Mapping Questions & Discussion has six stickied threads.
Tutorials has nine.
Every year we lose more valuable tutorials to image hosting sites that decide to lock content behind a paywall or delete it outright for shits and giggles, or to private hosts that their owners thought were a safer bet before they forgot about them and didn't renew their domain. And the ones we don't lose get buried under all dozens of other threads.
Today alone we had someone ask what Gameday is and another try to host their map on Mediafire.
And don't even get me started on the Interlopers compile checker.
Conclusion: We need a dedicated section on the site for official tutorials, guides, general mapping advice, and a rundown of How We Do Things 'Round Here. Something somewhere between the developer wiki and Nodraw.net — official, copy-edited pages with locally hosted images that can be modified by one of the editors if the information becomes out of date or somebody comes up with a better way to explain things. And an easy-to-follow table of contents. Maybe we could include a form for registered users to submit rough drafts for new pages or update proposals; a full-on wiki interface would probably clutter up the screen more than necessary.
We also could stand to have a link on every page to the effect of "First time here?" that goes straight to an all-in-one guide of the most important things new users need to know: How we test maps, where to upload them, how to use the Feedback plugin, a link to the Interlopers compile checker, a link to Boojum's pack and all the theme packs... and whatever else people think is appropriate. Sort of an FAQ but without the Q's.
I'd be glad to help out in any way I can.
Tutorials has nine.
Every year we lose more valuable tutorials to image hosting sites that decide to lock content behind a paywall or delete it outright for shits and giggles, or to private hosts that their owners thought were a safer bet before they forgot about them and didn't renew their domain. And the ones we don't lose get buried under all dozens of other threads.
Today alone we had someone ask what Gameday is and another try to host their map on Mediafire.
And don't even get me started on the Interlopers compile checker.
Conclusion: We need a dedicated section on the site for official tutorials, guides, general mapping advice, and a rundown of How We Do Things 'Round Here. Something somewhere between the developer wiki and Nodraw.net — official, copy-edited pages with locally hosted images that can be modified by one of the editors if the information becomes out of date or somebody comes up with a better way to explain things. And an easy-to-follow table of contents. Maybe we could include a form for registered users to submit rough drafts for new pages or update proposals; a full-on wiki interface would probably clutter up the screen more than necessary.
We also could stand to have a link on every page to the effect of "First time here?" that goes straight to an all-in-one guide of the most important things new users need to know: How we test maps, where to upload them, how to use the Feedback plugin, a link to the Interlopers compile checker, a link to Boojum's pack and all the theme packs... and whatever else people think is appropriate. Sort of an FAQ but without the Q's.
I'd be glad to help out in any way I can.