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that's a ridiculously crunchy logo.  like!

ok gonna watch some cracktros

you know what?  rather than just describe it, i decided to spend the last hour and a half quickly throwing together a working prototype of my idea of a panel for new users.  check it:

http://waveformtown.com/test/chipmusic/ … panel.html

imagine something like this sitting near the top of the cm.org home page.  you could either collapse it, or hide the whole thing forever, or remove it automatically after X # of posts, or whatever. 

my point is, whatever you can do up front to effectively guide users into being good citizens here can help to reduce unwanted forum pollution.

I made this suggestion in another thread, but providing concise links to FAQs, etiquette and common tutorials within plain view of newer users' screens would be a super helpful solution.  these links could stay hidden via a persistent cookie or per-user database setting, or after certain criteria have been met (i.e. you won't see them after you've made at least 3 posts, and/or have been a user for more than a week).

I think the above features are important because i feel it would do a lot to ease the avoidable friction and hostility between veterans and noobs.  sure, it can be entertaining to watch unfold, and it can feel good being in the ingroup of veterans, but it's a kind of dynamic that i think could be toned down a whole lot.

the reason the noobs are flooding in with dumb questions and topics is because the interface of this site isn't quite at the point yet where they can be pointed to this information with ease.  once they sign up and log in, bam - they see a forum with a bunch of topics, but not much guidance on how one should ease oneself into this community.  being a new user is like feeling around in a pitch-dark hall and being told to find a way past the locked door at the end by locating a key somewhere on the floor.

for instance, can one really blame a new user that disregards the unnatural and untaught expectation to use the search bar to query for answers, as the first step to interacting with a community?  the first instinct, especially in a forum-centric site like this, is to make a post, because that's the primary unit of community interaction on a forum. 

don't get me wrong, i already love where cm.org has been taken so far.  but some more work needs to be done, on a user interface level, to make it truly helpful for those who genuinely and innocently want a helping hand.  i have a background in web development and design (though who doesn't?), so i'm not just talking out of my ass (i hope).  in fact i'm willing to whip up a couple of HTML prototypes of a collapsible "new users panel" if people are interested.

of course, all of what i just said presupposes there's even a shared interest in being helpful to new users in the first place.  if there isn't, then well, there's not much point in complaining that new users aren't really jiving with how things are done around here.

it's not dance music unless it's this

thanks for all your awesome comments!  i'm relieved to see such a consensus in the responses, that tells me that i'm heading in the right direction.

i'd like to hear from someone who has more of experience with internal lighting. any tips or anecdotes related to internal lighting that i should be aware of?  (i.e. how many is too many; are there locations that are terrible for placing lights, that sort of thing.)

I have some diffuse white LEDs that i might try to distribute throughout the interior.  I've also been reading about electroluminescent cable as an option.  any other lighting solutions i should consider?  hopefully the frosted casing will keep interior light sources appropriately blurred and not too garish... i could be wrong though.

i'm considering it!  kitsch's RGBss kit is looking pretty slick.  my only reservation is that the backlit start/select buttons that i've seen in a lot of other pictures seem to be quite blinding.

yum!!!! 

is it just me or did you change the speaker grilles on those to match the original DMG this time?  will this be the case for future production runs?