Help and Support cleanup and SMBX FAQs thread - yay or nay?

HeroLinik · Postby **HeroLinik** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 12:34 pm

Yeah, I'm making another suggestion here, and I know the other one failed quite badly, but let's get this going already...

Over the course of the SMBX community forums, new users join up, and every once in a while we get them asking questions that we're so used to, such as "why is there no starman?" (yeah, that topic inspired me to make this suggestion!) and "why is there no smbx 1.4?" which have been asked and answered countless times over SMBX community history that the answers are now ingrained into all the SMBX veterans.

I personally feel that it would be best if all of these common "newbie questions" as I will call it, that have been asked countless times, get their own FAQ thread. The OP will ask and address these topics that have been trodden over, and this will hopefully reduce the number of people that are asking these same questions that have been asked so many times, and this will make it much easier to navigate the forum as a result.

And a great way to do this is to start by cleaning up the Help and Support section of the forum. Right now, the sticky threads up there are taking up nearly half of the first page, making navigation around the forum harder. This isn't helped by the fact that we have three threads in there that are all for the same purpose (First Time Users Guide to SMBX, How to SMBX, my layers and events guide) - to teach first-time users how to use SMBX. These three threads that I mentioned earlier - especially those first two - definitely need to be merged into one thread. This will make it easier to navigate around the forum, and a new user can click this stickied topic and get everything they need to know about learning SMBX. Then, when these threads are merged, there will be two less stickied topics that are hogging the space at the top. This will allow a separate topic dedicated to SMBX FAQs to be inserted without making the forum look in the same state as it was before!

Not only do these two suggestions help new users how to use SMBX and about famous SMBX issues, it will also make navigating the Help and Support forum easier. But what do you think of the idea?

PixelPest · Postby **PixelPest** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 4:09 pm

I think this is a really good idea. Probably 90% of the threads on Help and Support are repeats of other threads that people are too lazy to search for (or don't know how to search for). It's been started before, but there should also be a runtime error index since a good amount of questions revolve around that. I've seen a lot of repeats on questions about Mac/Linux, where to download/install LunaLua and PGE, how to upload screenshots, how to add more blocks, disappearing Eeries, warps, world map issues, what are episodes, etc. There are very few legitimate questions anymore. I fully support this idea.

Postby **ShadowStarX** » Sat Oct 10, 2015 3:52 pm

I agree with you guys. There should be a FAQ about runtime errors, smbx 1.4, LunaLUA (true it would be better to have a subforum for the tool itself), etc.

TLtimelord · Postby **TLtimelord** » Sat Oct 10, 2015 4:13 pm

I vote yay on this.

h2643 · Postby **h2643** » Sat Oct 10, 2015 4:50 pm

Definitely yes, I don't think it's good seeing that most topics are about same questions and that there are a lot of them.

XerX · Postby **XerX** » Sun Oct 11, 2015 11:05 pm

Well I mean, I already merged your topic with mine a long time ago when you asked, so merging them again is kinda pointless. I kinda agree the forum needs a sweeping.

Postby **Squishy Rex** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 2:53 am

While I do agree on this too, the problem is people don't take the time to read things or for whatever reason can't perform a simple three second search. Hell, I swear some people don't even read the Announcements bulletin at the top of each forum sometimes. On the proviso we can come up with a foolproof plan on how to do this and actually have it work effectively, then I say let's do it. After all, what's point of a Help & Support forum if the same five questions are getting asked multiple times in the same week, every week.

Kevsoft · Postby **Kevsoft** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 3:16 am

^
Pretty much the same opinion here.

My ideas:
1.) Creating the "proposed" SMBX FAQ at the wohlnet wiki to port that later on the SMBX forum. (anyone with me with this idea?)
2.) To prevent multiple questions you could add "simliar posts" in the new topic page. (not sure if there is a phpBB plugin for this, but I could swear I had seen that)

HeroLinik · Postby **HeroLinik** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:46 am

XerX wrote:Well I mean, I already merged your topic with mine a long time ago when you asked, so merging them again is kinda pointless.

If you're referring to the layers/events topic, then I checked, and it isn't merged. It's still dangling at the bottom of the stickied threads.

XerX · Postby **XerX** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 12:41 pm

Linik wrote:
XerX wrote:Well I mean, I already merged your topic with mine a long time ago when you asked, so merging them again is kinda pointless.
If you're referring to the layers/events topic, then I checked, and it isn't merged. It's still dangling at the bottom of the stickied threads.

Well I can't actually "merge" the threads. That's beyond my power. I did take the information from your thread and "merged" it with mine, which is the best I could do.

