Forum suggestions

These are some good suggestions, I've added a beginners section near the top of the front page and I like the idea of a sticky at the top of the beginners forum. Just one small problem though, I have no idea what to write in it!

Help!

Bart B.,
IFAS Web Team.

These are some good suggestions, I've added a beginners section near the top of the front page and I like the idea of a sticky at the top of the beginners forum. Just one small problem though, I have no idea what to write in it!

Help!

Bart B.,
IFAS Web Team.

Hi Bart,
I think that you have to word it in as friendly a manner as possible. Also explaining that if admin does not admit you straight away, that you should please be patient. Be Friendly, the new commers friend, not their boss quoting the rules and regs of what you can and cant post. This is VERY Important. Short and to the point with a big welcome in it

WELCOME

Look bart, maby you could set up an e-mail address that any of the admin can access the content. All the admins and the mods aswell, all have the password for. This contact address should be included in the welcome message. And so what if you have to delete the odd spam out of the folder every day. Its a contact e-mail that a new commer can actually talk to a real person and get a reply within a fue hours.

All i saw when i tryed to join was a very un-inviting rules and regs forum with locked threads and no way to actually talk to any person. Its only because i love science, astronomy and space that i had the patients to wait.

The other thing. Somebody needs to be deligated the task of contacting the people who have joined your forum and who have not posted anything. Many of these people are probaly young enthuastic teanagers that got turned away by what i discribed. These are people who all had enough intrest in astronomy to sign in to your forum. You have an e-mail address for every one of them!. Contact them for god sake and in a friendly manner invite them back. Ask, in a nice way why they are not partisipating. Also explaning that it is OK to come and read the message board and not post anything.

These poor kids or adults deserve that the you follow up on there intrest in astronomy. These are lost customers that were willing to buy into what you are selling. Its a poor sales man that does not chase the customer who came to him in the first place. Astronomy and this message board are products that you should be trying to sell. You need to deligate if you dont have enough admin and mods.

And maby appoint someone who is good with words and is clever, to be your marketing and sales manager. This is a very skilled job and there is a tonne of work involved in it. But it could dramatically increase the numbers on this board and up your membership for group events.

You do need the contact e-mail for fast response. Printed in several realy obvious places for new commers to see. Deleteing the rubbish is a small price.

Sounds like a sales pitch to me. By any chance are you in sales Paddyinspace?

Paddy, I appreciate your comments but this is a volunteer organisation not a company. We provide a service and if people choose to use it, great, if they don't grand, it's not appropriate for us to go hounding them over it. Besides, who is going to do that? We have trouble enough finding the time to do the essential maintenance around this place. We all have jobs, we all have real lives, these boards are something we volunteer some of our free time to. I'm all for small improvements to try to make things better, like the changes you suggested to the home page which have been implemented, but I think you're being un-realistic now and expecting more form us than a bunch of volunteers can provide.

Most of the members who have joined and never posted are almost certainly automated signups by spammers, that's the nature of the internet these days. We are constantly battling spammers and we often loose. It's the one thing that takes up the most of my time on this site. The idea of an email address on the front page is excellent in theory but again it will not work in reality because of spammers. I already get FAR too much spam email, I'm not prepared to get even more junk to have to sort through!

Now, the idea of a welcome post on the beginner section is excellent and I want to do that. If you could suggest a draft wording that would be excellent and a real help, if not I'll get to it when I have some free time and run it by you for comment.

Thanks for the ideas,

Bart B.,
IFAS Web Team.

Bart,
That is immediatly noticable.
It looks a lot friendlier and easyer to now,
some more suggestion though (sorry!) :roll:


HYPERLINKS

Beginners

Feel free to ask any question on our Bulletin Boards where we have a wealth of Amateur Astronomers who will hopefully be able to answer your questions. If you're not sure where to begin check out our Beginners Forum. What ever you do don't be afraid to ask questions, no matter how simple you may think they are, there is no such thing as a silly question!

New readers to websites have the nasty habit of clicking the first active
link they see (eg above ; Bulletin Boards)
if they go there first its kinda back to square one for them,
Do you think it might be more foolproof in that section to have
Beginners Forum as the only active link?

IFAS LINK ON CLUB SITES
Might it be a good idea to ask members of clubs who are active on this site
to ask thier clubs webmaster to put a link to this board in a very prominant place on thire respective main page?
Even something like a recient posts section as we have on our main page?
The reason why I say this is from my own experiance it's easyer
to have everyone in the one place!
Don't get me wrong, I understand that ceritan Local Clubs have thier
own fourms (Shannonside Included) and more power to them.
But obviously IFAS is the for the want of a better description the
'Borg Queen' of the other sites. - a group conciousness if you will...
(yeah yeah...I'm a trecker...)









PADDYSINSPACE,
I agree with some of what you say above about the site bieng confusing at first.

I myself joined in Sept 2004 but I didn't start regurally posting
and getting involved untill April 2006!
I got the impressinon that if I posted a 'stupid' question I would get
poo-poo'd or ignored (I now know this is not true! )
At the beginning I used the Search fourm all the time,
just entering the topic I was interested in and then reading thru
the posts (the topic is highlighted in the posts sort of like Google)
so it's an easy anonomous way to find out about stuff
BUT!
I found out you get a WHOLE LOT more info if you just post up the question on the boards.
You also get encouragement which I found very nice and helpfull (especially starting off in astrophotography)

Also you talk about customers.
I understand you are using this as an analagy, and you are right
but unfortunatly as Bart says, it's a volinteer run site and non-profit.


I'm off sick from work for the next few days so I'll draw up a rough
draft of a beginners help section for the boards and post it here
to see can it be improved and refined...

To bart .b
and Frank

Your right, maby i was being a bit harsh.

Mind you, the front page looks very well now.

Quiet welcoming, good work!