That does look great Lynn.
I agree with Dave and Trish: SOME mechanism for FAQs and intros or overviews of the forum topic would be great, especially for those whose preferred learning method is "reading" rather than "chatting".
Not everyone prefers social media as a research method, no matter how helpful and friendly and repetitive the members are about introductory questions.
Personally, I found it annoying that some forums have or had several sticky threads using up real estate on the home page. Most of those threads are "mostly dead" as a sticky should be, so they have no new info for anyone who's been to the forum even once before. Yet they are long, chatty, disorganized threads, if you were looking for a concise or on-topic FAQ.
It is nice that the stickies are right in the face of a first-time forum visitor - they really CAN'T miss them. But a forum chat thread is not a great format for an informative article or research topic. If there were volunteers, most sticky chat threads could be reduced in length by 95% or more, if turned into an article.
I think that ATP (and even more so NGA) are used by some as encyclopedias, as well as social media. That's why I try to reduce the amount of thread drift I cause. (Yes, I DO try to reduce it!)
Of course, anyone can create an article that attempts to answer many basic questions, like a FAQ.
Anyone can write an overview of their favorite aspects of a forum.
Anyone can collect multiple links and quotes and save it as an "article".
Lynn's approach was to post links to such articles on the right-hand-side of a forum Home Page. That might be such a good idea that it's worth emulating on every forum. It seems preferable to invite everyone to write an article if they are interested, and collect those links, than to look for someone who will, as a chore, write something in an assigned format to fit into a fore-ordained slot.
If it became so wide-spread that even relatively new members KNEW to look for it, the real-estate it takes up might even be reduced by turning it into a standard (small) box in every forum Home Page: "Click here for the FAQ", or "Welcome, FAQ & Resource Links". Like an alternate forum Home Page for "resources" rather than "chat".
Here's an idea I haven't thought through (it may stink).
A FAQ list or forum-endorsed article might benefit from some kind of collaboration.
Maybe just a moderator unlocking something to give one person access to add text.
Maybe some method of sharing authorship.
Maybe "anthologies" where each author writes one page or one article.
Something a little like Wikipedia. NGApedia.
That could make a list of links to articles more than just "search results". If a forum had a body of "FAQ" articles, many of them co-authored, it might invite more co-authors to get involved than just an offer "if you write it, we will link".
The first obstacle would be getting authors to accept someone else editing or adding to their article. I'd suggest leaving the "collaboration" part very optional. If an author WANTS to donate text that others will then keep adding to or editing, they may. Others can write their own articles.
from those that read them, but not want their work to turn into a chat thread. This issue has come up on the Orchids forum, and a few pointed it out to the moderator. She responded by moving the chat to a " Chat about" separate thread. Moderators rule!
