Re: Sub forum or topic?

Posted by GregChapman on Mar 13, 2017; 12:00am
URL: https://support.nabble.com/Sub-forum-or-topic-tp7597754p7597840.html

utohva wrote

The club for one of the active sites wants a Member Directory. It occurred to me that since Nabble supports embedded images it COULD also support a sub forum called member Directory with Topics for each member entry. The one disadvantage I found is the members who would have to make entries are not the most computer
savvy group. Most are senior citizens who struggle with technology. The only way I can see for it to work would be an initial  topic that has instructions and a list of field names for them to copy then paste into a new topic for their entry. Otherwise I really like it. Here's a permalink to my test.

I maintain one site:
http://www.seahawk17.org.uk/forum.php
with a facility similar to that which you are working on. As with your group many there are not the most computer literate.

Partly as a spam protection measure I require that new users post an introduction at:
http://seahawk-forum.968426.n3.nabble.com/Introduce-Yourself-f1616007.html
before I grant them "Member" status. It's the only place they can post while still a "Registered" user.

You'll note that at the head of the page I only ask for some pretty free form information about themselves. Experience has suggested that almost no one would be able to follow the kind of strict tabular layout that your forum has. It's also why I don't ask for photos. The geeky code that appears in the post rather than the image itself, would intimidate many at the sign-up stage.

I let them find their feet first, with a simple text introduction. The other issue is the pain of pinning and sorting  the introductions into alphabetical order. These days I dread new users with names early in the alphabet. WIth a state-wide association such as yours I can imagine it being a bigger headache than my seven year growth of the forum.

You'll see I have a FAQ on inserting images. (Feel free to copy and edit it as you will.)