Forum:Archive warning

More often than not, I see people asking questions that have been thoroughly discussed, needlessly creating a new and useless discussion about topics which at the time of the new discussion are already exhausted. I find that to be very dispersive and unhelpful, since they never make the topic clearer, as only new information would do that. I suggest adding a warning to all article talk pages which have archives on them, instructing people to actually search for a likely discussed topic before creating it. This needs to be something that is properly enforced, because I'm sure some will simply not bother doing so. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 00:07, November 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * Can't expect people to read an archive that isn't on the current talkpage :\ — S im A nt 00:42, November 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * I know this isn't a perfect solution, but it could stop those cases of when the archive is about the current talk page. If I had any idea on how to make people read the archives of all talk pages related to the subject, I'd suggest it. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 00:45, November 23, 2011 (UTC)
 * What Omnibender is really looking for is another reason to block people.
 * The wiki software has a horrid search function. It's particularly bad when trying to find something outside of the main namespace. Unless the search feature is improved (which is unlikely to happen) or some campaign is begun to transfer every topic on a talk page to its own forum (which are slightly easier to search through than talk pages, and which is definitely not going to happen), then you'll need to settle for being understanding of others.
 * To reinforce my point, I tried taking Omnibender's advice about Choji and yin-yang. I looked on Choji's talk page, where the question had not already been answered. I looked on the talk pages of Yin and Yang, where the question had not already been answered. I checked Yin-Yang's talk page. This time it does appear to have been discussed before, but it's difficult to read since only two people in the entire discussion know how to indent. There are also maybe a dozen other talk pages I could have checked as well (Akimichi clan, various jutsu), but I don't want to and so I am guilty of laziness on this point. I also typed "akimichi yin" into the search box. By default it only gives me results in the main namespace. Being passingly-familiar with searching on a wiki, I knew to scroll to the bottom of the page and change the search criteria to the talk namespace. This presents me with six results. Looking at them, four of them do not at any point address Akimichi and yin-yang. Talk:Shikamaru Nara indirectly answers my question, but I don't believe I should be expected to look there in the first place considering Shikamaru is not an Akimichi. There's also Talk:Nature Transformation/Archive 2, which has three discussions about yin-yang. The first two predate the revelation that yin and yang are chakra natures and so are of no help. The third is more enlightened, but also does not answer the question. To tally the results, 7 of 10 probable sources of information do not answer questions about whether or not Choji should be listed as having a yin-yang nature, with an additional 12 I am too lazy to check (again, that is on me).
 * In conclusion: you spend several hours a day on the wiki, the guy asking the question does not. Rather than complain about him for not inherently knowing which of three places he can find the answer to his question, take twenty seconds out of your day to give him a link to one of them and save everyone (yourself included) a lot of time. 72.192.156.86 (talk) 04:51, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

You are the proof that people can find answers to questions you want by doing exactly what I said people should do. If people are properly instructed that their questions might have been answered already, they might actually search for them. You looked for your answer and you found it. This might be the first time I see an unregistered user do that, though if others have done it and simply didn't ask because they saw that there was no more information available, I wouldn't know. Maybe that gives me a limited view of the matter. However, you are very much mistaken if you think questions are that easily answerable. I have lost count of how many times I've had to explain to people that we don't know exactly how Blaze Release works, for example, and why we list it as we do. Or why we list Tsunade as a Lightning Release user. Sometimes the previous discussion isn't even in an archive yet, it's in the very talk page. Some people seem to be determined not to understand something and complain about it. People like you actually show me that this can work. Don't think that I don't dedicate time to answer questions when they're made, but explaining the same thing over and over is frustrating. Effort has to go both ways, and I have made effort. Like I said, you're the first one that has communicated that you've searched and found an answer, the first time I've seen the other way. If you know of other people that have gone and researched through talk pages, finding answers, it would make me glad to know that there are such people. About the blocking part, I'm assuming you said so because I said "enforce" in my opening comment? If so, yes, those would include blocking, but only for those cases where one would repeatedly ask old questions just for being lazy, after having been more actively taught to search for questions. Omnibender - Talk - Contributions 22:28, November 23, 2011 (UTC)