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matt
Sep 30, 2003, 10:31 PM
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Registered: Jan 4, 2001
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I'm going to put together a New User document, or something of that sort for people who, per the term, are new users. It will literally be a document outlining the different features in detail offered here.
This, is where you come in.
We would like your input as to what are some things that you now know that would have been helpful to have explained when you first joined? i.e. photo voting, what PM's are, where to submit a photo or post, how to add to the routes database, etc.
This thread is supposed to be a helpful tool as I type this up, so please, don't worry about formalities, and just post a list of things you'd like to see explained and how. If your post isn't helpful, off-topic, or i just get it taken care of, i may delete it. So, please don't be offended if you see your post disappear. It's just me trying to keep it in order, and easiest for me to work with as I write it.
Thanks in advance for the help.
- Matt
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dynoguy
Sep 30, 2003, 10:34 PM
Post #2 of 18
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Registered: Sep 6, 2003
Posts: 730
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Tell them how to quote other users' replies and explain what the label under their user means. This really confused me at first.
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rvega
Sep 30, 2003, 10:37 PM
Post #3 of 18
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Registered: Jul 28, 2003
Posts: 421
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1. Why does it say Boulder on my name and how do I change this. I'm not a boulder.
2. How do I start a thread of my own...never figured this out.
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jookyhead
Sep 30, 2003, 10:40 PM
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Registered: Jun 2, 2003
Posts: 667
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How to do the...
In reply to: Your tractor ran over my oatmeal worms etc.
..thing. The "name" wrote part, that is.
That used to really annoy me to not know how to do that.
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vegastradguy
Sep 30, 2003, 10:47 PM
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Registered: Aug 28, 2002
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explain the 'search' function. please.
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philbox
Moderator
Sep 30, 2003, 10:57 PM
Post #6 of 18
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Registered: Jun 27, 2002
Posts: 13105
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Please include a link to how to post a picture.
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iamthewallress
Sep 30, 2003, 11:04 PM
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Registered: Jan 2, 2003
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In reply to: Please include a link to how to post a picture.
A whole FAQ on this would be good.
I still don't know exactly
1. how the votes are calculated for pictures
2. how to make an album
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climbs4fun
Moderator
Sep 30, 2003, 11:18 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: Please include a link to how to post a picture. Specify Phil... To a thread or to the Gallery ???
I still can't figure out how to post a pic that is in the gallery to a thread. It was explained to me once, but I still couldn't make it work. And please don't forget that not all of us are on a PC. Some of use Mac :wink:
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matt
Sep 30, 2003, 11:56 PM
Post #10 of 18
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Registered: Jan 4, 2001
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Thanks for the input guys...keep it coming. This is great! :)
- Matt
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orangekyak
Oct 1, 2003, 1:24 AM
Post #11 of 18
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push, I think you have a good idea and your intentions are obviously great. I've made my voice heard on this before, and I know it's a little off topic, so I'll be brief.
If the site design was more usable, stuff like this would be inherent in the design. I think the best device for keeping and involving new users is better, simpler site design.
That's all on that.
Now, for new users ... when I joined I got an email from my state's manager saying "welcome, PM me if you have any questions about the site" it was a cool gesture and it gave me a human to interface with to ask questions. now that I am the state manager, I would like an alert PM to notify of a new user from my state. Even better, just sent the alert to them as an auto welcome message from me.
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dynoguy
Oct 1, 2003, 1:42 AM
Post #12 of 18
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Registered: Sep 6, 2003
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to start a new topic click on the "new topic" button in the top left corner. You can't miss it.
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tim
Oct 1, 2003, 2:29 AM
Post #13 of 18
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Registered: Apr 4, 2002
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In reply to: If the site design was more usable, stuff like this would be inherent in the design. I think the best device for keeping and involving new users is better, simpler site design.
two things are happening on that front:
1) eric (ex-'khanom') has basically fixed every damn bug imaginable by rewriting huge chunks of the site's architecture and distilling them into class libraries. that's in beta testing right now (ask some of the admins) and should relieve a lot of the pain from bugs.
2) we're actively looking around at models for the content -- basically, the core offerings of the site are the photos, the routesdb/events/maps, the gear reviews (which need serious work, but gear has nonetheless historically accounted for better than 40% of the non-flame-war threads), and of course the forums, with their scaffolding (PMs, etc.). On the other hand, we have an existing style that's closer to a standard left-nav implementation. Anyways, once the beta testing is done on Eric's code, we have a lot more flexibility, and some suggestions I've had were:
a) http://www.commarts.com/ -- neat, 4-column design maps well onto our offerings; excellent placement for the search functionality; however it is a bit of a departure from our current look
b) http://www.washingtonpost.com/ -- tabs are nice, could be useful for things like 'You have 5 friends online', 'You have 2 new PMs', 'There is an Access Fund cleanup near you this weekend', etc; kind of generic, though
c) some sort of revamp of the existing look -- distill the hell out of the left-nav sections, do some serious statistical analysis of the design, optimize for the most-common searches and the most-common paths.
