Want to Connect With AO on Facebook?

[MaryFrances]

A couple thoughts- from time to time the search function for the forum gets clunky- usually not too long before we're ready to do another update, I think. The search function when working is one of the biggest items of superiority points of the forum over FB- but if you happened to try to search for something when it isn't working, that would be frustrating.

The forum is a much bigger learning curve for some of us than FB- FB is almost a flat line when it comes to learning 'curve,' and most of it, everybody already knows. The forum is a more complicated tool- like a swiss army knife, but more complicated tools require more investment of time and mental energy to figure out all their functions. Not everybody is at a season in their lives where they can really cope with one more learning curve, or to figure out the swiss army knife when all they want is a butter knife and right now.

I'm on the Advisory and we've had the forum for how long? And I only just learned that there is a search function on every page that includes a drop down menu so I can refine a search and search by forum, by title, by poster- it's in the darker green box at the top of the page, *above* the search button with a text box. I knew about the *third* search box, the one at the *bottom* of a forum that says 'search this forum," but if I knew about the other, I'd forgotten. 3 search options, each slightly different- and they arent all together in one place. That's kind of confusing.

Tapatalk sometimes glitches for us- now that gets fixed pretty quickly, but, if you happen to finally brave the forum after much reluctance and that happens to be one of those times when Tapatalk failed- well, then it's going to put you off the forum a bit.

I love all the great ideas for helping people figure out the forum and level up to the forum. I love the gracious, tactful encouragement I'm seeing on FB. It would be great to have more of our CM kindred spirits here to discuss deeper ideas on the wider screen of the forum- something about the wider screen itself seems to free my mind to explore more, and of course, obviously it
makes it easier to read longer posts.

But I'm also glad we have FB for those people who need a butter knife right this second, and don't have time or the mental energy to think about figuring out the fourm.

So when should we redirect people to the forum and when should we graciously answer their question there? I know we all want to support the Advisory's goals and let people get a feel for this special environment that was created in the Yahoo group and them continued here.


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