"We have it set up so people can pick and choose those helps that are... helpful
to them."
That assumes that newbies 1. are aware of what different features are called (so they can do that picking/choosing), 2. are aware what's on or off on their forum, and that 3. no topic ever makes confusing reference to other features or icons which the user may not have in his home forum. It assumes, in other words, that newbies are pretty slick. And if they're slick, they're not going to want/need to go to the central newbie forum.
This isn't academic; as larger sites start using UBBT, there will be many more features and graphical elements shut off. As the thread starter here has noted, UBBT fully "loaded" is newbie hell. And larger sites have LOTS of newbies coming in all the time; it's not just a matter of educating the user base once and that's it.
"We'll also be developing some alternate templates as well that are extra-newbie-friendly, with the option to set them for a particular forum or site (forum) wide."
awesome.
In the newbie template, I'd suggest turning off:
ranking of threads/posters
"date registered" (which I myself keep mistakenly mistaking for the post date), also location and post number
showing number of posts for a user
seniority titles
gremlins, icons, and instant UBB code
Private messages
thread views (save some server/db stress, too)
post icons
email and reminder icons (and function)
"extra information" and "permissions" footers
If you clear that stuff out, what remains is a fairly intuitive setup where a newbie can actually concentrate on reading and posting messages without being distracted by a page full of doodads and text.
also:
make the "post" button twice as big and thrice as conspicuous and change "FAQ" to "help"
change every iteration of words like "next" and "previous" change to "next post/thread/board", "previous post/thread/board"
Explain the registration process at the very top. I've had (intelligent) testers get lost at every stage of this process.
JIM
