I made an image just bringing up ideas of how we can improve the sidebar or EVEN bring up the fact of if it EVEN NEEDS to be changed!?
My image is whiny, hypercritical and I purposely went over the top on it. Not all the opinions on it are especially how I feel. And I don't feel especially strongly about it. But I do hope that it does evoke strong feelings enough so that it sparks a debate or discussion. Without further waffling YC....
http://imgur.com/29hT8zH
My Image offers no solutions, just bitching and moaning.
AAAAAAAND Thank you.
[EDIT: Let me emphasize that my main concern and person that I care most about when it comes to the sidebar are new users. New users who have no idea what they are doing are the most likely to look and need to use the sidebar. So I feel that they should be the sole and only audience member to tend to.]
We appreciate your feedback. Believe it or not, I am pretty sure the mods all have jobs and lives outside of this sub. It's broken down into sections more or less and we all kind of do our thing and try to help each other when we can. Updating and cleaning up some of this outdated muck takes time and agreement between the mod team. We don't actually hold meetings or anything, hell we seldom converse even if asked for opinion/feedback. For appearing super organized, I will probably be the first to say that we actually aren't very organized at all from a team aspect.
Other mods feel free to pitchfork me now.
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Hey, about that getting organized. You guys use facebook messenger at all? or something I'm not in the whole brevity thing, but I've got a couple ideas a' brewin for organizing how new people should be directed around the subreddit.
The inspiration is...wait for its a weird one.....Portal 2. They would watch people play the game and if the person would wander too much or look at a wall for too long, then they would think, "Hey something on that wall should point them in the direction they need to go! But the thing should make that user feel like they figured it out"
So for instance, at the top right, the thing that I see every single day is the yellow DIY bottle telling me to read the sidebar......It shouldn't do that.
Why not have it direct the user to the weekly new mixers thread? Then in the weekly new mixers thread, have ALLLL the quicklinks a new user would need. Like the entry zone in a MMO like Warlords of worldcraft. Everything they need is right there. MAKE THEM NOT NEED TO ASK QUESTIONS.
Have a FAQ right in there face. BOOM, first step, "New? Asking a question? NOPE, LOOK HERE FIRST!" Take those fuckers for a ride! But along the ride education em! Make them learn a thing or two. At the end of the FAQ, (and make it a short faq that doesn't quiiiiiiite answer all their questions,) have another link that gets them to go to the next area. Educate them on every aspect of DIY one step at a time, then drop them safe and sound at the weekly questions page if they still have questions.
Best thing about this approach is that it keeps the network of newbies away from the oldheads who make the REAALLL magic happen!
Every new mixer questions thread, just copy/paste the same schpeel continue on as normal.
That's my thoughts for now...
>New users who have no idea what they are doing are the most likely to look and need to use the sidebar. So I feel that they should be the sole and only audience member to tend to.
Well that's just silly. If you don't keep everything interesting for the established users, there won't be anyone around to help the new ones.
This is my own personal redditing habits, but I've found that I never look at the sidebar for any amount of time after using one subreddit for a while. I always just look at the homepage. Comment on a few pages, go back to the homepage, comment on a few pages, look at the homepage, comment on the homepage. If I need to search something I use the reddit search set to the subreddit, if I really can't find it, I'll resort to site:reddit.com google search.
Of course, that's personal to me.
I feel like it's important to note that we've also got the top bar, but if we use that we should increase the size. We should also probably have links to the weekly ask a question and weekly give me a recipe threads. ONLY IF AUTOMATIBLE.
Same here, hardly ever go back to a sub's sidebar after I've been visiting for a while. To me, a sub's sidebar should be a general rundown of what the sub is about and links to some beginner stuff.
RE the top bar - it's not viewable on mobile apps, and the sidebar is missed by a lot of app users as well. I sometimes wonder if we'd be better just having links to everything (sidebar info included) in a stickied thread.
Parts of the sidebar do seem outdated to me. If you see something in the sidebar that needs to be updated, moved, or removed, please let the moderation team know. If there appears to be a general consensus in the community about it, changes will be made. It's your sidebar, everyone, it should be what you want it to be.
> Compounds used in DIY
OP removed the original post, looks like a lot of jelly in the comments though, personally feel like that sort of link or information would be better compiled on a wiki. =P
> Wikivapia
Dead link , takes you to a Gitlab signin page.
What ever happened to that wiki thing skiddlz was heading up? There were a ton of people offering to edit, I submitted a safety section.... Last I heard.
My understanding was it was sort of supposed to streamline line the sidebar by just having one link to the wiki, instead of many disparate article topics.
I assume it's still a work in progress and I'm not surprised that such an undertaking would take a long time to assemble, but I've heard nothing. /u/skiddlzninja ?
Even though it has a link in the top bar of the sub, the new mixer's thread needs a big link near the top.
I think rearranging might be good in some cases but I have little or no opinion on what order it should be, simply for the reason that we're all capable of reading headings and deciding where to look and any new mixer should pretty much read it all anyway.
The New Mixer articles are different. True they could maybe be combined but that would require a volunteer :)