In all honesty, some combination of (c) and either (a) or (b) or something else is most likely. Matt has secured permission for an imagemap-based tool to navigate the Routes database, which will hopefully help; at some point the whole thing will switch to a tree-based representation, so people will be able to add information at arbitrary levels of detail ('West Face of the Boulder Next To Foo Crack at Millbrook in the Gunks of NY, USA'). But we have to select some semblance of a direction in advance of implementing it, or we'll go nowhere fast (kind of like last time, although that was also due to the lack of a quality codebase such as the one Eric has now provided).
Your comments are just as valid as last time, I think, but now we're a bit better positioned to tackle them. So, in keeping with the theme of the thread, what do YOU think are the most important shortcomings of the site based on your usage of it, and what are some ways you think would fix these shortcomings? I'm working on a better all-in-one search tool, for example, because that's an obvious area for improvement (and, hell, I work at Google during the day; let's hope I've picked up some ideas ;-)). But I don't know what you are most irritated by. I'd like to -- feel free to send me a PM, or email me, with your personal observations.
(edit: get rid of spurious bbcode, add link to what I'm reading:
lookit-what-you-can-do-with-standards:
http://www.csszengarden.com (amazing work)
adaptive navigation:
http://www.cs.washington.edu/research/adaptive/papers/aij.pdf
more later. I like the 'Footprints' idea for condensing our existing design first, THEN working on a new and 'better' presentation with existing usage patterns in mind. Will see how hard that is to implement (may not be hard at all -- we can track clicks to-from with output buffering, even if it's only for a small period, say, an hour per day; and I can distill that information into some usage patterns for everyone's thoughts).
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philbox
Moderator
Oct 1, 2003, 6:43 AM
Post #14 of 18
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Registered: Jun 27, 2002
Posts: 13105
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In reply to: In reply to: Please include a link to how to post a picture. Specify Phil... To a thread or to the Gallery ???
I was thinking more about how to post a pic to the gallery. A lot of people just don`t get how to post their pics to the gallery. Clearly the instructions that are on the posting page are not well understood by a lot of people.
Biff has an excellent article http://www.rockclimbing.com/...cles/view.php?ID=199 on how to prepare a pic for posting, perhaps an article on the actual posting procedure covering most of the common mistakes people make would be in order.
All the info is there on the posting page for pics but judging by the amount of mistakes made posting a pic there needs to be some changes made. The replies to my suggestion here in this thread reinforces my thinking on this subject.
Maybe a redesign of the photo posting page could be helpful but I`m not pushing that barrow anytime soon as I do know the volunteer coders are hard at work doing general site functionality fixes. An article dedicated to providing simple steps for seemless photo posting should help. A link at the top of the posting page could then be added to help those that are having difficulties. I`ll also start a thread in M&E on this subject to garner some more input and a similar thread in the photogs section could be helpful.
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hooker
Oct 1, 2003, 6:46 AM
Post #15 of 18
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Registered: Apr 22, 2003
Posts: 173
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Make it like climbing! Self exploration is the key. Why must you put "cairns" all over the place. Let people flounder and flail around and learn on their own; it's the only time experience has any real meaning~when one has done it themselves.
"Help a man once, make a friend. Keep helping him...make him into an enemy." .....drkodos
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rcaret
Oct 1, 2003, 7:16 AM
Post #16 of 18
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Registered: Jul 30, 2002
Posts: 227
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The RC.com rating formula , Everything related to setting your profile ,How to submit photos , Routes , Start and edit your gear ( Rack ) .
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onelung
Oct 1, 2003, 7:45 AM
Post #17 of 18
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Registered: Dec 8, 2002
Posts: 436
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In reply to: when I joined I got an email from my state's manager saying "welcome, PM me if you have any questions about the site" it was a cool gesture and it gave me a human to interface with to ask questions. now that I am the state manager, I would like an alert PM to notify of a new user from my state. Even better, just sent the alert to them as an auto welcome message from me.
Uh Yea ...Hawaii would like that.
Cheers,
bill
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imnotclever
Oct 19, 2003, 3:24 PM
Post #18 of 18
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Registered: Sep 8, 2003
Posts: 10000
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I just recently found out that not all of the forum posts are linked to the front page. I still don't know which ones are not shown on the main page, is it just the LR?
As a simple site suggestion, I'd like to see the rock climbing logo with link to the main page as a footer as well. I know it is minor but when you finish reading a forum you are at the bottom of the page and have to scroll back to the top to hit the link to the main page.
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