Experimenting with the FAQ

[† Emotional Outlet]

Head over here and hover over the questions. You should get a little pop up with the answers.

Experimental section moved to the change log.

Do you prefer this kind of set up or the spoilers? Or something else entirely? I've left the other posts as they are for your reference. I know there was some discussion briefly about a Wiki, but I don't know how motivated people would be to go off-site for a FAQ.

I don't think it'll work with mobile, but if people prefer it over the spoilers, it's a fair trade.

Also if you have any other input or suggestions for the FAQ, you can drop them in this thread and I'll fix it up soon as I can. I try not to work in a vacuum, so user input is always welcome and encouraged!

Edited December 20, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[ZeroPenguins]

If you want my honest personal opinion, I think it's a terrible idea. There I said it, hate me or whatever Hahaha.

But the issue is as you were saying it won't work on mobile phones and I bet it won't work on tablets/any touch screen device. In my opinion keep it as simple as possible, it's always better not to create any unnecessary confusion for new users. Also a wiki for a forum? LOL well whatever works for you people. But I agree with you, no one would want to go off site just for help.

[† Emotional Outlet]

I wasn't sure if the spoilers were too cluttered for people, which is why I was seeing what I could do with it. And no worries about offending me, I'm not attached to the idea. I asked Java about it earlier and he doesn't like it either, so my feelings aren't hurt, haha.

What I would prefer is being able to click the question like a spoiler and have the answer show, but without the button saying "Spoiler"--if that makes sense. I don't know if the forum would be able to support such coding, so it's just a far off dream.

[Dae314]

I don't like the tool-tip thing very much myself. It's unintuitive and the box goes away after a short amount of time so long answers will disappear part way through reading them.

Using your admin powers, if you can access the raw HTML for just the posts in the FAQ, it's definitely possible to make expanding stuffies. I know jQuery makes it really easy to do expandies like that.

Alternatively, get Koby to add a dedicated FAQ page under the forum subdomain and just link to it from the faq post! That way it's not tied down by the unnecessary bbs code, and you can even style it to look just like the forum so people will never even know that they left!

Alternatively to the alternative, I don't know if there's admin tools that'll allow you to just make a "blank page" in the forum where you can play with whatever HTML you want.

[† Emotional Outlet]

A lot of webcomics I read make use of something like that (xkcd, a softer world) to add amusing commentary to their comics, haha. But I know like Post Secret started having to indicate that secrets had backs to them--the only way you'd know is if you moused over the secret, but obviously not a lot of people did that (why would you?), so now they indicate it with a little arrow.

A dedicated FAQ page would be ideal (if I could just edit the stuff in here, that'd be cool), but I don't know if the ability to edit such pages is something that can be given to me, nor do I want to have to bother Koby or Ren each time I want stuff scooted around or reworded. And I don't know if I actually have the ability to access the raw HTML of posts, haha.

[Alice]

Personally, don't care for it. I find it highly annoying. Putting that aside...I think all it would do is provide confusion for new and old users. If you hadn't explained it I would only gotten frustrated trying to figure it out...if I had figured it out at all. I honestly believe in the saying..."Don't fix what just isn't broken." The

feature provide what it needs to. I don't believe it clutters anything. Also I agree with what was said above...that it would not be a usable feature for portable devices (except for laptops, of course).

Edited December 18, 2012 by Dreamcastor

[spidey5443]

If the spoilers aren't to people's liking you could use different colours to highlight the answer from the question and maybe make the answer's text bold? And by that I don't mean for every question & answer you should use a different colour

Well, spoilers are good but too many makes it a bit annoying, impo.

Great Job, though. Not a lot of people can do that, actually it's me who can't too that much work, so Greak work, EO!

Here's a question, though:

Why I can't I delete my post, if it's the last post in the thread? I mean, I've seen there is a delete button for it on other forums like, you know if you feel like, deleting your post as you might have posted something wrong or stupid or something like that.....now you would say staff is there for that reason but bugging staff for just that isn't a good idea in my opinion. What do you say about that?

It's good that you don't try to work in a vacuum.....cause I heard you can't live in it for not too long.

[† Emotional Outlet]

I moved the experimental section to the change log in case it was confusing anyone. (Do the change logs--there's one for the rules too--help anyone?)

And I added a question index to the first post--does this look okay to you guys? Redundant? Cluttered? I thought it might give people an overview of what's in the FAQ.

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The only problem with colours is I don't want to exclude the colour blind and I don't know how to make it look good on both the light and dark skins. I'm colour dumb, haha.

The fact that it looks pretty ugly and/or annoying when there's a bunch of spoilers is something I don't really know how to work around given my limited resources and creativity. I think it obtrusive to leave all of the answers out in the open--people would have to scroll past the ones they don't care about and it would look intimidating to have a bunch of information presented at once. I tried to make link anchors work, but they don't seem to??

