You can use that to see if they need prompting to read them or if they have actually read them (or at least opened the page) and tailor your response accordingly.
Better still would be a system that forces them to read them before they can post.
I think the idea is to communicate with this bot via private messages.
One idea might be to let a new user follow a tutorial (try @discobot start tutorial in a PM for an example), after which the user receives a badge that is needed to post on the forum.
The "new user" tutorial you can trigger manually via the @discobot start tutorial command is also automatically presented very prominently to the user after creating a forum account.
They receive a private message from discobot titled "Greetings!" and the forum window has a special overlay that highlights the message in their notifications.
It is shown in the video here:
(the video is of a generic Discourse forum, but the Arduino forum works the same way)
The tutorial you can trigger manually via the @discobot start advanced tutorial command is also offered via an automated private message when the user reaches Trust Level 2 (so not quite as relevant to this discussion).
Maybe the guidelines need a refresh... they are pretty verbose... imho it's not surprising that a lot of newcomers can't be bothered reading a novel before posting. Maybe a cut down version that addresses 90% of the common "first time poster issues" would get a better read-rate?
Just a thought... not offence intended to those that have contributed to trying to resolve this issue previously.
So would it be possible to prevent users that do not have the "Certified" badge from posting? And additionally, can we perhaps suggest some changes to the tutorial?
I suggest you start by taking a copy of the existing forum guidelines and putting them in a PM. You can then edit there until you are happy. You can make the PM to me, I won't comment until you ask me to. If you include in the PM anyone else you want to offer suggestions then they will also be able to see it. Formatting in a PM is the same as in the forum, so you will see how it ends up.
Before I agree to use a modified version I would run it past at least @pert (Arduino) and any other mods that were interested.
Alternate suggestion, perhaps extreme, but...
Across the bottom of every message (maybe just those by the OP of the thread?), add a button that allows posters of a 'certain status' the ability to auto-suggest a refresher of the rules. Sort of a "hey, your post is deficient, please read this" button. Maybe maybe call it "rule refresh"? Obviously, it isn't appropriate for everyone to be able to do this, and there would need to be a mechanism to prevent the OP getting 47 reminders, but it would reduce the otherwise inevitable thrash.
And yes, I realize, this is probably beyond the pale as far as changes to this 'mature' forum, but it sure would be nice.
C
Don't hold your breath waiting for changes to the forum software or how it is set up
Since the change to Discourse very few changes have been made despite a number of sensible suggestions. This may be because the Discourse software does not support the change or that there is not an addon to do what is required.
I also think that there is a reluctance on the part of the Arduino management to change anything for whatever reason, possibly because they see no advantage in it which, in my view is short sighted