Edit: lol all right well, judging by replies like "This is the norm. What are you talking about?", "What can realistically be done? Nothing.'' and the obligatory "First time?", despite that was literally being the first thing I said, you guys would rather shrug and keep complaining, saying ''that's just how it is'', rather than actually try to improve anything. I guess that's easier than expecting people to use the search bar.
Carry on then.
Thanks for the proposed solutions:
- Low karma requirement/filter [Proposed by u/Someweirdo237 and u/scottjl]
- Goal: prevent brand-new accounts/throwaways from immediately posting basic questions.
- Require users to acknowledge an FAQ/megathread before posting [Proposed by u/mike94100]
- Example: AutoMod removes/holds the post, leaves a message, the user has to confirm they've read the resources before the post goes public.
- AutoMod keyword filtering [Proposed by u/HouselessGamer]
- Example: posts containing things like ''where rom'', ''find rom'', etc., get automatically redirected to the megathread.
- Title/body keyword restrictions [Proposed by u/Someweirdo237]
- Reddit now allows restricting posts based on phrases/keywords.
- Megathread organization [Proposed by u/Yagotsu]
- Combine or remove redundant megathreads to make the resources clearer.
- Combine the Help Megathread and ROM Megathread [Proposed by u/Yagotsu]
- Reason: if one mostly redirects users to the other, having both may confuse newcomers.
- Rename/rework the megathread title [Proposed by u/Nivek_Vamps]
- Seeing a pinned thread with a year in the title makes newcomers think it is outdated.
- Example:
- Bad: ''ROM Megathread 2024''
- Better: ''ROM Megathread - Start Here''
- Teach users how to search instead of just answering [Proposed by u/DifferentMind8]
- The idea: don't just give the answer, teach the process so they can solve future problems. (Honestly, this is the way to go, but the efforts must come from both sides).
- Ignore individual low-effort posts
- Several people argued this is what they already do.
- Not really a solution for the ''feed quality'' problem, more a coping strategy.
- Do nothing because moderation burden/false positives are hard [u/daedric's point]
- More an explanation of why nothing changes, but the point is pertinent nonetheless.
Surely I'm preaching to the choir, but I've joined this sub a week ago and honestly this level of laziness is beyond comprehension.
u/Daxzero0 said it best here:
The inability to source the answers to very basic questions yourself means you’re not equipped for the nuances and little challenges of emulating. You’re cluttering our feeds because you’re too helpless to try and do anything yourself.
I'm not trying to gatekeep but emulation has never been a hobby where you just push a button and everything magically works. Half of it has always been reading searching forums and trials and errors sometimes.
Imagine going on Romnation and making a thread titled ''WHERE TO DOWNLOAD ROM! HELP!!!!'', when the answer was one search away. All these years of emulation and I don't think I've ever had to ask one of these basic questions because the information was already out there.
The sub already has a Help Megathread covering these kind of questions and there's a Roms Megathread, but people won't read the rules and megathreads before posting.
So what can realistically be done about it?
Because if this becomes the norm, this will eventually turns into an unpaid tech support sub for people who won't spend 30 seconds searching. The people who actually contribute knowledge will move on and the quality of the community goes with them, like many other subs.
Koodos and thanks to u/ChaosRenegade22 and u/SuperBio for their work.