Forum Map?

Hi there,

Have you ever seen or do you use any sort of a "forum map" for new members or do you just let them fend for themselves?

We are currently rewriting the FAQ to be more user-friendly for our specific forum, but I suspect there are better cooler ways to get the job done?

:shrug:

 

Well, I did try writing the FAQ to remove the aspects of bad writing (you know, like 'the administrator MAY have allowed you to...' parts), but I haven't done much more than that at the moment. A few screenshots in the FAQ may have helped though.

 

You mean like a site map? Or just a listing of the main areas of the site?

I just have the main areas represented in the header images, with navigation for each section in the navbar.

 

Peacelily - that sounds like a really interesting idea. Being somewhat new to forums, I don't know if as a user I would look to the FAQ section to provide a map for me. Perhaps it could be beneficial to attach your "map" to the a Welcome email or PM.

I'm currently involved in a thread on how a new forum should be structured. I just questioned how you meet the needs of community members that are new to a topic vs. those that are already educated the topic. Perhaps your map is a good solution.

What type of information do you want to include in the map?

Thanks,
RR

 

Hi there,

After wrestling with vBadvanced and writing a map directly in HTML using the "How to Create Your Own vBulletin pages", I finally ended up just adding the map into the FAQ for now.

Here is how I did it.

Tokio Hotel - Official USA Fanclub - FAQ: Tokio Hotel Forums Map

In the long run, I would like to create pages in HTML, but the band for which the forum is the Official US Fanclub has a single coming out soon and I have too much else to do to write those pages right now.

:o

We are going to try to do an Amazing Race and that is going to take a lot of time, so I can make the map better later.

Yes, some sections are still blank, I delegated other people to do the writing.

 

It looks interesting but I am unsure of the benefit that it would provide.

A sitemap is generally just a list of links to all of the various pages on your site. What you have in your forum map could easily be the front page. All of those descriptions that you wrote should be on the front page in the forum listing. It is there they would provide the best benefit to your users as well as providing search engine benefits to your site. The less clicks people have to use to find information the better. As a newcomer if I didn't know what your site was about by looking at the first page, I am not going to go digging into the FAQ to find out.

 

Thank you for your honesty.

I am, admittedly, shooting fish in a barrel trying to be helpful to the new members who don't seem to understand how to read a forum or get around.

It's hard for me to get into their mindset because it has become such second nature for me to understand a forum, that I can't make my brain go backwards. If that makes any sense?

I was looking here at AA and I might try that Forum Jump dropdown like Nick has implemented here.

We are due to explode by about 30% any day now and I am hoping that with some places to point people who are "I'm LOST" that it will help the moderators a little?

:shrug:

 

Well to be honest, I have been using vBulletin for 10 years and am lost on your site. What is Tokyo Hotel? Who are they?

I am guessing that because you're a fan club they are a music or perfomance group. That you have a ticker to their next concert allows me to surmise they are a music group. However past that I have no clue. What kind of music? What is their background? Anything on Discography? As an official fan club, you should have permission to use these details. The front page says you have some of this but I can't find it anywhere.

If you have a discography than you should link to it on the front page where it is mentioned. There should be a page on "About Tokyo Hotel". The purpose of a fanclub is actually outreach and to get new people interested in the subject and eager to join.

What is your relationship with: Tokio Hotel – Official US Fanclub ? That site tells me what I need to know about the group. Did you create it?

 

When you say you are lost, are you lost because of ... not knowing who the band is or other vBulletin setup stuff that I can also fix? Your opinion is super valuable to me.

Yes, we have the forum and main site on a .com and .net situation because of server and costs. Right now, each are on separate hosting plans because there is no way we can afford to pay for dedicated and we want to keep both sites running. The main site is wordpress and I have never wanted to use the Wordpress/vBulletin bridge for fear of someone not keeping it up to date and then I would be stuck in a funky situation of things not working. And, they are not on the same domain.

So yeah, tha.com is the main site, as it were and the .net is the forum.

We just recently have decided to try to use the forum as the place where people can join the fanclub, because that is the largest request we get, however the main record label, Universal, really has no "fanclub joining" as you might see other artists have, i.e., "$30 and you can join the fanclub and we will send you a sticker".

I literally (like yesterday) just installed vBadvanced to build a better launch page for the forum at: Tokio Hotel USA Fanclub

and from there I was going to make subpages for discography and band bio, even if it is redundant to the information contained on the .com site.

(we are going to be setting up donations and may be able to move to dedicated which would make things more cohesive I know)