I've been mulling an idea over in my head for the last 45 minutes or so, and before I submit it to Admin's new handy-dandy idea tracker, I figured I would open it up to the public at large and get some feedback; perhaps my original idea may need some tweaking that can be resolved in a forum posting.
To begin with, I don't know if this is feasible because I don't know enough about the intricacies of running a website like this. Perhaps someone a little more computer tech knowledge could help me out.
Currently, on the homepage of this site, there are five forum posts showing (I'm not counting the Buy/Sell/Trade forum); the five most recently commented on forum postings, to be precise. My proposal would call for adding either a sixth slot, or dropping one and going to four (this is the part I'm not sure on; can we have six? I personally don't see why not, but again don't know enough to safely say for sure).
We seem to get influxes of new members at random spurts of time throughout the year. Additionally, quite a few of their first posts are "I can't find this blank back/wrong back/etc." and someone (usually Dan, in his infinite patience) explains to them that those are cards not catalogued by this site. Piggybacking off of this, there have been numerous references to the FAQ, Note guidelines, and other great information being hard to find. So, my proposal is this:
Admin creates a "pinned" thread that stays at the top of the most recent forum postings, titled something along the lines of "NEW MEMBERS PLEASE READ". In this thread, which would ideally be able to be locked from replies, a welcome could be written, as well as links to the FAQ, Note guide, references to what is and isn't catalogued here (yes, I know it's in the FAQ, so maybe not), and any other pertinent information a first-time user could benefit from.
If you want to take it up a notch, we could even form a welcome committee, with usernames and profiles hyperlinked in said post. That way, if that post doesn't answer a new member's question(s), they can easily click on one of the welcome committee member names, send a message, and get an answer without adding another forum post into the mix.
I'm spitballing ideas here, and I'd like to get a little feedback. Currently, there is nothing on the homepage that welcomes a user, nor anything that directs them to the FAQ or any other link on the site. I'm all for user exploration and finding out new things on your own, but I also feel like we could streamline this site and the learning process by making things even more accessible for new users. In turn, this leads to more contributors and more accuracy from everyone.
I'll wrap up my long-winded post with one more alternate suggestion - I suppose all of this could be accomplished with an automated email sent out as soon as a new member signs up, so perhaps that's one other solution. Feel free to fire criticism, complaints, praise, and suggestions back at me, and if we can come up with a conclusive way to help everyone out, I can submit this under the idea-tracker (or anyone can, I really don't care, but if it works I'd like to see it implemented).
Jason
I'll never quit collecting entirely, but I am downsizing. Check out my COMC store and help me thin out what I don't want so I can buy cards that I do want. See something you like? Send me a message on here, and we can knock the price down quite a bit. I'll even take a bit of a loss if it means getting you a card you really want.
