Site tour for n00bs?

[Jools]

Just wondering if I were to produce an article (or possibly video) to provide a tour / orientation of the site and its features, what would be your top 5 things to mention and describe? Traffic analysis of the site leads me to believe new folks don't see/understand the breadth of the site.

Can you give me your top 3 or 5s?

Cheers,

Jools

[PlecosAndLoaches]

Great idea! My two cents:

1.) Forum basics (incl. rules for posting)
2.) How to register (and how to save your login info so you don't have to re-login everytime you visit the site)
3.) My Fish & My Aquaria ("tell us what you've got")
4.) Search feature
5.) Cat-eLog (how to get the most out of the profiles & learn from others' experience)

[Jools]

That's a good start, can I assume they're in order of importance? On 5, the Cat-eLog, what things, do you think, help you get the most out of the profiles?

Jools

[bekateen]

I joined only about 7 months ago, and I can still remember some of the questions I had back then. So based on those, and what I've seen new members ask in the forums since then, here are my suggestions (very similar to PlecosAndLoaches' ideas), in order of priority:

1. What is this site? What is its purpose? Who is the intended audience? What can people get/learn from the site?
2. How do people navigate through and use features like Cat-eLog and Shane's World articles?
3. Why should people join? (Since so many of the resources are available free of charge to nonmembers already) And once people register, how can they participate/contribute? How do they set up their profile? (add cats, aquaria, BLOGs, etc) ? How do they connect with other members, to become a part of the community? And importantly, how does their participation become integrated into the database of knowledge that is available on this site? (this acknowledges that the site is somewhat of a crowd-built site; each member's presence matters and improves the site for everyone else)
4. How can people navigate and use the forums? I'm guessing that most new people ask four basic questions: (A) What is my fish? (B) How do I take care of my fish? (C) How do I handle my sick fish? (D) How do I breed my fish? (when I first joined, I remember myself being distracted by all the forum icons (viewtopic.php?f=17&t=40980); turns out they really didn't mean much, but they are still useful).
5. How can people use the three search tools (Site, Species, and Forum) to the greatest advantage? Which tool is right for them at this time? What keywords should they chose? How can they narrow/focus their results?

Cheers, Eric
P.S. Yes, WAY more than 5 questions, but still organized into 5 "subjects."

[JamesFish]

Well I'm still a n00b and will remain so for a long time. Compared to the knowledge on here I doubt I will ever be an expert.

My simple request would be a jump page for common area's. A simple here's key area's and use them sort of jump.

1. Species search

• What's my catfish

• Most common catfish in the hobby - AKA the ones you should find on the sticky post

• Basic posting guide - How to attach an image

• How to find all advanced bits - Stuff I probably still haven't

This may be a bit vague or useless for more advanced users but sometimes simple does.

[Shaddrag]

Hello,
I just joined about 10 days ago. So I might have some valuable feedback (maybe not)...

The hardest thing for me to figure out was posting pics onto the forum threads. I was able to muscle my way thru it, but a short tutorial would have been super helpful.
Other than that, I've been dealing with different types of forums for so long, that most of the other stuff seems pretty basic. I still get lost in the Cat e-Log though (mostly due to searching and reading so I can learn more)

If you are going to make a tutorial, you should include:
1: Forum registration
2. Building your profile (My Fish and My Aquaria)
3: Forum basics (this should include a short bit on adding pics to posts)
4: The different search features (which I have found to be crazy helpful)
5: General breakdown of Cat e-Log (nothing too overwhelming, just the basics)

[Jools]

That's all good feedback and what I was looking for. Please keep it coming! I should also clarify that I meant newbies to the site and not necessarily fishkeeping newbies.

Jools

[Nabobmob1]

I would also include what the different codes mean

My cats species list: 77 (i:6, k:28)My aquaria list: 23 (i:12)My BLogs: 6 (i:5, p:169)

it took me some time to figure that out.

[bekateen]

I would also include what the different codes mean

My cats species list: 77 (i:6, k:28)My aquaria list: 23 (i:12)My BLogs: 6 (i:5, p:169)

it took me some time to figure that out.

Definitely yes. And "(m: 3, f: 2, j: 30, u: 4, t: 35)" may be a little more obvious, but until you set yours up, you don't know where the numbers are coming from and therefore what the letters mean.

[Marine590622]

How to research the answers that are already here, before asking a question. IE, how to find breeding reports on species I am working with. Once I realized those were there I was able to step up my breeding without asking a bunch of questions.

How to organize my question to provide the information that the experts will need before I post the question.