Ease of use, new members

[Scythe]

Every day I see new confusion in the introduction forum and from time to time I even get a PM from a new member how to deal with this site. (Here I want to note that I always send them directly to the help staff). I speak out of my own experience when I say that Canterlot is very confusing for a new member, especially those who are careful and want to know what to look out for - like in my case.

Before you register you might be looking for the rules. I for example always look for the rules before I register to a forum. But they seem very hidden in the "Extras" tab here. Usually Forums have a sub-forum entirely dedicated to one or two threads that contain the rules. I do not think that would be optimal. Given the strictness of the rules themselves and the handling of those I really advice pointing them out more though.

The easier the rules are to access and the more they stand out the more likely it is that people actually read them.

(To avoid confusion - I'm talking about the site-wide rules).

Next thing I personally came across was the huge amount of guides, guidelines and other "helpful" things here which confused me a lot. Remaking or reworking the guides is not necessary, they are all well-written and good.

What people need is an overview.

When you register, at the latest, you will be confronted with the three different roleplay areas here. FFA, CO and WoE. (Here I want to point out that these abbreviations have to be avoided at all costs when talking to new members, also the term "Mane RP". Other roleplay specific terms like "canon" or "OC" can be confusing too.)

An overview would make it much easier for new members to understand what those areas are for and give them the possibility to decide based upon their personal desire where to roleplay. Then all the guidelines and rules for the WoE area could be linked, listed or otherwise mentioned without adding to the confusion.

Especially WoE could need a new guide. The current one (when you click on Extras -> Info, Rules and Guides -> WoE) was written by Artax because noone else wanted to write it (at least that is what I remember from our conversation about it). I think it needs to be more simple and cover other areas than currently. It should give an better and more structured overview of the way a new roleplayers goes. From registering and introducing himself (optional) to creating an application, how it is approved by an RP helper and later an SRP helper and then how you are moved into the roleplay group (which is covered too much for example in the current guide). I hope you don't mind the critique.

Then, even if all those issues are solved or don't come up in the first place there will always be questions. I do believe we all understand the hesitation of a new member to ask a probably stupid question in the Q&A area, especially if he thinks it has been asked a hundred times.

So what to do? Right, we ask a helpstaff member. I have to say though, that the helpstaff is somewhat "hidden" aswell.

If you are on this site for a while you will all know Helix, Rosewind and other famous help staff members, but a new person?

The helpstaff list is, for someone not familiar with forums, very hard to access and the members themselves are only identified by the small award in the signature. I also don't see much posting of the list. QuickLime did a perfect example of explaining and linking the helpstaff list in her blog entry (point 3).

We have this "RP Helper" Rank with the awesome "RP Help Staff image" which is currently not in use. I think it's a pity, it would make it much easier to identify a member of the helpstaff.

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(Personally I would leave it up to every RP helper if they want to wear this rank or not, simply because someone might don't like it and I don't want to be responsible for forcing it upon them. If I'm not terrible mistaken... for the sake of easier identification a lot would be okay with that, wouldn't you?)

The award would obviously stay, since there is a need to distinguish between the normal RP Helper and a Senior RP Helper.

One might argue the difference is negligible - it is not. A new member usually tends to categorize quickly. Awards are seens as rather irrelevant. Avatars, ranks and other fancy things on the left are mostly considered interesting if not important.

Now to the ease of use of this suggestion a TL;DR/summary:

• Rules should stand out more and be easier accessable, less hidden
  
• The RP areas (FFA, CO, WoE) need an overview, explaining them shortly
  
• An overview would also reduce confusion caused by the WoE guidelines
  
• WoE needs a new guide, which is simpler and covers certain points more thoroughly
  
• Helpstaff should be easier to find and identify
  

P.S.: Alot of this could be easily covered with a good guide as a sticky in the introduction area. (IMO)

This is neither a rant nor a complaint, I wouldn't even call it critique. This is me trying to make things even better than they already are.

[Autumn]

The rules may be found linked in the Terms of Service you read and agreed to when you joined Canterlot.com. They're found in the 'Extras' menu by hovering your mouse over and clicking the relevant option. The rules as well as our privacy policy are also linked on EVERY page and location of the site at the bottom right.

Role Play Helpers may be identified by the following banners: and for Senior Helpstaff. The suggestion to use the old diamond image is redundant.

We're currently building an FAQ section which covers things like what areas of the forum are for, however, reading the forum descriptions is normally sufficient for most humans.