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Making the FAQ page more obvious.

T

The Teej

Also know as The Tjalian
I've just noticed the FAQ isn't entirely obviously shown. I mean, I've been navigating forums for over 5 years, so figuring out where everything is is pretty easy for me, but I can imagine it being harder for some members who are new, young, or don't have English as their first language, or a combination of the above three.

Perhaps having a sticky in this forum showing where the FAQ is, or even better, reposting all of the links in the FAQ in a thread? This wouldn't take too long, I'd even be up for doing this myself.

Is this a good idea? [Y/N]

EDIT: Also, hell yeah, 100th post

EDIT: I mean this FAQ: M for Mature Forums - FAQ
 
I think he's referring to the PSP tiff/HEN faq thread that I just did up.

The Teej, we were in the process of moving it around and stickying it and all that, so I think your proposed question here was made while we were in the middle of handling all of that.

There's now a sticky made available in the main PSP forum, and we've also edited the first post of the main HEN Discussion thread to reflect this new update.

Is this what you're talking about?
 
Slasher said:
I think he's referring to the PSP tiff/HEN faq thread that I just did up.

The Teej, we were in the process of moving it around and stickying it and all that, so I think your proposed question here is was made while we were in the middle of handling all of that.

There's now a sticky made available in the main PSP forum, and we've also edited the first post of the main HEN Discussion thread to reflect this new update.

Is this what you're talking about?
Click to expand...

No no no, unlike most people, I'm not referring to this HEN business everyone's raving on about, I'm actually on about the general forum FAQ.

M for Mature Forums - FAQ
 
The Teej said:
No no no, unlike most people, I'm not referring to this HEN business everyone's raving on about, I'm actually on about the general forum FAQ.

M for Mature Forums - FAQ
Click to expand...

I don't believe it is necessary to make it more obvious, it contains a standard VBulletin FAQ. I've never looked at the FAQ in all the years I've been on forums, never once - it's pretty straight forward how a forum works. I think it's current place (Under quick links) is a proper location for it. If we make better use of that FAQ page then we could and would make it more obvious but as it stands I don't think many people care about reading forum FAQ's (they generally just come out and ask a question)
 
FrozenIpaq said:
I don't believe it is necessary to make it more obvious, it contains a standard VBulletin FAQ. I've never looked at the FAQ in all the years I've been on forums, never once - it's pretty straight forward how a forum works. I think it's current place (Under quick links) is a proper location for it. If we make better use of that FAQ page then we could and would make it more obvious but as it stands I don't think many people care about reading forum FAQ's (they generally just come out and ask a question)
Click to expand...

Oh, in that case, I've made a dedicated FAQ about how to get avatars and signatures in your profile that uses pictures and stuff to get the point across better, is it OK if I post it, or do you just want to use the standard sig/ava FAQ in the main FAQ?
 
vBulletin is a pretty straight forward forum. It isn't complicated to use. The top toolbar sorta gives an easy navigation anyway, plus User CP is on that toolbar, which obviously refers to the user's profile, so that isn't to hard to work.
 
Dan. said:
vBulletin is a pretty straight forward forum. It isn't complicated to use. The top toolbar sorta gives an easy navigation anyway, plus User CP is on that toolbar, which obviously refers to the user's profile, so that isn't to hard to work.
Click to expand...

For someone who's older, or been on a forum before, or who speaks good English.

Take a 13 year old boy, who's never been on the forum before, and possibly doesn't even speak English as a first language. I'd have no bloody clue what a User CP is.

This idea isn't really designed to benefit people who already know stuff about forums. vBulletin does use most forum conventions, which is great... if you've used forums before.

I'd look on the forum, and the first thing I see is a "Help" forum, so I'd instinctively look there - but guess what, the FAQ link isn't actually there, and well, not a lot of stuff is. Users would have to ask the question first, which is fine, but we'd be doing them a better service by providing the answer before they ask the question.
 
The 13 year old boy would only have to click on the User CP link to know what it is after looking at the User CP page.
 
Moose said:
The 13 year old boy would only have to click on the User CP link to know what it is after looking at the User CP page.
Click to expand...

But the 13 year old boy could only click on the Help forum and see the frequently asked questions thread, which is a lot more intuitive then clicking on a quick links or user CP link.
 
It's all pretty much self-explanatory. When a link says "Edit Signature" the first thing someone would think is, "Oh cool, I can edit my signature with this page." :)
 
But the 13 year old boy could only click on the Help forum and see the frequently asked questions thread, which is a lot more intuitive then clicking on a quick links or user CP link.
Click to expand...

But the 13 year old boy will not understand what 'help' means.

I'm sorry, but i really had to burn you there.
 
I thank you for your effort but if someone can't figure out how to choose an avatar or signature I would hate to imagine what it would be like trying to help the person. If you are online and have found our forums then you must have some knowledge of les internets ;)

Heck I remember joining Neopets back in the day when it was just getting popular and I was able to figure out that site even though I was under the age of 13 ;) Although this forum is much different I still think people will be able to figure out how to use it.

I've found myself on several different styles of forums before and it follows the same principal in all of them. In all my time of being on a forum I've never noticed changing your avatar or signature or just basic forum navigation to be an issue with any new member that joins. The only time when people usually ask is when something is hard to find but I believe our forum is laid out well and the options are easy to access
 
Mhmm, the FAQ covers more then just editing a signature, but if you feel it's un-necessary, okay, that's cool.
 
Don't mean to barge in, but I don't think it is necessary to make the FAQ more obvious. It really only explains basic VBulletin, like some of you have already stated. I for one, know the basics of VB, but for some 13 year old kid who doesn't know English, I'm sure it would be helpful. Then again, that kid can always ask other members where he can find info, so I think it is unnecessary.
 
Genocide said:
Don't mean to barge in, but I don't think it is necessary to make the FAQ more obvious. It really only explains basic VBulletin, like some of you have already stated. I for one, know the basics of VB, but for some 13 year old kid who doesn't know English, I'm sure it would be helpful. Then again, that kid can always ask other members where he can find info, so I think it is unnecessary.
Click to expand...

Okay lets say this member doesn't speak English. Once he finds the English FAQ how will he read it?
 
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