A Guest Board

[Deleted]

Yeah, yeah. I know that the rules board is guest-friendly. but I think that we should reach out and have a board with a sample application and more in depth specifics and where things can be found. I believe that this will make guests more willing to join. My father works at....uh...I don't really know where he works.....but he is always making slideshows or pamphlets to give out to knew customers than totally describe whatever they are doing. I believe that that s could get us at least 5-15 knew pkayers who were worried about being unable to find/do certain things. We can even have select few people's names on the board to PM with anything regarding a topic. So to say...Mid would be in charge of....I don't know...apps. Legit in charge of....something else. I think this may help us a lot.

[Midnight]

I can assure you it would be a waste of time, unfortunately.

People don't read things that are right in front of them as it is (it's very obvious when someone doesn't read something as opposed to when they've read it and didn't understand it. The former will go on with the day as if the information doesn't exist while the latter will ask questions or state somewhere that they didn't really get this or that, then it's explained to them and they're all set), so I don't really expect that making a new board would help with that too much. The staff gladly guide all members, new and old, through the application process if they have mistakes in their application. People are worried about that type of thing because they're new to the forum and they think they'll get yelled at for messing up or something, so it's really just simple nervousness that we all experience when getting into something new. I can't really do anything to help with that. I've put out all of the information anyone would need. New members usually come to me with questions because the sideboard lists the staff members, and I'm fairly sure that other staff members receive questions that they answer promptly as well.

There's a sample application in the FAQ (not as in-depth because it was all done with Lightshot), and trust me when I say we get a lot of people still making applications with things pointed out in the screenshot as being unacceptable. There is also a large number of guests/new members who ask a lot of questions in the chatbox (I do understand that the chatbox is not an option for some people, but for most, it is) and that gets them rolling faster because there's almost always someone there to answer quickly.

Giving guests/new members even more to read will only increase the confusion involved with joining because they (the ones that actually read important threads) will think that the deeper information is also necessary and they'll get sick of reading and move on to find a forum that doesn't require as much reading. I find it's much better to take baby steps and ask them to change their applications as they go than to shove more information into their faces when, as I've previously stressed, most people don't read that stuff before (hell, even after) they join.

I appreciate your concerns on this matter and the time you took to thinking/writing it out, however!