Tutorial Video

This is somewhat related to the "Trying to give a few kittens a new home" thread here.

There seems to be a bit of an elitist attitude amongst some boardsie's with regards to posts being made in wrong forums by new users. What is forgotten is just how large this site is and can cause a lot of confusion amongst the newer users.

A possible way of tackling this is by creation a tutorial video that is shown after registering. To ensure that people actually watch the video, an activation code is given afterwards that users have to enter to complete their registration (this part probably isn't feasible at all, nor is this whole idea, but it was just something that was running through my head)

Included in this video would be things like, "want to ask about animals? Check out the Animals and Pets forum in the Recreation section. Want to talk about the latest TV shows? Go to the TV forum under Arts. Have some news about your local area? Go to the Region section."

This way people would be made more aware of the categories and the subcategories easier and might help them accustom to boards.ie quicker.

What are people's opinions?

And just as a side-idea:

The actual manufacture of the video could be a competition to be run in the film production forum, or somewhere similar, where people submit the movies they've created, which would follow a general theme; something like as illustrated before but they could do any variances they wish. The best one is then chosen to be the winner and the prize would be having their work seen by however many users register a day (has anyone got statistics on this?) and possibly something provided by boards themselves.

biko

I'm all for it, a video or some other way to introduce the many forums of boards.
Spend some time in Help Desk or Newbie&FAQ forums and you'll see threads posted every day that should be somewhere else.
It is a massive massive site and will take a long time to find your way around.
I'd like to see a section on the Search function so new users can use that.

Darragh

Great idea. Something we've been discussing for ages.

DublinWriter

I don't think it would even have to be a video, just a flash animation with commentary would suffice.

DublinWriter

DublinWriter wrote: »

I don't think it would even have to be a video, just a flash animation with commentary would suffice.

Well the beauty of having it as a competition is that it could be anything - as long as it gets a general tutorial across then it's all open.

Darragh wrote: »

Great idea. Something we've been discussing for ages.

I hereby claim all credit for the idea ha ha.

Daemos

Deleted User wrote: »

There seems to be a bit of an elitist attitude amongst some boardsie's with regards to posts being made in wrong forums by new users. What is forgotten is just how large this site is and can cause a lot of confusion amongst the newer users.

+1, it really annoys me how some users reply to new users. For all they know these users might never have used any forums before (I know that was certainly the case with me), and some of the replies they get to their very first post if it's in the wrong place, while not being against the charter or any rules on the site, are downright disrespectful. You'd swear they never made any mistakes when they first joined. A bit of courtesy and advise would go a long way.

So I definately support any way to help new users aclimatise to boards and how it works

Ironically this post almost deserves more to be in R&R than here :rolleyes:

Sabre0001

Problem is that once people start using the site, they see that threads often just get lumped into After Hours...

A good idea though - especially if it highlights some of the more niché forums as well as the bigger ones (like TV, etc). And should draw attention to things like Private forums / Restricted access (Soccer).

Steve

Darragh wrote: »

Great idea. Something we've been discussing for ages.

Already done..

Sabre0001

Sabre0001 wrote: »

Problem is that once people start using the site, they see that threads often just get lumped into After Hours...

A good idea though - especially if it highlights some of the more niché forums as well as the bigger ones (like TV, etc). And should draw attention to things like Private forums / Restricted access (Soccer).

Should we draw attention to Private Forums though? They're private for a reason I'm guessing.

As for the lumping of threads into After Hours, that's more of a moderation problem in those specific forums.

Dav

It's actually on my to-do list for this quarter actually. I've been working on it whenever I get a spare hour

Bellu

Well, I think a guide to tell new users to how to put new thread is a good idea, but maybe there's no need a video, just a detailed post can do this work.
Of course maybe a video is more visiable and comprehensible,