Can we be kinder to newcomers?

Question

This is, I hope, a "constructive subjective question", within the spirit of stackexchange.

I am sometimes shocked in Chess Beta how apparently unwelcoming can be the responses to newcomers' questions. The question usually comes from someone who has reputation in single digits, and an overcritical response typically comes from someone who has 4 digits of reputation. As far as I can see, the recipients of such treatment do not come back for more.

Initial questions might be ill-expressed or somewhat off-topic: but they usually come from someone who is genuinely interested in chess, and has reached out to us across the internet. I think we need to always read their question charitably and help them towards the question that perhaps they were trying to ask. At the very least, the experience should be a positive one, that encourages them to remain in Chess Beta for the future and contribute better as they learn more of our recondite ways.

It seems to me that treating newcomers well is the single most important step we can take towards removing the "Beta" from our name. I base this subjective assertion (channeling the "Back It Up" principle developed in the Moms4Mom stackexchange) on what I have seen in other forums and groups over the years, and seeing niceness work. If we value this community, it's in our own interest to treat newcomers with a little bit more latitude. A guy with 1 reputation today might have 10,000 a couple of years from now and be a pillar of the community.

My suggestion: at the very least, can we agree that a newcomer should be told "Welcome!" That sounds trivial, but I really believe it would set the tone for the future experience of that newcomer.

Thanks for your time!

EDIT: Good to see the following Stack Overflow blog post. Note footnote 1:

"This post focuses on Stack Overflow, but most of it applies to the broader Stack Exchange network as well."

I don't think that our issue is nearly as bad as some other communities, but I wonder if that's because of our small size and Beta status.

A concrete point: not just in the spirit of kindness but also that of justice. Often when I look at the help centre about a closed "off-topic" post, it's extremely difficult to see how a post is actually off-topic given the criteria listed there. Frankly, there is judgement required, and whoever makes this judgement may need to have the courage to explain why they came down the way they did. It also requires more effort, and shows greater respect to the poster.

There are low quality posts which would not merit this treatment, but I think that these are the exception.

Answer 1

See Dunbar's number.

Regrettably, all populous online forums appear to suffer this problem. Some forums manage it better than others.

EXAMPLES

For the same reason, all parliamentary bodies grow uncivil as they approach a size of about 500, which is why such bodies seem never further to be able to grow to a size of 1000. Iceland's parliament is largely civil, for example; Britain's is not.

For the same reason, manufacturing executives have learned not to expand industrial plants much beyond a maximum practical size of about 2000 workers each. Beyond that size, further economies of scale are swamped by a general loss of morale.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

You and I will probably never interact again, because Dunbar's number. And even if you and I did interact again, our social networks do not overlap—a fact which, most unfortunately, denies you and me sufficient investment in a favorable social outcome here. Ultimately, inflation too far beyond Dunbar's number makes trolling and other antisocial behavior uncontrollable by normal social means.

See, you and I are perfectly polite to one another, but your behavior and mine cannot save our conversation from being hijacked by random rude and flagrant persons if enough participants were present. Even if only one percent of participants are rude and flagrant, excesses beyond Dunbar empower that one percent to set the tone.

Dunbar's is not a firm or exact limit, of course. There is a gradual slide into incivility as numbers grow, but the overall social principle Dunbar implicates does nevertheless seem to be an iron law.

LITTLE PLATOONS

Before Dunbar, Edmund Burke knew it. Burke's little platoons are the blocks from which a healthy society is built.

To the extent to which Chess Beta is, through its success, gradually ceasing to be a little platoon, a major decline in civility is probably inevitable. Tragic, but true.

CONCLUSION

Your proposed "Welcome!" might only be perceived by newcomers as hypocritical. I do not despise it. It might even help at intermediate numbers but no one is welcome where numbers are too large. Only an authentic little platoon can really welcome anyone.

I wish that I had a more congenial answer to offer you.

Answer 2

I don't think the problem is the lack of "Welcome!" messages, but that "bad" questions by new users often get downvoted or nominated for closing immediately, instead of trying to engage constructively first.

Answer 3

I use the Auto Review Comments userscript, primarily because it contains some pre-made comments which can be used in situations which happen quite often (such as new questions being posted as an answer), with the additional benefit that for new users, every comment will be preceded by

Welcome to Chess Stack Exchange!

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It seems to me that treating newcomers well is the single most important step we can take towards removing the "Beta" from our name.

Well, it might help because more people stick here and ask questions. But according to Graduation, site closure, and a clearer outlook on the health of SE sites, the single most important figure is the # of questions per day and it needs to be at least 10. You can check Area 51 to see that we're far, far away of that: 2.2 questions per day is not even close to graduation.

Answer 4

Adding to itub's answer, "Welcome" is mostly discouraged in the SE model. This (the main sites, not Meta, where there is more leeway) is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum.

I see some of the same issues on Poker.SE, where many new questions are asking which hand wins, which is a basic rules question, that's already been covered, and those tend to get dupe flagged fairly quickly. I think we have the expectation that the poster does basic research, or attempts to analyze their game before posting here. I've been making an effort to get clarification before I flag a question, but sometimes the poster comes expecting an immediate answer, and when they don't get it, they don't come back to give clarification.

Answer 5

This site is already more than welcoming when it is replete with questions like Can a king be checked with another king in these circumstances

Another top question on the front page now centers around trivia. So the votes no longer mean much to me for the purpose of content value, as the site is dominated by novices and there are not even enough non-novices to downvote/close trivial content. As such content is allowed to persist, they will draw in more users who have the appetite for it.