The only other thing I can think of is creating a separate post for each question and linking them individually in the first post, but that would get unwieldy quickly. It's not as clunky as the hover answers, but it's still pretty clunky, I think, especially since I would have to edit a whole bunch of posts just to add one question to a section.

And yes, vacuums are difficult to live in! (Not to mention my vacuum is a piece of garbage and I wish it worked better on tile, ugh. #firstworldproblems)

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We don't really delete non-spambot posts on the forum--see the Farplane's 42 page Compendium of Spam, haha. It's honestly fine if you message me about deleting or moving posts or just report them--it doesn't take much time at all. Reports are the first thing I check and it usually only takes me like three seconds to complete a report. If you feel you've posted something wrong or stupid (I do that every day), you can just edit your post.

Allowing people to delete their post if it's the last in a thread is a thing that would be in Koby's purview.

I know some fora are really serious about not letting people delete their posts for sundry reasons--it disrupts the flow of conversation, it can mess up the database, people who rage quit can potentially delete threads they've started and take other people's posts down with them. It's a power easily abused, even if it's only soft deletions or the last post in a thread. While I can get behind the sentiment of being able to delete a post only if it's the last one in a thread, it doesn't really seem like a necessary addon.

That's just me, though! I don't know why this specific forum doesn't allow for it. I'm more enforcer than policy maker, haha.

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Somewhat off topic, but--real talk, I am here to help you guys and serve your forum needs. If you think something needs fixing, you have to let me know so I can try to fix it. If you think something needs to be changed, added, removed, or moved around, it's well within your privilege to let the staff know about it. It doesn't mean we're going to do everything you ask, but everything you ask will be considered.

I'm a firm believer in having an open door policy, so I'm always willing to discuss these matters with people. I try to be online every day and I can be reached through a number of ways--to include Tumblr, Facebook, Pesterchum, and my personal email--so if there's anything anyone wants to discuss with me, regardless of whether it's personal or forum-related, I'm usually available.

[spidey5443]

Didn't get the changelog thing.....

Onto the next question, it's gorgeous! But, why isn't the anchor link working? That would make it much better. Good thinking for the first post.

Oh, I totally forgot there are different skins on this forum.....maybe cause I just kept with the default one. Yea, it's pretty difficult to manage a colour good enough for the both dark and light skins. There goes the colour option out the window.............whooosh!

Yep, I don't have a clue about working around with all those spoilers out there.

I for one never really read the faqs in my whole life of 22yrs, so yea, didn't know it would look intimidating to new comers.

Separate post for each question? That would be too much! It's fine as it is, according to my opinion.

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Err........which part of deleting my post if it's the last post of the topic did you not get? lol. I know I can edit it, but once in your life there comes a moment where you feel like you just should delete the post.....i was talking about that moment, EO! Like you've posted a flamey post and you're like hey I should delete it before the other guy sees it(like you felt it's not okay to flame him there or something) It's just one example though.

I commend your work as a mod, but I just don't feel like pming mods and bugging them for deleting a single post when it's the last post in the topic which could easily be done by me without hurting the ongoing converstion.

Yea, Koby he is out on a leave well when he gets back I'll ask him I guess. I won't stop here.....I will go to higher courts! I want moar power!!!

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Yep sure, I'll pm your whenever I want, even if you won't reply back I'll just keep bugging you, don't you worry!

[† Emotional Outlet]

Well, I call them change logs, but that's probably super wrong. Basically it's the last post in the rules and FAQ threads outlining the changes I've made to the threads and when. The rules thread also contains previous iterations beneath the log. So like on the FAQ you see that I split up the questions based on category on the 12th of October. They're not complete or even really good.

It should be pretty easy to make your way through a forum without reading a FAQ if you keep to basic etiquette. I just happen to be the kind of person who reads help documentation before posting questions on a forum--kind of drilled into me since I used to be a regular lurker at a fairly abrasive, if abusive, forum. It was the kind of place where if you asked a question they've answered already, you'd get yelled at and told to "search moar noob". And I'm really shy about talking to people--like it took me well over a month to work up the courage to schedule a hair cut, haha.

I understood what you were asking about deleting posts! I was speaking fairly generally. I understand the reasoning behind wanting the ability, it just doesn't seem like a necessary one. It really is no bother to be messaged about it, even if you do it every day, omg. I can put you on a mod queue if it gets to that point, haha. But, like I said, that's not my decision to make. Maybe Koby really likes the idea, I dunno!

[Koby]

I'll try to figure out whats wrong with anchors (if we have them, if not I'll see about adding them).

EO, I think you can edit the actual forums built in FAQ actually, but you'd need to be an admin. I've been considering making you an admin anyways (especially since I haven't been able to be around due to life circumstances).

[† Emotional Outlet]

Word. If I could edit the built in FAQ, that'd be pretty neat, but it's not super necessary and it's up to you! Babies are so much work, omg, haha. One of my friends just had their baby like yesterday and they're planning a Christmas dinner tomorrow and they just moved, so they've been super bogged down with stuff.

If you need me to do more work, I'm down with that and happy to do so~