Put the Shelter and Help Desk on top

I'm not sure the Shelter being at the bottom of the board index is the best place for it to be. The Shelter should be the first forum staff checks into when logging in, but as it is, I hit the Red Room first, get sucked into whatever Castle/garamet circlejerk's going on (), and maaaybe hit up Techforge and Green Room before I move on to whatever thing I'm actually working on.

Whereas, I'm on staff at Lonaf and AARoads, and both those boards have their staff forum on top, and it's the first thing I hit because it's the first thing I see, followed up by their equivalent of the Help Desk. Then it's onto the juicy stuff.

Get some discipline or bookmark the Shelter and enter the board here.

It was a perfectly valid suggestion, no need to get snippy over it.

I don't use bookmarks.

Moving the Shelter would be fine -- since the entire section is hidden, it wouldn't detract from the typical user's board experience. But moving the Help Desk wouldn't make a lot of sense. The most-used sections should be at the top, and having the nuts and bolts of operation be front and center, rather than the actual content of the board, isn't all that desirable.

Think of it like a store -- things need to be set up in the way that makes the most sense for the end user, not the way that's most convenient for the staff.

No!

Moving this weekend so haven't had time to respond.

Yes to Shelter, No to Help Desk.

If people had a blank slate, how would they group/organize/list etc our forums?

If you notice, though, most stores put the "Customer Service" desk in the front of the store,not the back. Every other highly active board I visit, has their version of the "Help Desk" at the top, while the low activity boards put it near the bottom. Not saying that there's a connection, mind you, but its just something that I've noticed.

I wasn't trying to be snippy. But that's a downside when you can't communicate "tone of voice" along with your words.

Yeah, the thing to remember is that this is a web site, not a physical location. So you kinda want your main selling points to be up front. Help Desk should be easy to find, but not on top of everything else. That gives the impression that we've so many problems that that's the main focus of attention.

Or, if its located directly under the "Introduce Yourself" forum, it makes it easy for newbies to find it when they have a question.

Allow me to direct your attention Giraffe Boards, started some 4 years ago, currently has around 900+ active members, you'll notice their "help section" is at the very top. (Its history is much like this one, lots of people got pissed off at the management of another board and migrated over.) Then there's the Straight Dope Message Board, been around for 14 or so years, presently some 6K+ active members. Cosmoquest/Bad Astronomy/Universe Today, created out of the merger of 3 different boards, nearly 2K active members, and as with the SDMB, and Giraffe, its help section is at the top.

By contrast, the Center for Inquiry forums have theirs at the bottom. No way of knowing how many active users, but based on my experience, its a damned slow board. Home Shop Machinist's board has no "help" forum at all, and their number of active users is just over 1K. Finally, as a bit of a contrast, here's Mellophant, which, like Giraffe boards, split off from the SDMB at the same time, has a combined introduction and help section at the top of the board, with a grand total of 30 active posters. What doomed it was mismanagement by the original owner and not the placement of the "help" forum. (The switch to vB 4 didn't help things at all, either.)

The difference between us and most boards, as far as the Help Desk goes, is the tendency of some users to use it as a place to rabble rouse. So not only do we not want that to be front and center to new users, we don't want to make it front and center for rabble rousers.

Ah, I see, you're right, it is difficult to communicate tone of voice when you use words like "get some discipline."

Actually, both Giraffe Boards and SDMB have plenty of rabble rousing threads in their "help" forums. One of the reasons I'm here, is because of the rabble rousing nature of the place. At the SDMB, the most rabble rousing threads (especially those that ask pointed questions) tend to get locked, while at Giraffe, they're generally allowed to flourish. I don't post at the SDMB, in part, because the staff there get butthurt when you point out something they did wrong and use the word "jerks" in your description.

Think of the help forum as a way for someone to get their feet wet about the nature of the board, without having to step into the Red Room and seeing one of the usual suspects toss out a racist term.

To a certain extent, I'd like to saee the Helpdesk get more traffic, but mostly through some re-purposing. I'd like it to be a place where members help one another on variois topics, not just board functions. Staff could pin or otherwise highlight threads connected with the board's policy or nuts and bolts, but that would not be the only use for the room. My concern about the helpdesk in current form, is that nobody goes in there. Even though we get an occasional thread, how many see it? Mostly just staff and a few others, so then somebody else starts the same thread a few months later. We don't have enough tech issues to cause the typical user to ever look in there, which means when something worth seeing is posted, they miss it. I don't think more prominent geographic placement fixes this. More/better activity does.

Bump.

So yeah, I have no problem putting Shelter on top. Someone wanna do that?

I happen to be here at the moment, therefore I shall do it. I'm putting the Help Desk up there to unless told otherwise, since it seems to be a package deal (but what do I know?).

Na, keep the Help Desk at the bottom for the time being. I have yet to be convinced it deserves such prominence.

Do we need the clumps at all? Why not just have a list of forums?

If we got rid of the clumping, what order would people put the forums in?

Will do.

Done.

Now, when you say clumps, are you referring to categories?

Yeah.

Sure, categories can be removed, but I think they add more order rather than taking it away. It's just my opinion, but having occasional breaks in the list of forums makes it easier to read, and doesn't throw too much at the user at once.

Agree with John.

Done.