Mivixion · Postby **Mivixion** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 9:27 pm

It would be nice if people actually used it, but knowing how users are there days I don't know if it would help anyone.

My suggestion is almost a bait and switch, and while it seems mean it would probably actually work.
Just make the thread title something like "How to use Starman in SMBX" or "SMBX 1.4" in Help and Support as a sticky.

Postby **Squishy Rex** » Thu Oct 15, 2015 3:22 am

Mivixion wrote:It would be nice if people actually used it, but knowing how users are there days I don't know if it would help anyone.

My suggestion is almost a bait and switch, and while it seems mean it would probably actually work.
Just make the thread title something like "How to use Starman in SMBX" or "SMBX 1.4" in Help and Support as a sticky.

Actually the old "bait and switch" tactic would be simple enough to engage and would work in this case for the majority of users. Of course there would be still the small number of users who just have to ask the question without doing a bit of reading first, but overall it would probably put a stop to constant influx of those two favoured questions.

HeroLinik · Postby **HeroLinik** » Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:26 am

Mivixion wrote:It would be nice if people actually used it, but knowing how users are there days I don't know if it would help anyone.

My suggestion is almost a bait and switch, and while it seems mean it would probably actually work.
Just make the thread title something like "How to use Starman in SMBX" or "SMBX 1.4" in Help and Support as a sticky.

Bait and switch is a good tactic to trick people into reading up those stickies, but the issue is with adding more stickies, the forum is going to get cluttered with them, detracting the amount of actual help threads, reducing the viewing space as a result. In order to get this to work, the sticky threads will need to be reduced to clean up the forum, and the best way to do this is to merge a few of them, which leads back to my original suggestion.

h2643 · Postby **h2643** » Thu Oct 15, 2015 8:09 am

But Linik, you've already been told that XerX's thread has information about layers and events, something that your does too. So staff can either unstick or delete your topic as it's useless now.

HeroLinik · Postby **HeroLinik** » Thu Oct 15, 2015 12:31 pm

h2643 wrote:But Linik, you've already been told that XerX's thread has information about layers and events, something that your does too. So staff can either unstick or delete your topic as it's useless now.

Yeah, that will be the first step to cleaning up the forum. While we're at it, the How to SMBX guide can then be merged with XerX's guide.

Imaynotbehere4long · Postby **Imaynotbehere4long** » Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:22 pm

Squishy R-exe wrote:
Mivixion wrote:It would be nice if people actually used it, but knowing how users are there days I don't know if it would help anyone.

My suggestion is almost a bait and switch, and while it seems mean it would probably actually work.
Just make the thread title something like "How to use Starman in SMBX" or "SMBX 1.4" in Help and Support as a sticky.
Actually the old "bait and switch" tactic would be simple enough to engage and would work in this case for the majority of users.

The only problem with that is that it won't work for the people who actually try to look through the stikies' titles and see if their problem has been fixed already. If someone is honestly trying to look for how to use layers or events, they'll just gloss over a thread titled "How to use Starman in SMBX," etc.

XerX · Postby **XerX** » Fri Oct 16, 2015 3:56 am

Linik wrote:
h2643 wrote:But Linik, you've already been told that XerX's thread has information about layers and events, something that your does too. So staff can either unstick or delete your topic as it's useless now.
Yeah, that will be the first step to cleaning up the forum. While we're at it, the How to SMBX guide can then be merged with XerX's guide.

why is that needed. i covered custom graphics, and downloading a level should be straight forward.

HeroLinik · Postby **HeroLinik** » Fri Oct 16, 2015 11:38 am

XerX wrote:
Linik wrote:
h2643 wrote:But Linik, you've already been told that XerX's thread has information about layers and events, something that your does too. So staff can either unstick or delete your topic as it's useless now.
Yeah, that will be the first step to cleaning up the forum. While we're at it, the How to SMBX guide can then be merged with XerX's guide.
why is that needed. i covered custom graphics, and downloading a level should be straight forward.

Pretty much this. The How to SMBX guide is pretty redundant because your guide pretty much covers most of it. It should probably be deleted or archived.

Mable · Postby **Mable** » Fri Oct 16, 2015 12:28 pm

How about you ask the creator of that topic before we jump to the point of deleting or archive it. Also why would deleting it be an option in the first place.

Postby **Squishy Rex** » Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:48 pm

Tinkerbell wrote:How about you ask the creator of that topic before we jump to the point of deleting or archive it. Also why would deleting it be an option in the first place.

Exactly, we've lost enough of this community's history through deletion of forums and whatnot. Anything that becomes no longer relevant will be locked and archived, either for future reference or in case the said topic or forum becomes re-instated sometime in the future.