post.

But coming here and browsing, it seems the amount of magic noobs coming here and asking stupid questions is off the charts. There are wayyyy to many 13 14 15 ect. year olds coming here and want to know a trick because Blaine did it or something. This is a magic forum not a damn "i want to learn one trick for free" forum. Its a place for MAGICIANS.

I mean just have look in the support and tips section. There is always about 20 unread, newly posted or replied threads and the majority are about garbage. Maybe im being a bit harsh but cmon. To me it severly downgrades this wonderful site.

It seems the forums are filling up with a bunch of rubbish. Everyone is just out for answers and no body wants to take the time and learn the god damn things on their own. Or atleast put a little effort in trying to learn it on your own.

And please, dont get me wrong, im not aiming any of this on the mods because I see plenty of locked threads and such. I know you guys are all doing your jobs, I just wish all these damn magic noobs would stop coming here and cluttering the forums like they do.

Sorry for the rant but it has really turned me off from participating in this forum like I used to. And to be honest I used to really enjoy posting here and sharing my tricks and helping others.

I seems in the last 3 months this plague has taken over this site. I just wish it was like it was in the old days


Sorry guys for this but does anyone agree with me or have any comments??...If you even read this far



Thanks

Nick

Where do you suggest they go. Some of them might actually be looking for help, dont put all new comers in one group. You at one tip were new to magic. You leanr by asking questions, granted sometimes they ask the wrong question or a bad one, but you got to role with it. And the serious ones will stay and will learn (hopefully) what and how to ask.
So thats just my two cents, and i have 98 more left.

You will see that sometimes I will try and help, other times I tell them to go out and buy the effect or books etc. Some of them are genuine, but phrase their questions wrongly. If they come on and say " tell me how to do it" they wont get any help from me.

There are alot of noobs, but if they are genuine, I will help if I can.

I tend to do alot of PM's to people who say they have an effect, if I know it. If they can give me enough information to suggest they do have it, I will try to give advice.

It is frustrating the amount of secret grabbers there are, who have no intention of learning, but just want to know how it's done so they can be clever in front of their mates.

Read their posts carefully, and look at their other posts, if any. Then decide if they are genuine or not.

Just think how it feels to those of us who were around when The Old Forum changed to this version and there were only about 100 members!

We can't lump everyone together, and I absolutely detest the term 'noob', so we must consider each post individually and try our best to help.

Similar concerns have been expressed before but as Nick says, we can't pre-judge everybody who registers and it's only right that newcomers get time to assess the flavour of TM and settle in. Some never do whilst a lot of others have now become 'Old Timers'. Yes there are far too many silly posts but that's probably because TM is the number 1 forum according to Google. I can understand frustrations to a certain extent but, although it's up to each member to make their own choice, staying away and not posting doesn't exactly help the situation either. Remember that each and every one of us (Mods included) were new at one time and many of us made mistakes or asked daft questions in the early days.

Everyone's got to start somewhere. You don't start off with a respect for the art.

To be fair, when someone turns up and demands "tell me how" they do get messed with and don't tend to post again. On the other hand, when someone introduces themselves, explains what they're up to magically and then asks a question, it's a different matter. In fact, a few of the "tell me how" crowd have seen the errors of their ways and have become really interesting members of the community.

For what it's worth I don't think it's fair to critisise those '11 year old noobs' as you call them. I agree that many are just out there to get the secrets freely but some will be the magicians of the future. I was an 11 year old noob once and all I had to go by was a Paul Daniels magic set and Wizbit Book of Magic. A forum like this would have been priceless to me then.

I do find some people here very standoffish when someone asks for advice. I know I've personally struggled with a technique on my own rather than ask for advice after being shot down in flames when asking for advise on the different can types a while ago after comming seriously unstuck during a performance of coin through can.

Fair comment! Sadly we've had some serious problems with 'secrets seekers' so sometimes the responses can seem a bit harsh or perhaps somewhat sarcastic.

If any member has a genuine question about technique or a particular aspect of a trick then they can make a post asking for help and advice by PM but will need to show that they already have the item first - possibly by being able to PM particular wording on part of the instructions or something like that. In a lot of cases the TXT speak and slang used by many of the new younger arrivals can be utterly confusing and give the wrong impression - this is why we bang on about using plain English, spell checkers and so on. In general, never be afraid to ask for help but be aware that we can’t always provide such help until we know the full facts and the matter has been checked more deeply.

Perhaps we could have a more private area where the more popular effects could be freely talked about. Perhaps access could be granted by either a video demonstration of the effect or as said proof of ownership of the effect. For example in the case of coin through can, where did Criss meet Wayne?

Maybe I'll post something on the requests section...

The Restricted Areas exist for some of this but even in there we have to be careful about what's discussed and revealed etc. It's not really practical to add new sections as the time and effort required to check and moderate them would be more than we can provide.

thanks for the feedback guys...

I agree that you must begin somewhere and I don't see why 12 13 14 year old's shouldn't be allowed to join the forum. But... what I think is lacking here is introduction. There are even Preferred Members and Senior Members here that haven't yet introduced themselves to others. I think that introduction should be the gateway to the forum and plain rude that newcomers start asking how is this done and how is that done.
That reminds me... why are some members here, like Mandrake and Bananafish catagorised as "." ?

gunnarkr wrote:That reminds me... why are some members here, like Mandrake and Bananafish catagorised as "." ?

Glad you mentioned that! At one time, waaaay back in the mists of time (about 18 months ago!) we had little images to go with the membership category. At the time they were little Top Hats and started at 1 for relatively new members then increased to 4 for the grizzly old timers. There were also badges for Innovators, Experts, Moderators and so on. Sadly during one of the many hacker attacks on TM a while back these extra features had to be removed to deal with some of the background issues. The "." is a throwback to those old days and are left there in case we can get the Hats & Badges started again.

How about having some restrictions in place that won't allow a new user to post in any of the other topics until they have posted a introduction then the mods can decide whether the user has a general interest in magic or just want to know how a certain effect is done.