Yes, I agree. By all means, set up some rules of etiquette.
How about a rule that covers unanswered questions. Questions that go unanswerd for days, while others before and after are receiving several replies and discussion. Certainly with all the technical knowledge on this board, no question should go unanswered.
Can't somebody monitor these things. If for some reason the question is unanswerable, or, more likely, nobody wants to, a monitor could just tell the questioner, "Sorry, we can't answer your question", or "Sorry nobody wants to answer your question.", or try to find out why the question remains unanswered.
For example, "SD/MMC from the ground up" received a flurry of interest at first, with many of the arduino 'gurus' (gurus in the midst) asking several questions and adding lots of discussion, indicating that they had it down pat. Later, when someone asked questions about the subject, he received no replies. He was practically begging for help, still, after days, no response. I thought it would be helpful to post a question, in bar sports, as to what happened to the interest in "SD/MMC from ground up", and mentioned that someone was seeking help with the subject. No response to that either.
I advised the person to post a question directly with the author of the subject, and I sent a message to the author as well, asking him to help. Well, the author responded and helped the young person get his system in operation. The young person sent a message to me, thanking me for my help.
'Gurus in the midst', indeed it should be 'gurus in the mist'. I get the impression that the gurus have an inordinate control over this board. Yes, I understand that they have a vast store of technical knowledge, and they are the ones that know the answers, which makes me wonder why they refuse to answer questions sometimes. Its almost as if everyone waits for one of them to answer first, and therefore give the nod that its alright to answer this question. Often what happens is that some upstart newbie will give it a shot, and try to help.
One of the posts put out, sometime back, stated that nobody has to answer a question if he doesn't want to. Fussing and fuming about the bad manners of an 11 year old kid, I consider the refusal to answer a question asked, by someone seeking help, as bad manners.
By the way, I'm a 65 year old upstart, smartbutt newbie, have posted questions (some answered, some not), and have tried to help other newbies when I could. I've also posted statements that apparently annoyed one or more of the oldtimers. (one in particular), so you can put me in the same category as you have placed the 11 year old.
Patrick