Helping New Members

March 24, 2007, 8:55 PM

I talked to Darkblade about re-organizing the forums in a PM. I know it was discussed before but honestly they're not horrible. I can navigate around pretty well and it's really not a big deal anymore. I use the subscription feature found in the Edit Options feature and it makes browsing a lot easier. However, new members really are having trouble navigating. I asked if there was any way to introduce newer members to the forum slowly. In other words, clip their wings and only let them see and post in a small fraction of the site until they got their postcount up past 50 (or to some other number of posts that was deemed significant). At least for my money, the FF section and the Midgar sections are the two main places to be anyhow. If you limited them to those two forums, then opened up all the other places they could post, it would give them time to get used to the layout of the forums instead of just putting them out there without a map. It would also help them not be intimidated by the sheer size of the forums. As a sidenote, it would also really help control spam attacks. We had one last night and if it was only limited to two forums, you could spot and clean it up much faster.

His response to my PM was to post it in here to get more feedback so as to make a more informed decision. So... here it is. Post your replies.

March 24, 2007, 9:04 PM

Not bad, not bad at all.

Another route for helping new members would be to assign 'buddies' or 'guides' to the new members. Obviously, the guides would have to volunteer, and the new members would have to accept them as a guide, but overall, I've seen this work before.

The buddy will act as a kind of mentor, answering whatever questions the new member might need answered. Where I've seen this happen, there's been guidelines for the buddies, too, where the buddy could only carry X number of new members between X-X months.

Then again, we're only talking about navigation, and if new members are stuck, they tend to find the help desk and moderators relatively easily.

I like the idea you've gone along with, but I'm not sure of the numbers/locations you've given. Of course, that could be decided at a later date, but this suggestion certainly has a nod from me.

March 24, 2007, 9:09 PM

I like the sound of Rikus Idea

when i was new there was the SB to help me out but since thats gone then it would defintley be good to have a "Buddie System" that being said i like Aztecs idea too.....perhaps you could incorperate the 2?

March 24, 2007, 9:10 PM

It makes sense. I also think its a good idea. There are way more pros than cons. But in a sense, I think some people may get upset about the 50 post rule. I mean, I've seen some current active members that have less than 50 posts. And its not cause they're not posting, they're just posting in certain boards. Plus, people got angry with the RPG rule.

But yea, it would fight spam attacks. It wouldn't seem as huge which I still think is one of the sites few flaws. I mean, look how many topics have been posted in the wrong spot and had to be moved and I dont think it was the ignorance of the poster but the way everything is so segregated. So it might be good for new members.

But I was wondering that maybe instead of doing it by post count you could do it by time spent here or something. Like after 5 days of your join date it opens up the rest. Then again, I don't know how complicated the code would be for that.

March 24, 2007, 9:11 PM

The biggest problem I see with the buddy system is we've literally had 25 new members in the last day. That is a LOT of people to assign to volunteers. I think you could do that job with a stickied topic and a PM from the FFF System, like when you get the rules sent to you at the join date.

March 24, 2007, 9:15 PM

Which means we'd have to have many volunteers. Say, for example, we had 21 volunteers - one idea would be to split up the number of volunteers to the number of days in the week, and so here, we have three volunteers each day. Then, on Monday, Volutneers A, B and C become the buddies. On Tuesdays, D, E and F are the buddies ... so on and so forth.

It's a little out there, but it could work.

March 24, 2007, 9:15 PM

well what if you assigned two or three newbies to one person? preferably an active one...then its like 12 (my maths is crap so bear with me here) people to be buddies, and there are already stickied threads in the help desk but the spammers dont read them first normally and when they do spam/flame/advertise it seems tro be all over the place - whereas if it was only in two areas it would be slightly easier to control.

Edit - or you could assign like 5-7 people to be permanent buddys - they dont have to be PM'd or anything there just the person that you SHOULD pm if you need any problems solving...and the buddys names should be purple so everyone knows who they are XD

March 24, 2007, 9:18 PM

I think restricting where they can post would cause too much spam. It's a very good idea, but in the end it's going to really bugger up the forums in question

I do like Riku's idea though. A guide would be helpful, and I know that I could've done with one when I first started posting on forums

March 24, 2007, 9:29 PM

I like the idea, goof. You're certainly right: it will control spam attacks. We've had so many in the last few days that I feel like spam is all we ever talk about in our forums. =/ Hmm, however, I don't want them to feel segregated though...so I really don't know. I mean, when I was a newbie, I felt overwhelmed too. That's only natural to everyone who comes in as a newbie. But we got used to the whole navigation part, eventually, yes?

I guess my point is that, if they are really dedicated to contributing to our forums, most especially the FF sections, they'll eventually find a way to navigate through the area easily like us. It takes time, really. Give it a few days or so. Eventually, they'll get used to the whole site.

So I'm not sure if "clipping their wings" is really necessary. But it seems like everyone loves the idea, so that's fine as well.

Meh, I tend to change my mind easily as I post. Forgive me.