"Comment on this answer:" suggestion to help newbies

About This Message Board
1

Onceuponatime, longlongago and farfaraway, I registered for this humble board, thinking it might be a good place to hang out and learn something.

Then, overjoyed that Cecil, one of my heroes from books and articles decades back, was now online, I read some of his columns in the Internet. At the end of each, I found a link that said, “Comment on this answer”. Oh, good, says I. If I want to discuss X, all I have to do is click on the link and I will be in the middle of an ongoing conversation about X. I can plunge right in.

Alas and alack!. Clicking on this link led me instead to this page:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/index.php?

…which is the SDMB main page. Now what? OK, I’m not blind, thank yew, so I’ll click on the “Comments on Cecil’s Columns” forum.

Now what? Doesn’t seem to be anything relating to the original column. What next?

Please don’t laugh at me. I’m sure it seems ridiculous now to 99.99% of us reading this, but I gave up, and never came back to SDMB for a long time. I had better things to do than try to wade thru the catacombs and flaws of this site. The Internet was much younger then and other attractions beckoned.

To analyze what happened – “comment on this answer” didn’t lead where I logically thought it should, to a discussion on that particular subject. If it had, things would have been different.

So, what I am proposing to the admins, mods and other Cecil-wannabes, is that the “Comment…” link lead to an intermediate page which explains what options you have. Just brainstorming here, but they might be things like “Our Straight Dope Message Board is divided into Forums. To comment on this topic, look in the “Comments” Forum for something that relates to it…if you find one, read the posts and add yours to the end.”

“You will have to be a member of SDMB to post your comments. If you have not yet registered (it’s a one-time thing), read all about it here…”

"If no topic is shown for your selected subject, you may create one. Your first post should include a link to Cecil’s column so we all know what brought you here and and we’re all on the same page, so to speak…"

I’m sure this could be augmented considerably and be made better organized, but this is a start. Surely this isn’t a big task and no special HTML, Java or PHP coding is required, just a link change to the archive pages and a new HTML page created (or it could just be a sticky).

Any one think this is a good idea? Have pity on the newbies! Weren’t you one once?

2

I ran into that issue myself. Luckily, I already had experience on forums and knew what was going on. Still, I couldn’t be arsed to search for the relevant thread and just let it go.

Starting the thread (possibly including the full text of the column on the first post so people can quote) and linking directly to it would be just perfect.

Might even open the door for people who want to say something but don’t want to be the first poster.

Excellent call, Musicat

3

I agree that linking directly to a pertinent thread would be ideal. Indeed, that’s what I thought would happen when I first clicked, having no forum experience outside of Compuserve’s text interface.

But that would require:[ul][li]A thread already started on the topic, and if more than one existed, which one to link to? (Over time, since Cecil’s columns are “recycled”, so that often happens.) If there were an “official” thread started each time a column was written, that might work, but I’ll bet the mods won’t like that extra work much.[*]It would require maintanence of the column links, fixing them if the threads were deleted or archived, etc.[/ul]On the other hand, linking to a more generic page with hints and instructions would be much less of a hassle. I’m not against requiring the user to do a little work, but I certainly want to make it as easy as possible.[/li][quote]
Might even open the door for people who want to say something but don’t want to be the first poster.
[/quote]
Exactly. With SDMB now as a paid site, new blood should be encouraged even more.

4

I think that is an excellent idea!

5

Tally so far: 3 votes for, 0 against. It’s a mandate!

6

It would be a nice feature. I debated at first whether to post on the board, knowing those questions never hit the actual column, but then I decided that Cecil only answered two or three each week and probably got three or four in the mail, so the backlog would be enormous. Little did I realize that all the mail is arguing about prior answers, so that Cecil has to just make up all the questions :smiley:

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Not discounting anything that we might be able to come up with in the future – who knows what new technology brings? – but right now this wish list is really not an option for us.

We deliberately choose not to create a new thread in Comments on Cecil’s Columns; we want that form of expression to come from you, our community members. You shape the form discussion takes from the beginning (within the confines of the individual forum areas) and that’s how it should be.

8

I totally agree, and think that the thread’s initiation should come from the public, and that’s the point I tried to get across in my 2nd post.

But that was not my original suggestion. You can’t “shape the …discussion” if you are clueless about how to register, start a thread or post in an existing one, or don’t understand the very basics of message board operation, practice and principles.

If you had an “intermediate” HTML page with instructions on HOW to shape the discussion by registering and/or creating that thread, that wouldn’t be so hard, would it? And once created, it wouldn’t have to change or be maintained every time a column is posted; just link to the same one. The link at the end of each Cecil column would point to this new page, not to the SDMB’s main page or a forum main page, where newbies don’t know what to do.

Does it sound ridiculous that someone doesn’t know what to do when confronted with a message board? Maybe to you and me. But I will guarantee that 99% of my neighbors in a mostly retirement community have never posted on any message board and most don’t know what it is. If I say, “Why don’t you come to the [whatever] message board and post your question?” , they look at me blankly. The Internet is totally confusing to them. But I have no doubt that they could learn and be valuable contributors if they could be helped over the hump.

It’s not a complicated process; it doesn’t involve any hacking of vB software, just a nicely written HTML text page with a few hints, kinks, and links. I’ll even volunteer to write a rough draft of it if you want to tentatively OK the project. In fact, I already have…a rough, rough draft…look at the OP.

9

That sounds like a good idea. You’ve done all the work. The tech guy would only have to upload your page and change one link to point to it instead of Comments on Cecil’s Columns. Couldn’t take 2 minutes tops.

10

Cases in point. Today alone, two new posters started threads without knowing how this board works:

At least they posted in the correct forum (I think). Note that each one had to be helped by explaining “When you start a thread, it’s helpful to others if you provide a link to the Column under discussion…” (Dex), which is the kind of advice that should be shown to the poster BEFORE they get that far. This happens all the time – I myself have replied with similar text when Dex had his hands full, and so have many others.

My suggested text for an intermediate page is only a rough draft. I’m sure it could be expanded a little and made more user friendly, so I’m not saying it is ready to go. Perhaps we need a thread to discuss just what needs to be included and how to word it. Ask people what wrong turns they first took and how we could avoid those. It’s not a huge project, and very little work for Jerry (none in the future, as default future bottom-of-colm links would take care of pointing to a single HTML page).

Or instead of an intermediate page, a link off the registering page, “Read this to see how to use SDMB to your best advantage and ours.”

It would certainly make SDMB more user-friendly up front.