It's patently obvious that newcomers to the Forum struggle to find their way around. As a result posts are often directed to inappropriate forums in sheer frustration. Even us old stagers sometimes can't remember where the appropriate forum is located. KatTai did a very useful forum map some while ago but newbies just don't know about it.
I've been playing about with ideas to get an interactive visual aid to navigating around the forum. I've started with the Wildlife Forum which is the messiest in my opinion. What I've produce is a sort of Flow Chart which shows the structure of the Wildlife forum so you can easily see where each of the sub-forums, blogs, photos etc fits in with the whole.
The only way I could think of doing it was as an Adobe Acrobat pdf file. This is it.
Wildlife Flow Diagram
Click on the link and it should open in Adobe Reader if you've got it installed. The headings and the links are all clickable and should take you directly to the appropriate forum page.
Before I do any more work I'd be grateful if some of you could try it out to see if
The biggest decision I had to make was which forum to post it on . LOL
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Tony
My Flickr Photostream
Blimey TJ. That must have taken you hours, and it's brilliant. I've tried a few of the links and the ones I tried are all working.
I wholeheartedly agree with you when you say the Wildlife section is the messiest - it really is BAD (and yes, I am shouting!!!!)
I think it will be very useful to everyone, but especially new-comers. What a shame the RSPB couldn't have done a similar thing.
The pdf file is downloadable, too. Well done TJ, you Good Egg.
Cheers, Linda.
See my photos on Flickr
Thanks Alan. Glad it actually worked. Need to bring in some of the other forums like Chat and About somehow. They could go on the same page if I stripped out the Blogs and Photo links which are probably not used all that much.
Fantastic T J you should be on pay from those tech boys that created this site LOL or maybe that's not as funny as it seems, there is places on that flow diagram that I did not know were there !!!
I vote to get you on the payroll
Regards Mick
Work is for those people that don't Bird-watch!!!!
Cheers guys and gal. It was a dull cold afternoon so I needed something to occupy me or would have just got up to mischief.
If the consensus is to just have the forum links that would make life easier.
Payroll, what's that? I'm on a pension.
T J you mean to tell me that the UK Government is still giving out Pensions? I might come back there then hee!hee!
I agree about restricting it to the forums only.
Simple is always best (as I keep telling Lola the dog)
Likes the map - it does make finding my way around a lot easier
1st link is not working now...
Hi teejay very helpful for me as a neewbie, but the first link says group not found, thanks.
Great bit of work there TJ,it wants to be the first thing newbies see when looking at the forum pages,I reckon some of us regulars could find it useful for bits of the system we rarely wander into,uncharted territory for some of us.
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can