Community: Basic Help for New Members

[Kathy]

Kathy submitted a new Article:

Community: Basic Help for New Members

Article - Basic Help for New Members

When I examine the emails I receive on a daily basis, and the emails of the other admins and mods, most of the emails we receive fall into one category. They are *HELP* emails from our new members who are overwhelmed by the online community environment and don't quite know where to go for help. Many of the emails were as basic as: "How do I post a message?"

In an attempt to cut down on these emails to our "Helpdesk" I walked myself through the registration process and tried to imagine it through the eyes of a complete online newbie. I tried to understand what kind of questions they might be asking on their side of the monitor. I tried to understand what might not be obvious to them, but was clearly obvious to me after many years on my site.

Walking myself through the entire registration process and taking notes along the way, I came up with some ideas to help the new member get through the regisration process and log in to participate in their first discussion.

Here is what I did for my online forum community:

1. Make sure your guidelines are clearly written and make use of white space. What is white space? Paragraphs. Topic headers. Easily identified topics regarding rules. (Make sure your guidelines are available to revisit. More on this later.)

2. If you have activated "email verification" for your online community, make sure that at the end of the registration form you explain that they will not be able to post until they "click the link" in the email they will receive to their email address. If their email address isn't valid, they won't be able to complete registration.

3. In your "Ooops, you aren't logged in page" add a link to the member control panel if its not there. Re-read the "oops" page to make sure it contains info about that email. If they didn't receive the email, they need to log into their control panel and adjust their email address so that they can get the email.

I even added a note to AOL users to double check their "internet email prefs" to make sure they hadn't' filtered out receiving email that included their forum email confirmation.

4. Create a "NEW HERE?" page for your site and put the link in the header or somewhere your members can find it easily. Make sure its on every page. Put the link in the "activated page" where the member returns after they click to complete the registration.

What does the "NEW HERE?" page say? This is what...

Read more about this article here...

 

[floris]

The problem with new members and even novice internet users is their lack of interest in reading what it really says.

Even if you make big announcement popups in blinking purple colors, they still just close it and email you they can't do this, or don't know how to do that. Which is a big shame, because it provokes irritation after the xth complaint email.

I personally don't think it would hurt to have an initial 'skin' or 'style' setup as default, which has really almost to no functions listed. It should just show the forums, their description and the threads should only have the quick reply activated. Let them gradually get familiarized with the features and if they are hungry for more, they can update the style.

 

[Still Waters]

One of the oddest newbie complaints I've gotten is some people accused me of somehow intercepting and editing their emails and/or moving posts so they couldn't find them.

I couldn't figure out why they weren't finding the posts, and I asked them to provide me a "notification email" with a broken link so I could trouble-shoot. (I couldn't reproduce the problem with a test account.) But, they wouldn't do it, and they eventually left with much ill will towards me, convinced that I was micro-managing their every move.

Finally, a newbie emerged that forwarded a "broken" email to me. I discovered there was nothing wrong with the email, and additional dialogue brought out the real problem.

Apparently, these people are used to the delphi system, which sends a notification email when someone personally responds to your post (unlike the vB system, which notifies you when someone responds to a subscribed thread in general). So, these people were looking for personal responses, and not finding them.

(I tell you, it's been a difficult few months for me.)

 

[Kathy]

I hear you on those kinds of issues where the newbie members don't understand the subscribed emails. They think it is a personal email to them and when they cilck the link, it takes them into the thread where the reply may or may not address anything in particular they said...

I've had some newbie members try to reply to the post, thanking "me" for sending them additional info and please show them where to post again, they forgot.

Its sometimes a test in patience to show them. Some need help daily for a period of time, others need just a nudge. Either way...its hard to imagine how to tell them any clearer than we've tried to make it.

hang in there Still Waters.

 

[Ogden2k]

Some of my Staff are in the process of making a document going over the basics, thread tools, reputation, etc. I'll post it once it's finished.