Newbie Rant

by Peebrain

At the time of writing this, PsiPog is about three and a half years old. When I first started PsiPog, my goal was pretty simple: teach people psychic abilities. The more people I come in contact with over the years, the more clear the goal has become. Some of the people I've come in contact with are... just so freaking annoying. This rant is about some types of newbies that make me want to scream at my monitor whenever I talk to them .

The first thing that I TRY to keep in mind, is that my goal is still the same: to teach. I want to help. I like helping people. So, how come when someone asks me a question, and they want me to help them, do I bash my head against my keyboard out of frustration ? There are a few different types of newbies that make me upset in the first few minutes of meeting them.

The first type of newbie comes to PsiPog.net, and immediately downloads the chat program, and comes in the chat room without doing ANY research prior to chatting. The first questions are usually:

1. Not related to the site (ex: how do I do a ki blast?)
2. Easily answered in the articles (ex: how do I make a psi ball?)
3. Just plain retarded (ex: can anyone in here fly?)

In all three cases, the question is usually the first thing out of the newbies mouth, and it forever taints my opinion of them. This frustrates me the same it would a professional cook being asked: "how do I train my dog to sit?", "how do I make popcorn?", or "can you make a cake in two seconds?".

Another popular type of newbie is similiar to the first, except they lie on top of that. They will come in and ask how to make a psi ball, then when we tell them to read the articles, they will claim to have read all of them. Or perhaps that there aren't any articles on that subject. Either way, it's twice as frustrating. Not only are they wasting my time, they are purposely ignoring any kind of help I am trying to give them.

Then there are some newbies that claim they can't learn via articles, and must be taught personally. Another lie, but this one is even more annoying because the chat room is text, just like an article is. In fact, one night I was bored, and actually pasted text from an article to a newbie in this category. They thanked me for explaining to them because the articles just "didn't make sense". Wow.

Another type of newbie are the ones that ask the most general question: "can anyone help me?". This is like someone going to a cook and asking, "can you teach me to cook?". Just by looking at how many articles there are, you can tell there is a lot of information. The newbie asks for all this information, all at once, in a few lines of text.

Some newbies are under the impression that PsiPog is a site for defending or performing psychic functions for them. They will enter the chat and exclaim: "help! my dad is mad at me, can anyone make him calm down!?!?!". Or perhaps, "help! I have a headache, and someone is attacking me!". We are not here for a service other than to teach. The problem with this type of newbie is not only they ask the question, but then others will get upset if we don't help them. We are not thought police. We are not hired assassins. We are not your personal psychic gang that you can boss around and do your dirty work. You got yourself into the mess, YOU deal with it.

Along similiar lines, some newbies think that the authors are obligated to do something. I HATE helping these kinds of people. They think they DESERVE help. We aren't obligated to do jack shit. I do not pay the authors. You do not pay the authors. We are not obligated to do ANYTHING. We don't want to help you? Deal with it. You're an asshole and we don't like talking to you? Tough shit - guess you shouldn't have been an asshole. Sucks for you.

Some newbies think that we keep these dark hidden secrets about how someone could accomplish a skill much faster. They try to convince us that we can trust them to tell them "the secret". When we tell them the secret is practicing and reading the articles, they think we are lieing to them.

Every now and then I come across some people that are totally helpless. They can't make any decision on their own - almost to a point where it's funny. "What should I learn?". I don't know. What do you want to learn? "I don't know". Why the hell are you here then? It's almost like you have to dig the answers out of them, and offer them selections. Do you want to learn telepathy? "What's that?". Read the articles . Do you want to learn telekinsis? "Ok, how?". Read the articles . "Which one?". The ones on telekinesis. "What should I start with?". Pick an article, and start reading. "What article?". Any article on telekinesis. "Can I learn something other than telekinesis?".

And then my head explodes.

You might be thinking I'm kidding. I'm not. (Well, I mean my head really doesn't explode, but conversations like the one above have happened).

Being a newbie isn't bad - everyone was a newbie at psionics at one point in their life - and I've met very intelligent and awesome newbies. All I ask is that you put a little thought and effort into psionics. Use the search functions on PsiPog, use google.com, use your library, practice regularly, figure things out for yourself, and have fun! If you truely need help, then I will try my best to help you. Just try to help yourself!

-Sean

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Last Modified on November 19 2003