How does WP Questions work? WordPress
- SOLVED
I am cheating a bit. This question is not about WordPress. It is about WP Questions.
This post is targeted at those of you who have been using the site awhile.
We need more tutorials. Every week we get 50 to 100 new people who sign up on this site. Then they email us and ask the same questions, over and over again. So I've started thinking, we need better tutorials for those who are new to the site.
Darren and I lack the time to put together tutorials ourselves. So we are going to ask your help.
We have done 2 tutorials so far:
[[LINK href="http://www.wpquestions.com/page/static/name/HowToAskAQuestion"]]How to ask a question[[/LINK]]
[[LINK href="http://www.wpquestions.com/page/static/name/HowToAssignPrizeMoney"]]How to assign prize money[[/LINK]]
We need more of these, something I can point new members to via an introductory email, when they first sign up.
Here's what I ask of you:
1.) think about what would confuse you if you were just joining the site today
2.) take a screenshot of that thing, if possible
3.) write 2 or 3 sentences about how that thing works
4.) post the screenshot and the text here.
I will then incorporate these screenshots into a tutorial.
I'm going to split the prize among those who participate. I'm starting the prize at $200, though if a lot of people participate, I can raise the prize to $300.
By the way, we already have an [[LINK href="http://www.wpquestions.com/page/static/name/About"]]FAQ[[/LINK]], but we do not have screenshots to illustrate what is described on that FAQ.
[UPDATE]: one more thing I'd like to request is advice about how the community works. What is considered normal behavior on WP Questions? I realize this is not something you can get a screenshot of, but I do think it is important. What advice would you give to someone new to the site?
[UPDATE]: buzu b had an idea.
If any of you want to act as points of contact for new members, say so and I will add you to the introductory email (this offer is those of you who are active on the site). New members would get an introductory email that says something like:
"The following people are not employees of WP Questions, however, they are active on the site and they have volunteered to answer questions about the site:"
And then this would be followed by a list of volunteers.
[UPDATE]: I am curious, those of you who have been on the site awhile, is there anything people new to the site do that annoys you?
[UPDATE]: someone just wrote to me and asked if we have an affiliate program. I feel like we have been very clear about our affiliate program, but people still miss it. Any suggestions for how we could make our affiliate program more clear?
Answers (7)
Erez S answers:
I think you should add something like "Welcome" block for non-registered members, with important links and links to those tutorials.
But I think this site is pretty clear, but if there is the same questions over and over again then put them all in the FAQ and add bigger link to the FAQ for non-registered because now it's almost impossible to find the FAQ page...
To sum up:welcome block, imporatant link, extend the FAQ.
:)
Erez S comments:
Another thing I think you should add is related questions, because a lot of times I see questiong which someone already asked and then I'v just have to copy the answer from there and to change few lines, so related question will help to give faster answer
Lawrence Krubner comments:
Ezra, as to related questions, we will soon introduce a triple tag tag system (often called machine tags) API, exactly like the one on Flickr. And, just like on Flickr, we will leave it to you, the members of the sites, to tag the posts and create the relationships.
Lawrence Krubner comments:
Erez, extending the FAQ may not help, since people are not reading what is already there. But I think perhaps adding some screenshots would help make things clear to people. So if you have any screenshots you'd like to upload, please do.
Erez S comments:
I think people don't read it because its link is pretty small, so as I said, if you'll add big welcome block for non-registered with big link to the FAQ - I'm pretty sure almost everybody will read the FAQ
Lawrence Krubner comments:
Erez, you may be right. We are going to start sending out an introductory email with a big link to the FAQ.
However, I also think people don't read it because they dislike reading blocks of text. People skim for information, and some screenshots would be helpful in that regard.
Erez S comments:
I think you right, but almost everybody who looking for some answers would look read the FAQ first instead of sending email to the admin
enodekciw answers:
First of all, as Erez S mentioned above - you should make FAQ button to stand out a bit more.
Now, from my personal experience using wpquestions.com:
Website itself is pretty self explainatory and easy to use. BUT.. One thing that got me confused not a long time ago is different formating of main comment and responses (see attachement). Maybe it would be better to format those comments more similar. Because now, choosing a winner by answer time could lead to wrong decision.
Just writing this comment, another thing that bugs me a lot came to my mind. It's not that it is very confusing thing, but, as I've said, it bugs me alot. Sometimes, discussion between asker/expert becomes pretty long and it takes a lot of scrolling to get to comment form or to find comment that you're looking for (i.e. looking for similar solution). So, it would be great to have all the comments (discussions between asker/expert) collapsed, and you could just expand them to see particular answer? Also, I've take my time to make quick example of this (second attachement). Or we could have just a winning answer expanded by default ;) such functionality implemention should also help to obtain that identical comment formating I've mentioned before.
enodekciw comments:
Also, it would be great if we could attach more than one attachement ;)
Cause now, i had to write another comment just to attach that second attachement I've mentioned in previous comment.