#13 Making stuff easy for newbies too!

[Scott MacDonald]

To some this may sound crazy, but I really think we need a detailed users manual for vbulletin that will be sent out to new users.
I get users all the time that are simply overwhelmed by all of the "eye candy" on the forums and I lose many members because they simply dont know how to use the site.
I think all the features are wonderful but I really think we need to keep our members in mind.
For example, many of my members use mailing lists so when they come to my forum, they dont know what a "thread" is, and when you start throwing "post" , "message", "thread", "topic" and all these other words at them it really confuses them.
I know what most of you are thinking is "well you can edit your forums however you like thru templates" and I agree that I can, and it is in the works. I just really think there needs to be an e-mail sent out to new users explaining all this stuff.
A few more examples:
• I have users that have never posted because they didnt realize that the "New Thread" button was for posting a new message
• I have 75 members and none of them realize that they could be using the calendar as their personal planner.
• Out of 75 members, one has figured out how to post a poll. (but then again this is still confusing for me)
• My moderators e-mail gets bombed with questions on how to post an image in a post.
• I have 4 users still in the "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation" user group. Maybe because they put in an invalid e-mail the first time, maybe because they just didnt know. Who knows
• None of them knew that they could be getting credit for reffering other people until I told them
• Out of my 75 members 43 have NO POSTS! this is a real kicker as I have never had this problem with vb 1 or ubb
Now again I realize that I can make the site easier to use by editing tons of templates, so please dont preach that to me. It just seems as though vbulletin has been more geared to the "advanced web user" every since the release of 2.0 I have no problem with that I just think if its going to be so advanced we should at least be able to send out some type of docs to go with it. IMHO
I hope I dont sound like I am complaining as that is not my intent at all. I just am really upset right now that 50% of my users have never used the site simply because they dont know how
If anyone has any suggestions to make things easier on m