I've posted several threads that may help beginners & learners. In no particuar order.
Over time, they become buried in their original location - so I'm reposting them here if they're any help to anyone!
There are a number of valuable contributions in each thread by others - and always welcome to add your own input - if it's relevant, adds value and is valid to the topic.
IMHO there are now far too many Threads in the Introductory Tutorials section, including many that are well beyond the capabilities of most newbies.
In among all of the Threads in the section there are several that seem like they would be very useful for newbies - but how is a newbie to find them? The Forum has no means to sort things by length or popularity or by type of content (for example video or text).
Paul__B:
that would require not moderation but active curation.
Agree 100%
But then the problem is who would do it?
IIRC I suggested in the early stages of the Introductory Tutorials section that it should only be Moderators who could add Topics to it. But in my concept that does not require the Moderators to take responsibility for curation.
My suggestion for a quasi-curation system was (is) that there be another section where proposals for inclusion could be made and where users could comment on whether a new Topic ought to be put in the Introductory system. That would allow proposals to be vetted without imposing an onerous duty on the Moderators or any other single person. If nobody commented then I would assume the proposal had no merit.
Also, IMHO, the number of Topics in the Introductory section should be limited to at most 30 - two pages. If at some stage in the future all 30 slots are filled a proposal for a new Topic would have to be good enough to justify removing one of the others.
As the person that suggested the section,
i agree with the sentiments expressed...!
I would volunteer to curate, but as in my state, I doubt I could handle the continuous flaming by the know-it-all’s that lurk in the shadows !
That’s exactly why - I thought I could contribute something, but without the stress of defending everything I said (!).
An locked index of ‘thirty themes’ to contain locked threads which are edited/maintained by that theme’s curator - a bit like a mini forum within the forum.
....and one free-for-all ‘dropbox’ thread for submissions - where those individual curators can extract ‘worthy posts’ for inclusion in ‘their’ thread, and drop the others back into general population.
GoForSmoke:
An indexing system and curator for noobs that won't bother with READ BEFORE POSTING.
What deluded optimism! Surely a sign of the end times!
I think the fact that they want to jump straight in is actually all the more reason for having a well organized "Let's get started" section.
One can certainly envisage a system that depends on a heavy burden of curating - and, realistically, there is nobody to do that. However with a relatively small amount of effort on a "once-off" basis I believe a short and helpful get-started section could be created, mostly from material that already exists. After that it would only need very occasional updates. The key is to make it read-only so people can't mess it up.
And let's not forget that us regulars benefit greatly by having stuff to which we can refer newbies rather than writing the same guff three times every day.
The "Let's get started" section should be seen as our shop window that attracts newbies. Many times we go into shops that present an attractive front without ever actually studying what was in the window. It does not make us a less valued customer.
Once of the things that hurts ideas like this is that different people think differently. What is a great help for one (Typically the author of the help) may just read like gibberish to the person its supposed to be helping.
I've run into this a lot when trying to help people. I'll hand them what they "need" to solve their issue and they have no more understanding of what I've handed them as would my cat. Then, on the other hand, I read the "blink without delay" example, and it just seems bizarre to my thinking.
Where am I going with this? Actually, I'm not really sure..
