Just an idea...for new members

[disgaeniac]

Thats it exactly. Welcome newb, there is plenty of video game and nerd wisdom to go around here.

...and...don't forget..."drunken wisdom" 

[teck]

Maybe we can display a welcome message to anyone who has an empty collection. Right now it just kinda dumps them there with little guidance.

This is somewhat of an issue, albeit a small one....  A friend of mine joined but feels too overwhelmed to really get started archiving here and other than do it for him, I'm not sure what to recommend....

[desocietas]

Maybe we can display a welcome message to anyone who has an empty collection. Right now it just kinda dumps them there with little guidance.

This is somewhat of an issue, albeit a small one....  A friend of mine joined but feels too overwhelmed to really get started archiving here and other than do it for him, I'm not sure what to recommend....

Overwhelmed by his collection or by the website?  When I first started, I just sat down with the site itself and "browsed" the category I knew I had the most of (PS2, I think), and started checking off the ones I already knew I owned or wanted to add to my wishlist.  Once I did that, that gave me a better feel of how everything looks, so I then moved on to another category and eventually doing the same while next to my physical collection.  Made me want to organize my games and check what had manuals, etc.

It's about time I go through and inventory everything again...

[teck]

Maybe we can display a welcome message to anyone who has an empty collection. Right now it just kinda dumps them there with little guidance.

This is somewhat of an issue, albeit a small one....  A friend of mine joined but feels too overwhelmed to really get started archiving here and other than do it for him, I'm not sure what to recommend....

Overwhelmed by his collection or by the website?  When I first started, I just sat down with the site itself and "browsed" the category I knew I had the most of (PS2, I think), and started checking off the ones I already knew I owned or wanted to add to my wishlist.  Once I did that, that gave me a better feel of how everything looks, so I then moved on to another category and eventually doing the same while next to my physical collection.  Made me want to organize my games and check what had manuals, etc.

It's about time I go through and inventory everything again...

A little of each to be honest....  I know from personal experience for example, that the style guide doesn't quite cover 100% of what is needed and on several instances I've had to make certain calls based on inspecting other pages....  Also the search function is almost TOO specific with inputs....  I've found myself second guessing certain titles based on punctuation and the like when I could not find a return I was looking for even though it was in fact listed here already....  Several other little issues can get confusing as well too someone who is not new like how the wish, sell, and collection lists are not linked at all....  I think most people would assume that a modification on one list would effect an entry on another....  I guess I think we just need a little more hand holding around here to make it more newbie friendly....

[disgaeniac]

Personally, I mainly just use the "Browse" feature...instead of trying to get the *exact* wording right w/ the 'search' feature.

Seems like it's usually quicker & simpler for me -and- a good way to help spot dupes

[desocietas]

Personally, I mainly just use the "Browse" feature...instead of trying to get the *exact* wording right w/ the 'search' feature.

Seems like it's usually quicker & simpler for me -and- a good way to help spot dupes

I also use browse instead as, like you said, the style guide might not be clear to all users and the item I'm looking for might not have been formatted the way I expected.  Also, it's a good way for me to see the variants (and less typing!).

However, if it's a category I have very few games in, I would have to type in the titles.  I agree that the search feature isn't the best at the moment (they're still tweaking it), but it's best to search by a single word or words that are together, but be careful of punctuation...

For example,  you can type in "memories of Celceta" but not "memories celceta."  Also, because of the colon, you can't search by "ys memories."  I find it easier to just type in one keyword if possible.

Also, for @matt (boss man) to be aware of (I'm sure he already is), typing in something that has less than three characters, like "Ys" produces a weird results page.  It's not an error message, and the feature has always been unable to search for anything less than three characters.

[foxhack]

Also, for @matt (boss man) to be aware of (I'm sure he already is), typing in something that has less than three characters, like "Ys" produces a weird results page.  It's not an error message, and the feature has always been unable to search for anything less than three characters.

Most search engines don't actually let users search for two letter strings. It would bring up a ridiculous amount of results.

Exceptions -should- be made in some cases, like with "Ys". But that's up to the coder.

[desocietas]

Also, for @matt (boss man) to be aware of (I'm sure he already is), typing in something that has less than three characters, like "Ys" produces a weird results page.  It's not an error message, and the feature has always been unable to search for anything less than three characters.

Most search engines don't actually let users search for two letter strings. It would bring up a ridiculous amount of results.

Exceptions -should- be made in some cases, like with "Ys". But that's up to the coder.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect the search to work with "ys" but maybe some other kind of page should come up as a result?  It looks like it's directing to a basic/advance search page that's not really complete.