Are Your Welcome Messages Scaring Newcomers?

I’ve been struggling to write recently. I would like to claim I was suffering from writers block – but I don’t believe in it. (self indulgent clap trap). I just have felt really demotivated and although I’ve had lots of things I could or should have written about there was nothing I really wanted to write about. Until today that is and here I was in WA and something made me really cross and hey presto it made me want to write.

Welcome messages

There’s been lots of talk recently about various members trying to game the ranking system by posting a standard long-winded welcome message to any new member asking or suggesting that they should follow them. Not only has this upset the ranking system but far more importantly some new members have suddenly felt bombarded with messages and felt they were being spammed. Hardly a good first impression and it’s damaging for everyone.
Since the issue was first raised Kyle and Carson have taken some measures to stop members doing it which personally I applaud. However there are still some people who for whatever reason continue to post messages that are gobbledygook to newcomers and could potentially frighten them off.
This is what I saw in a welcome message today. After one sentence saying hello and welcome it continued ....

“What is Rank?

You will see a rank# in your profile page at the top 1/3 of the page in the center. You may wonder what that is and why it’s there. Actually, it’s difficult to say. Since I don’t have access to the algorithm used, all I can do is relay what I’ve observed. The rankings appear to me to be as a result of the following:...”

This is only the first part. In fact there were 366 words in total all about ranking!
Just think about it 366 words just on ranking. An article in SA has a minimum of 400 words. This is a welcome message not an article. This is just foolish. Why on earth would anyone want so much information the moment they’ve joined? Newcomers are not thinking about ranking or algorithms or why there’s any ranking at all. They’ve joined up to find out how to start an online business. It makes a very poor impression and it’s enough to make some people cancel their membership.
I refuse to speculate over why someone might write such a message but it helps no one.
The final part of the message included 5 links to resources within WA. Five! How are they supposed to know where to start? Kyle and Carson have one link in their message – because that’s all a newcomer needs.
So I implore everyone - whenever you write a welcome message - make sure you're really making them feel welcome instead of scaring them off! After all ....