First of all I'd like to say what a relief it is to hear both Wiz and Shane are still in the land of the living.  First glance of the title of this thread I thought one of you had croaked or something!

Well said, Wiz, and the point you made that stood out most to me was those that are "mean to newbies".  That sort of thing is something that should be taken a lot more seriously than it is.  If someone tells a newbie to try searching, that post should be deleted without question because it's just plain arrogant and leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the newbie, who lets face it, might even feel a little intimidated to start with when they first enter a new forum where everyone but themselves appear to know each other.

All it does it make them feel like an unwanted outsider, and they'll likely never come back because of it.  If I owned a forum, those posts absolutely would never be allowed to exist, period.  The post would be deleted and a message sent to the poster explaining why.

I remember when I first started posting on forums, I didn't even know what "lol" was.  It took me a while before I had the guts to actually ask because that many people were using it.  Thankfully I was among good people, they pointed it out without making me look like an idiot.