What Should NEW Members KNOW?

[Adina P]

I would like to come up with some more permanent pages on DK.  Pages that we can easily direct members to when they ask very commonly asked questions.  It can be specific to groups (like the Food Group, Puppy Madness, Grooming, etc) or general types of questions. 

So think about "What did you first wish you knew when you joined the site?" and "To what info do you think members need quick and easy access?"

If, for example, some of these pages work well in certain groups each group can link to those pages and the pages can in turn link back to the groups if members have further questions. 

Right now every new member gets a link to this welcome page with BASIC info on using the site: http://www.doodlekisses.com/notes/Welcome_to_Doodle_Kisses!! -- But I'd like to create more than this and have specifics about the doodle experience AND using the site...for those who want more info.

So...shout out your brilliant ideas!

[Leslie and Halas]

The story I read is that all of those great authors used to sit around and challenge each other to use a certain word in a sentence. But, of course, it couldn't just be a normal use of the word. Dorothy got the word horticulture, so she came up with that sentence. I love it! I can't hear the word horticulture without laughing now. Dorothy Parker really cracks me up. Her sense of humor was ahead of her time.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Oh, thanks for passing this on. Now I can love the word horticulture too. giggle giggle

[F, Calla & Luca]

Of course it was doubly good since it was a play on the old"You can lead a horse to water...Dorothy Parker had a sad life unfortunately. I once read a biography about her. She was really clever, though.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

You're totally cracking me up today, "F". Thanks, I needed that.

[F, Calla & Luca]

We all need a laugh periodically : )

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

How about if we did a really "scientific study" with a test and control group? LOL. One group could get the question in an email and another group could get the question as a message on their page. It would prove it one way or another. The only problem is the sample size, and whose test and whose control. I know....I get a little "nutty" about this stuff.

[Adina P]

Brilliant! I'll do it. As of now ANY new member will get an email. So what I'll do is ask 50% about it by profile comment and 50% by private message. Control will be every other one...odd numbers control.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

This should be interesting, Adina. I love it.

[Pocket & Beth]

Hi All, This is my first time ever posting to a discussion here, so I hope I am not overstepping! As someone who works in a field closely connected with all of the difficulties that were pointed out thus far (search/information architecture/information literacy/computer literacy), I thought I should finally chime in. Before I go on, I just wanted to thank you, Adina, for administering this site, it is wonderful!!!! Even though I don't "participate" and tend to observe, it is a pleasure to be part of this network! Also, I don't know what application you are using to manage this site (Sharepoint?), so I am not sure what is or is not possible, but I think the below suggestions are doable.

First, I know the main point of this thread is to get questions I had about becoming or being a doodle mom, so here were the questions I sought out:
How to adopt/rescue an adult doodle?
Ear Infections - cause & treatments
Behavioral issues - jumping, leash manners, excitement when meeting new people & animals

That being said, my main suggestion to assist in finding this info. would be to change the "extra" page to "help". A help page/tab is pretty standard across social networking sites, and/or other online forums and communities. I think if you can standardize naming conventions with other online sites it will be easier for newbies to navigate, regardless of how Internet savvy they are. Here are the "help pages" for the most popular social networking sites (even though the addresses have faq/support/help in them, they are all linked to as "help" from the main pages of these sites):

http://www.facebook.com/help/
http://faq.myspace.com/
http://support.twitter.com/

Note the similarities on these pages - they all have the following type of content: top searches, top questions, how to search or browse for people or topics, notable features of the website, etc. I think you have a lot of this covered in your welcome page, but if (as seems to maybe be happening based on other replies), people don't read that, they may just not know where to go for more information because their isn't a "help" like other sites. I point this out because FAQs like you are soliciting from us, do appear in all three "help" pages above, and so people do expect to find these sorts of things in a "help" page. Additionally, it doesn't hurt to link/crosslink to this type of info. on all pages where it may be useful (ie. under "Forums" and "Groups" you could have a side link that goes to "most frequently asked doodle questions" or whatever you decide to call this section).

Also, regarding getting people to READ! Note that the "help" pages only take up one window - you don't have to scroll down the page to see all the help options and topics. Maybe you could tighten up the welcome/extra information on a help page to only take up a single screen/window. I suggest this because web usability and user experience studies show that people rarely scroll down when searching a site for info. - if they don't see it in the first couple of seconds by scanning the page, they will move on to other links or perform new searches. As an aside, people rarely now the best keywords to use in a search for the type of information they are looking for, and also, they almost never go to the second page when searching Google either, even if the "best" or most "relevant" information may be further down.

Anyway, I hope this helps a bit. :) Happy doodling!

[F, Calla & Luca]

I think the "Help" idea is very good.

[Adina P]

Done. A switch to "Help" from "Extra!" is pretty simple. Now to get the page to one window.. a bit tougher. But a good project for later.

[F, Calla & Luca]

The only possibility, I think is to make everything just a link to more info with little or no further explanation. Still would require lots of culling.