As an older user I find guides and tutorials very helpful. Lists of links make these easier to sift through rather than spending an hour or hours locating one thread that may be months or years old (personal experience) in the Guides Forum. While stickying is a great tool, many new users are not aware of the helpful Gaia features. For example: currently the new user quest with Moria only offers advice about clothing and "newb" concerns. It should offer more assistance to new users as to the multitude of Gaia's features. For example: password protection and a simple run through of how to make a secure password. If the Q&A were to have a single thread dedicated to popular questions and answers it would cut down on repeats. Title: Popular Q&A.
Many of the users seem to ask the same questions repeatedly. These questions could vary often be avoided if a Mod of some kind were to make an Annoucement in the Q&A as the the various features that are: down, experiencing problems that may result in a different experience while using, no longer available and what may be coming as a heads up. Often people are concerned that their items are gone or stolen when our inventories are being worked on or worse angry when they can't use a feature such as equipping their avitar. This, again, could be avoided very simply.
I run several guilds and I often get annoyed by the re-vamps to my guild pages. Quite often they go down, or are changed with little or no explanation of how they function or what purpose the change has. A simple page or post dedicated to guild functions would help many users. And it would stand that anyone interested in owning a guild could be informed before they invest 20,000 gold into a feature that may not be what they need when a dedicated thread may be more than sufficient.
Currently I find that many of the forums offer very good descriptions of what should or should not be posted, however I have found that many of the Mods who run these forums are, sadly, in-active during particular hours (Eastern Time) and are not available for further details as to what may or may not be acceptable in their forum. It may be beneficial to users if the forum's rules as to posting could be re-vamped in a much more "user friendly lingo." As I think the majority of Gaia users are under 18 and often do not understand, for example:
The Q&A is not Life Issues, however, I have seen users post there for advice about dating. Forum's current
Rules.
Some users have had questions regarding the current Profile options. Since the re-vamp of this feature there have been multiple questions everyday in the Q&A as to where to add Media. I think a simple intro for new users would be very helpful. Gaia has always been an "adventure" to me, in the sense that I find new things everyday. I've always felt that, "if only Gaia could simply explain it's features before I dived in I'd be a better user today."
Overall I must say that my years here at Gaia have been good ones. I really enjoy everything that it has to offer. But if I could change one thing about Gaia it would be the new user experience. It's hard to adjust to the world enough as it is, but sometimes you just feel like a fish out of water when you don't understand all the lingo and features as well as the many forums.
I hope something I've mentioned will strike your fancy Gaia, so that maybe one new user won't feel like such a Newb. And if you ever need another Mod you know where to find me! Much Love- Yvette AKA (Elizabeth Rex)