Centralising the FAQs (was New Idea for Newbs)

Post by **thespaceinvader** » September 3rd, 2007, 9:38 am

Sadly, not everyone is as considerate as you or I. It's my experience that no matter what you do to try and make them, many, if not most, people do not read stickies, FAQs etc up joining a forum. For those who do, the current structure is perfectly adequate (like DDR, i managed fine), for those who do not, no structure will help, sadly.

Post by **Iris** » September 3rd, 2007, 12:34 pm

thespaceinvader wrote:Sadly, not everyone is as considerate as you or I. It's my experience that no matter what you do to try and make them, many, if not most, people do not read stickies, FAQs etc up joining a forum.

I do.

The problem is that I often forget what I read.

I think something you're forgetting here is that not all newbies are willing to receive advice. For example, Danny... er, Caly... err... Muff Tristan... whatever, was a good example of a newbie with a really, really bad attitude (a.k.a. "n00b").

bert1 · Post by **bert1** » September 3rd, 2007, 1:05 pm

What's wrong with the present system? There's normally someone around who's willing to point a new poster in the right direction (irrevenant, Noyga, MDG, Velensk and others all do a grand job of this). It's rare for anyone to be a persistent nuisance, and if they are they can be banned.

Post by **irrevenant** » September 3rd, 2007, 2:27 pm

bert1 wrote:What's wrong with the present system? There's normally someone around who's willing to point a new poster in the right direction (irrevenant, Noyga, MDG, Velensk and others all do a grand job of this). It's rare for anyone to be a persistent nuisance, and if they are they can be banned.

That's in the Ideas forum - I believe the suggestion is to implement something a bit more centralised that applies to issues throughout all the forums - a central FAQ. Also maybe have links to it all pop up automatically when you first join.

The Wiki is probably a good place to implement this.

Post by **Turuk** » September 3rd, 2007, 2:32 pm

Yeah, we're not saying there's really anything wrong with the present system, but having a place to point new players to in each forum that would have general useful information specific to the nature of that forum.

It's true, there are always plenty of people willing to help new players or point them in the right direction, we're just thinking of a way to maybe answer their question once by pointing them to a faq thread or something along that line, so the next time they have a question they will look there and most likely find their answer before posting.

waw · Post by **waw** » September 3rd, 2007, 4:00 pm

Turuk's right. But there are a few points you are looking over, Bert1 and Spaceinvader

1. Not everybody is nice to new people, and they often scare them off
2. A centralized faq, if done right, looks very neat and tidy and is encouraging to newbs
3. If you do have an obvious faq and you have a new post something idiotic, and somebody just has to post something mean to them which is bound to happen... they have that faq to turn to.
4. All in all, if somebody asks a question, you post the link to the faq, it will make it easier for them to find what they need to do. And the next time they have a question, the FAQ may make it easier for them to find their own stuff again.

It doesn't change the present system... it does make it easier though. Good questions that are asked alot can be added to the faq easily. This will stop somebody from going on a wild goose chase trying to find it.

The google idea helps a whole lot too.

I wouldn't like the FAQ to only be on the Wiki... or atleast a link to the wiki faq.

Edward V Riley · Post by **Edward V Riley** » September 4th, 2007, 4:49 am

Turuk wrote:I have to agree with Riley on that, I did some work a couple months ago on the project to restore abandoned campaigns, and that's exactly what I ran into. Trying to find the original thread about a campaign can mean digging through pages of posts because of the search engine. Not that new players would be doing what I did, but I have seen a number of posts in the forums asking for information on how to beat scenarios in certain campaigns, and a lot of that information/tips is buried now. At the very least, teaching people how to properly use google for this site, or just go with the idea to make a page that is just nothing but links to guides, campaigns, whatever that is available from the home page. Adding another forum might just confuse the matter, unless the people allowed to post in said forum would be limited.

Yes, and this brings up another point. I've looked through the strategies and tips forum myself to help others out and I often stumble through the same subject over and over. It would probably be too much of a pain in the rear to a moderator to have to find all these posts and combine them. We have to remember they need their playing time too.

I would propose each campaign that has been made getting their own thread, but this might leave no room for anything else as there are so many but at least each campaign would have it's own. And if the problem occurred with a specific scenario it would go into the campaign discussion the scenario occurs in.

Anyone else have a good idea on what to do to stop the multiple threads on the same subjects?

Post by **Turuk** » September 4th, 2007, 5:32 am

Well, I know as far as campaigns and scenarios go, sometimes there are multiple threads on the same ones over and over, but for the most part there's the original thread when the campaign was made and usually a general strategy thread for it. You could provide those links, and then list the scenarios and provide the links for those threads.

I know that's a daunting task and seems like a lot of work, but we are all talking about compiling information into an easily accessible format and when finished that would be quite simple. It's just the actual creation would require a lot of effort on the behalf of forum users.

bert1 · Post by **bert1** » September 4th, 2007, 10:06 am

Yes, all that's fair enough. You've convinced me.

(Not that that makes any difference to anything).

waw · Post by **waw** » September 4th, 2007, 11:42 pm

Hmm...

It seems enough users are for this, now we just gotta convince a mod to let us do it and then we have to design it. I'll see what I can do over the next few days.

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » September 5th, 2007, 1:23 am

FAQ's already litter the forums. My question is, what exactly do you propose to include in this particular, -new- FAQ?

Post by **Turuk** » September 5th, 2007, 1:42 am

That's a good point, there are already tons of these. I can say at least for my part of the idea, I could work to find links to all the campaign threads so when users have questions or snags, they can click on the appropriate link and read up on it first. Eventually, do the same for some of the major scenarios people have issues with, listing them under the corresponding campaigns. That's just my two cents on what to put in it, I know the others have more to add.

Most importantly, I think that it would be an all-encompassing FAQ, but I can see how that could be considered as a good attempt on the part of the forum users but just end as another FAQ to add to the bunch. It comes down to how successful we can be with it, I believe, and how much people will contribute.

MDG · Post by **MDG** » September 5th, 2007, 4:26 am

Turuk wrote:That's a good point, there are already tons of these. I can say at least for my part of the idea, I could work to find links to all the campaign threads so when users have questions or snags, they can click on the appropriate link and read up on it first. Eventually, do the same for some of the major scenarios people have issues with, listing them under the corresponding campaigns. That's just my two cents on what to put in it, I know the others have more to add.

Why not just update the campaign walk throughs on the Wiki?

Post by **Turuk** » September 5th, 2007, 4:41 am

I can do that as well, I was just talking about what could be put into the FAQ that they want to put on the forums.

waw · Post by **waw** » September 5th, 2007, 4:55 am

Maeglin, and I mean no offense by this statement, but if you have had to ask that question... I don't think you actually read the thread.

Basically, we will explain all the basics. I don't mean YOUR LEVEL of basics... I mean start with what is underneath myself even. Work up to me, and gradually make the faq more and more complex. An all in one faq as stated above. It would include links, both on Wesnoth and off. Campaigns included too, and it should have a link to the new faq on the front page of the forums... IN BIG BOLD LETTERING and such to attract attention of noobs to take them by the hand and walk them through all of the 'dumb' questions asked here.

If you read my first post you will see a very very rough version of what the 'taking' by the hand would be. It sucks because I cracked that out in only a few minutes. If it was better thought threw... it would come out to better quality. Which is what it can be with the help of everyone. But there isn't any reason to do it if it isn't getting put up where it can help the new people.