Druchii.net

Periodically, since (somewhat) recently Rork re-engineered our FAQ into PDF, I've been thinking of ways to encourage (or trick) people to read the FAQ, or at the very least take notion to its existence.

It is not easy. I occasionally play and host SAU and regularly encounter people who have missed any explanation about rules, either inadvertedly (i.e. they genuinely missed it) or through sheer apathy. It made me think on how to encourage people to read the rules, hence.

Druchii.net has a menu bar on top. Those of you who had not yet noticed may now nod fervently as if they knew. Currently, it holds a plethora of links I find vital to my enjoyment of this site--in particular Home, Forums, Login/Control Panel, and I'm sure langmann and Kala are fond of the Donate button. RPG and Herald Webzine are links I use less but point to areas characteristic to Druchii.net: its very own magazine, and the RPG.

Perhaps we should include the FAQ in the menu bar. But to prevent the menu bar from becoming crowded, we'd need to replace something else. Personally, my choices would go to either RPG, Initiatives, Campaign, or Donate, for the following reasons:

• RPG As much as we can say that our RPG is somewhat distinct from others (and Morvai would kill me over it), I'm not sure it deserves two spots in the menu. After all, it is already in the Forums submenu. RPG also connects us to the actual roleplaying forums, while people should only be there after they've posted a character in the trading forum, and so on, and so forth.
  
• Initiatives I'm not positive on how well-based my view on this is, but I spot little activity on the initiative areas. I could be wrong here, though, and keeping them in the menu bar has some exposure for potential members.
  
• Campaign is over. I've heard a great many good things of it, and that merits it a spot in a Hall of Fame, but I'm not sure it should remain in our menu bar. No intention to sound disrespectful, though.
  
• Donate There is a menton on the front page. I'm not sure how many people donate--I doubt it's a great many--but since I don't want to skimp on anything that may help the owners pay for this site, I'm not that much in favour of losing this.

Personally, I check a forum/website by its link menu. If I see anything like a FAQ or Q&A in there, I give it a look, since it gives me an idea of what the website is like. (Like you can judge a guy by the state of his kitchen, you can judge a website by the state of its FAQ.)

What's your opinion on it? Does replacing one of the above menu items with a link to the FAQ sound like a good idea, or a waste of time? Why?

It would certainly be nice to have a FAQ link on the top bar. We'd have to wake one of the webmasters from their slumber (A stick is good fun ) and see what they can do.

Not if they're anything like an Eldar avatar...and do we really have members to throw away on the altar like that??

Seriously it'd definately be a good plan, it'd just be a case of smacking a few wrists and locking a few threads before people start to take notice.

Alkkrision wrote:Not if they're anything like an Eldar avatar...and do we really have members to throw away on the altar like that??

They sacrifice Exarchs to Avatars...and I'd say moderators are a bit like Exarchs, when you think about it...

Y'know, I really think that is a very good idea!

I wish I'd kept my mouth shut now .

I think it would help ALOT. But I don't think that the toolbar is crowded yet. There is good place for one more, maybe two. So I say we make a webmaster add it, and wait until there are need for yet another one to remove something.

I think it would be a great idea to ad it to the toolbar... Think there is more then enough space for it. (eaven when you have bookmarks open)

It's not as much the menubar being "stuffed" as there being too many items for the discerning newcomer to go through. You can partly solve this by sticking the FAQ well to the left--say, in between "Chat" and "RPG"?

Remember, we are used to this menu bar, but if newcomers see a bar filled to every nook and cranny with helpful links, they won't check out a single one of them. Now, that's okay for the not 100% obvious items, such as Initiatives, but a FAQ needs exposure. And stickies don't get read.

Done.

langmann
Webmaster

2007/03/14 EST