Developing a forum how-to

Antje77

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
19,510
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
Learning how to navigate the forum can be quite daunting so it's time for a manual.

We already have the video beginner guides (https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/forum-beginners-video-guides.51729/) but they have become rather outdated, although still useful.
Hopefully new videos will at some point be made as well, but a written version is easier to use for some people, including myself, and they're easier to make as well.

@jjraak had the brilliant idea of working on them in a group, so we have the expertise of different people at hand to make our guides as clear as possible. The risk of this is of course that this plan will end in an endless discussion thread without result, but why not see if we can make it work!
Worst thing can happen is that it doesn't work, which will leave us in the same spot we are now so no harm done.

I think that to have a chance on creating clear guides, we all need to try to restrict our postings to very much on topic reactions, no side jokes or remarks to clog the thread (speaking very much to myself here).
No complaining about input from others but improving on it by either re-writing parts or by giving feedback on how you feel it could be improved.

I think it would make sense to follow the video system of having guides on different topics to reduce the length of text.
To this end, and to keep this thread readable, I'll post 5 empty posts (one for each subject in the videos) with a link to the corresponding video below this one. I'or any other mod, can use these posts to edit in drafts written by whoever is good at writing them and posted further down the thread. Those drafts can of course be edited again, until we're happy with the result. :)
This way, we can keep drafts at the top of the thread where we can find them easily.
Of course we don't have to stick to the exact categories of the videos, but I think they are very useful as a start, a guide to making guides so to say.

I'm tagging the mod team and some former mods because I'm sure most of them will want to follow this thread, and because they're very familiar with the forum so I'm sure they will be of great help in creating this thing. @Giverny @Goonergal @Rachox @AndBreathe @Jaylee @Andydragon @EllieM @VashtiB @Pipp @KennyA @Carson_dcuk .

Please feel free to alert others to this thread if you feel they might be interested!
If you want to join this project, don't forget to hit the Watch button on the top of this thread!

One last thing, as @In Response rightfully remarked, at the moment the tech team is still working very hard on improving the changed forum so it doesn't make sense to write out very detailed instructions while things are still changing a lot.
However, we can still make a start and outline what should go in these guides, it will take a while perfecting them anyway.
And, unlike the videos, those guides can be edited in the future if something changes. :)
 
Last edited:

Antje77

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
19,510
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
How to register.

I'd like to have a strong advice to fill out at least medications, and type of diabetes if known in this one.
As @lucylocket61 has repeatedly pointed out, it's very hard to help people without this information.

 
Last edited:

Antje77

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
19,510
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
Starting and replying to a topic.

Starting a new thread.

First, click/tap "Forums" at the top of your screen, this will give you a list of all subforums. Then click the subforum you want to post your thread in.

This takes you to the list of threads on that particular forum.
Click the 'Post Thread' button at the top right and you'll be able to post a thread.


Reacting to a thread.
If you want to react to a thread, just start typing in the box below the last post in a thread, right where it says 'Write your reply' in light grey letters.

If you want to react to someones post, hit the reply button under their post and start typing right below the quoted text. Click 'Post Reply' when you're finished.
If you want to react to part of someones post, select the part you want to quote, and a small 'Reply' button pops up. Click it and the quote moves to the reply box. Simply start typing below the quote.


 
Last edited:

Goonergal

Master
Retired Moderator
Messages
13,465
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I'm tagging the mod team and some former mods
Funny. I didn’t get tagged, just found your post with all the tags when I headed over here. Just checked my list of alerts and it’s not in there. Anyway, I’ll try and help once things have settled down.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: jjraak

Lamont D

Oracle
Messages
16,011
Type of diabetes
Reactive hypoglycemia
Treatment type
I do not have diabetes
A suggestion.
this might be very useful on the new posts and the profile posts as a sticky!
Not everyone, especially newbies will think of going to the general chat sub forum.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: jjraak

jjraak

Expert
Messages
7,511
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Nice idea @Antje77 .

I think @Lamont D makes a good point

Previous forum I adminned on, they had a run of specific posts ...all good uns, too

But no one new ever found them.

I thought of moving a few pertinent ones to the newbies page.

A small list of FAQS & links about posting pics , club meeting, etc.

It got way more traction there, because newbies err knew where to look for newbies help .

KISS at its best
Put it where they'll look.
 
Last edited:

Antje77

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
19,510
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
A suggestion.
this might be very useful on the new posts and the profile posts as a sticky!
Not everyone, especially newbies will think of going to the general chat sub forum.
It will go there as a sticky once we have a finished set of guides.
This is just the place where we work together to write them, we don't have anything yet.
Funny. I didn’t get tagged, just found your post with all the tags when I headed over here. Just checked my list of alerts and it’s not in there. Anyway, I’ll try and help once things have settled down.
Ah, that explains why hardly anyone reacted!
No glitch, I just wrote the thing out of view, on the 'mod side' of the forum, to prevent peaple reacting before I could post the empty posts where our drafts should go under the old videos.
I then moved the thread to general Chat and edited the post to add all those tags, but it looks like you don't get a notification if you're tagged as an edit, good to know!

To make things right, here's everyone who was tagged in the first place, this time hopefully with a live tag! :)
@jjraak @In Response @lucylocket61 @Giverny @Goonergal @Rachox @AndBreathe @Jaylee @Andydragon @EllieM @VashtiB @Pipp @KennyA @Carson_dcuk .
 

jjraak

Expert
Messages
7,511
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
As a guideline, while we are waiting for the new forum styling to settle down.

I wonder if the current list of requests & queries, might provide a decent starting framework of just what other queries new members might have, beside the video ones above. ?
 

Antje77

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
19,510
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
  • Agree
Reactions: jjraak

Antje77

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
19,510
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
I just wrote a reply to a post explaining how to start a thread and reply to a thread. Copying here as the first part of a draft. I've also added it to the draft post on Starting and replying to a topic. Additions welcome!

Starting a new thread.
First, click/tap "Forums" at the top of your screen, this will give you a list of all subforums. Then click the subforum you want to post your thread in.

This takes you to the list of threads on that particular forum.
Click the 'Post Thread' button at the top right and you'll be able to post a thread.


Reacting to a thread.
If you want to react to a thread, just start typing in the box below the last post in a thread, right where it says 'Write your reply' in light grey letters.

If you want to react to someones post, hit the reply button under their post and start typing right below the quoted text. Click 'Post Reply' when you're finished.
If you want to react to part of someones post, select the part you want to quote, and a small 'Reply' button pops up. Click it and the quote moves to the reply box. Simply start typing below the quote.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jjraak and Lamont D

Antje77

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
19,510
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
I am happy to have a go at this but I have to confess I'm struggling with the forum changes at the minute. First thoughts are that it's no use having a 50 page manual, or putting it all on videos. You can't use videos as a quick reference and the only way a lenghty manual could function is by using links within the document. That's a big task and dosn't answer the problem of not knowing what you're looking for. I don't think in any case that people seem to be asking for a complete guide to the forum. Two A4 pages, covering getting started, how to do the most obvious things, where to find additional info, links to rules etc. Then build it up gradually if needed.

Main consideration is that I will be wandering around a bit for the next three weeks so realistically nothing much will get done (by me anyway) until October.

Hi @KennyA ,
I copied your post in the thread on forum changes here, fair chance the project won't be finished before october so no problem if you won't have time before that. If anything, I'm very happy someone is willing to have a go at it! :joyful:

I wasn't thinking of a complete manual (shudder), more of a starters guide, your two A4 pages so we seem to be on the same page.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jjraak and KennyA