Okay, I never thought I would be defending newbies but do they only get the pinned FT Orientation or do they get messaged the SG "getting started" one as well? The new one thats pinned in the Rules & Announcement section doesn't make any mention of an introduction post on unless its in one of the links. If it is in one of the links, that's probably a bad design because we've deemed it super important. The getting started message i have from SG is so outdated that im not sure it would be sent out anymore.
Unpopular opinion, but maybe if this many rookies are messing up then the orientation message is bad. If they do get that intro message from SG maybe make it clear that they have to use both the message and pinned post to be successful in the pinned post. I wouldn't chalk it up to being dumb either, Im a pretty forum savvy person, because im kind of old at this point, but for young kids this is probably theyre first foray into forums. If they're American, they may have used reddit before, but I'm not sure what European internet is like and forums are nothing like any of the popular social media that kids use these days. Im not saying it gives them an excuse to ignore the rules they've been sent, but I think we need to be more explicit in our instruction. If we have two orientation posts that need to be combined, make it clear in each post because that's is unusual for any forum.