Concerning Stickies

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SchizophrenicMC

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So, I was browsing the Noob Forum, today, and I realized something rather... To be honest, disappointing. The first half of the page on the forum is a bunch of stickies. I glossed right over them, looking for meaningful topics. And it came to me. One of the reasons no one reads stickies is because there're too -blam!- many of 'em!

I mean, try and go through the noob forum without overlooking them on purpose. I get that everyone's responsible to read them. (I did that of my own accord, but then, I read too much anyway) I empathize with that rule. But, at the same time, in the state of disarray they're in, no one wants to read them. In my opinion, the stickies need to be re-organized, cut down, and cross-referenced.

That being said, I think there should be a subforum that contains all armoring stickies, within the build forum, and a pinned thread in every build forum that links to the sub-forum. This way, you cut down clutter in the build forums, themselves (an issue that greatly upset me when I was building my armor, because only like 3 actual threads ever displayed, they were so pushed down by stickies), and leave room for actual community content.

I also believe there should be some way to systematically ensure people have actually read the stickies before they post a question thread. Perhaps a quiz of some sort? I'm not actually very sure of a solution for this problem.

In any case, I'd like to hear opinions and feedback on the idea, and to those who know, if there's any logistical issue preventing this, what and why that is. Thanks for reading this, and I await your responses.
 
Two thoughts on this.

First of all: The problem isn't the "state they're in", the problem is that many new members want to have everything handed to them on a silver platter. Not all that they call you on the phone in the middle of the night and demand that you come over right now to do the building for them. Somebody like this will read nothing, no matter how you present the knowledge, and most likely won't have the patience to watch an hour of tutorial video either. Those people can't be helped. Then, on the other hand, there are people who do read, and you may notice that they don't seem to care too much about the abundance of stickies, at least once they get the hang of the forum.

Secondly, I agree that some organising could to be done, but I think that editing all the tutorials/stickies isn't neccessary (or easily possible, since each tutorial belongs to its author). I think what would be really helpful to new members is an article on the main page or a single post on the forum (yeah, another stickie, a super-stickie, so to speak ;-)). Something graphical, like a flowchart, that makes it easy to see where the different methods "interact" with each other (i.e. rondo being an alternative to fiberglass, pepakura and clay both leading to a product that can be moulded) and then providing the links to the other tutorials to provide in-depth knowledge on each topic.
 
\I glossed right over them, looking for meaningful topics. And it came to me. One of the reasons no one reads stickies is because there're too -blam!- many of 'em!

It's a basic rule of usability; if everything is important, nothing is important. I don't agree with the quizzing (especially since half the stickies have busted pictures from the revamp), but moving them all to a subforum would be ideal.
 
You could call it the "405th Hand book" or something like that. I think that would be pretty neat. I've noticed the amount of stickies and it's just become habit to gloss over them to find the first non-sticky thread. I've read all the stickies though.

Or, to take it a step further. Have "Stages" that are defined and the Stickies that may puritan to those stages. Just an idea.
 
If I may put a few of my cents in:
One problem with many of the stickies is that yes, they may have the answer to your question, you just have to dig through a few dozen pages of posts to find them.
What would be nice is to have a table of contents at the begining of each sticky thread, directing them to posts on that particular subject.
An example:
Say I want to know more on how to fix cracks in Rondo, so I would look in the fiberglass, resin, and bondo stickie. Instead of sorting through 24 pages of information, just a look at the table of contents would direct me to post #111 where the subject is covered.

This would solve a few things:
1. Since things are easier to find, it will appear to the more lazy part of the community.
2. It would cut down on some unnessicary posts asking how to do this or that for common problems.
3. It would allow people to find information insainly faster.

Sure, it may require some moderator maintanance to keep everything updated and current, but it should be well worth it.

Any thoughts on my idea?
 
The biggest navigational problem I've ran into aren't with the fiberglass and up stages of armor making - there's so many tutorials for 'beginning pepakura', and each has their own tidbits that are helpful, that can get confusing. You pretty much have to search instead of just going to the sticky. At least if you have my short-term memory.

Like this morning, I was looking for information on what size the paper should be (had a crummy feeling that the helmet I started last night was the wrong size). I tried to look through the stickies first but couldn't locate the information quickly, then turned around and ran a search. The information is definitely all out there x10, but there has to be a better way of getting it out there. It still probably won't prevent the newbie question barrage, but it will improve the professional look of the site and most likely make it easier for the serious newbies to find what they need.
 
On the issue of newbies wanting it handed to them, I really gotta agree there. With my incredibly low work ethic, I've just stopped listening to people posting on my page, asking for help. Brings me back to the idea of having some, kind-of-harsh, universal standard, by which all members must abide, without fail.

The whole "quiz" note would just be a recap of the most common questions, answerable by sticky, which must be successfully answered before someone can post in the armor threads. Of course, it's just a thought, though, it does hearken back to schools and driver's ed.

In any case, making the stickies more convenient to read and to find information from would only serve to motivate new members to read and try and understand them, first on their own, then, with the assistance of the veterans. It'd also help anyone who knows what to do, but wants to try some new method, find what they need.

We seem to have a lot of moderators, but I only ever see them locking threads, posting infrequently, or threatening punishment for breaking rules. While these are most definitely the jobs of the moderators, it is also theirs to maintain that kind of information. Maybe I'm stepping a bit out of line in saying I want the stickies cleaned up, compiled, fixed, and set up in such a way I can find out what I want to know without asking someone, who's probably answered the question too many times, but I feel it's necessary.

As much as no one reads the stickies, much of the time, when someone tries to, they're overwhelmed, or something's broken. All we can really do, if we expect our less-experienced members to try this out on their own before asking for help, is make sure they can access the information they need to do that. Is that a task, in and of itself? Yes, but it's a necessary one, least in my opinion...
 
Being on here for about a month myself.. At first I was lost asked a few redundant questions but as I learned how to use the advance search tool or ask questions properly you can get and find the answers. Only thing I noticed was no easy pep or 3d file data bases but understand this site was damaged from a hack and recovery can take time.
 
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