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guides (https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/forum-beginners-video-guides.51729/) but they have become rather outdated, although still useful.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.
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.
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