About / Welcome topics

Other Courses Talk
#1

Just wanted to raise that there are a couple of differences across the course forums regarding student/member introductions, details as follows;

Lounge

About the PUBLIC category

Unity

About the S01 Intro category
Welcome to the Unity Section 1 sub-forum - using tag cud_s01_welcome_to_the_course

Blender

About the S01 Intro category

Unreal

Please introduce yourself

VR

About the S01 Intro category
A warm welcome to you - using tag uvr_s01_welcome_to_the_course

Unity Cert

About the S01 Intro category
Welcome to the Course! - using tag crt_s01_welcome__course_strategy

I think some of this is a bit of a left over from the initial setup and then the evolution that followed, including the other course sub-forums, the use of the sticky topics and then the move to using the tags as links from Udemy etc.

Where I can I try to move peoples posts into just the one topic per course when they are introducing themselves, it doesn’t take long otherwise for the forums to start filling up with lots of the same looking topics which I don’t think really adds any value - just eye-clutter.

I suppose my thoughts are;

  • should there be an About the [...] category topic posted in each course sub-forum which is sticky, should anyone be able to add comments to it, or should it be closed (in favour of people introducing themselves within the Welcome to the course! topic.
  • should there be a Welcome to the course! topic in each course sub-forum so that students/members can introduce themselves (in the one location)

If so regarding the above there is a little bit of work to do to tidy this up, I am happy to do it but wanted to check first, and then it may be nice to have any additional courses following the same setup going forwards, now that the structure/tags are in place. If the About the [...] category is desired/sticky/closed (e.g no comments), it could be worth adding a link into the body of the post which points to the Welcome to the course! topic for the relevant course sub-forum, thus guiding new students/members to the place to introduce themselves.

Also, would the Unity Cert sub-forum perhaps be better named Unity Certification ,or perhaps better still Unity Certified Developer? Just thinking about the readability for students/members for whom English isn’t their native language, and also keeping the names of the forums related to the courses. This of course does touch slightly on my previous thoughts/comments regarding whether the forums are already considered/going forward will be course related, or topic related I guess.

There’s an extra underscore in the tag in place for the Unity Cert welcome / course strategy tag

Any thoughts @ben?

…I bet you are glad I am back! :wink:

2 Likes
#2

This sounds like a neat bit of reorganisation. I will talk to @ben about it tomorrow.

1 Like
#3

Cheers @sampattuzzi, I dont think its a lot of work. Just need some decisions with regards to whether to have both an About and a Welcome to topic in each forum I guess. After that its really just a case of moving posts between topics to tidy up.

Expanding some of the detail in the About topics might be nice too, and with the link to the Welcome topic for introductions etc.

My feeling is that both could be useful but to.make the About topic closed so that it doesnt receive replies. For consistency then naming/creating the same set across each forum.

Ideas only, your baby, feel free to ignore :slight_smile:

#4

Hey @sampattuzzi / @ben - just wondered if this got discussed and whether there were any thoughts?

#5

We had a chat and that sounds great. Is that something you would be able to sort out?

1 Like
#6

Hi Sam,

Yeah sure, I am happy to take care of this.

Would you or Ben be happy to write up perhaps a more detailed description for each forum, or shall I?

Also, whilat I am certain moving the posts from one topic ro another will be flawless it would be handy to coordinate regarding backuos etc, just to be on the safe side.

#7

I think we should be fine without backups at this point. Perhaps don’t move the posts across just yet. Regarding the descriptions it would be great if you made a first pass.

#8

Hi @sampattuzzi,

Ok, I’ll will put a plan together of actions to take and then make a start.

I’m obviously only putting forward suggestions as a positive thing, none of the things I’ve suggested are meant to be complaints/nags etc. It’s a bit odd as I feel like you are all happy for me to go ahead with things like this, but at the same time I feel like really it should be coming from you guys to offer the instructions as to what you want - but I appreciate you are busy with course content and as such things have to be prioritised. I guess I am just wary of :slight_smile:

#9

We really appreciate your input Rob and even more when you can help realise it. :slight_smile: It really helps us get on with creating great content.

2 Likes
#10

Thanks Sam :slight_smile:

#11

@Ben, @Michael_Bridges, @sampattuzzi - the Unity and Blender forums have been done.

I’ve not done too much with the text in either yet, @Michael_Bridges kindly created a new topic for the move yesterday with some text (made sense to me that it was an instructor of the course that had created the topic as your picture is against it then).

Both of the “About” topics in the Intro categories briefly cover what it’s about and then link to the introductions topic. Both of the “About” topics are closed so no additional replies can be added to them.

Then for the introductions you have;

Unity -> S01 Intro -> Welcome to the Unity Section 1 sub-forum
Blender -> S01 Intro -> Welcome Everyone!

It might be worth considering renaming the Unity post as I’m not sure how useful the sub-forum text is - I’m battling with my OCD but if it were me I would probably make a decision on appropriate text and then use it across the board on all of the forums/sub-forums for consistency (but that’s just me).

All of the scattered introduction posts have now been moved into the appropriate topic. Whilst I was in the Blender forum I also took the liberty of tagging a lot of the posts for some of the sections which weren’t done (might have been before the hard links from Udemy were put in place). There were considerably more posts in the Blender forum for scattered introductions than in Unity and I wondered if this was because a) there is currently more growth on that course or b) there wasn’t a topic posted with the same tag as the one you are linking from Udemy with?

I’m not 100% how that works from the Udemy site into the tagging system here, but what would be advantageous is that if they come from Udemy to the forums to post their introduction that it ends up actually in the existing Topic - is this something the tags manage? or do they only tag the post with the same tag for introductions but effectively create a new topic? If the latter, could the URL be changed to that of the Welcome Everyone! topic for example so that they are more inclined to reply to the existing topic that start new ones? Same goes for Unity and the other courses.

I will move on to the other course in due … course … haven’t looked yet but in the same way @Michael_Bridges did the new topic for the Blender course I may need @sampattuzzi to do one for the Certification and VR courses (e.g. the instructor of the course).

Hope this is all ok.

Many posts moved/topics deleted so any logs may look a bit concerning at the moment - seems to have gone well though.

Final thought is really one of where you have your main text, in the case of Blender, @Michael_Bridges put some good text together but its currently in the introductions topic, it’s the opposite for Unity and I’m not sure whether the text is suited more to the “About” or the “Intros” topics… if that makes sense…

Anyway - any problems let me know…

#12

Fantastic job. Thanks Rob.

#13

No worries @sampattuzzi, might be able to tackle the others tomorrow potentially.

#14

Update

Unity Certification course has been updated and posts moved to the relevant topic. About topic updated and closed.
VR course has been updated and posts moved to the relevant topic. About topic updated and closed.

The only one remaining is Unreal - however, it looks like this one got set up slightly differently than the others in the beginning. When you click on the Intro sub-category, at the top next to the logo it displays the text that you would typically have in the About topic (which I would then update) - there isn’t an About topic for this one though…

So… @Ben or @sampattuzzi, would you mind a) Creating an About the Intro S01 Category topic, just like the other sub-forums, I will then update the text to reflect the others but it would look better if it had an instructor profile picture next to the topic I think.

Then, b) It’s Admin functionality, so I won’t be able to do it, but could the description text that appears at the top of the page when you click on the S01 Intro category be changed to reflect that of all of the other sub-forums (it will look odd having it add the top and then having it again in a topic I think).

Two minor requests from you guys and I’ll sort the rest… that would then conclude this little bit of work for the time. :slight_smile:

Actually - the VR course SO1 Intro category has an image at the top and a description too - unlike all of the others, so make that three minor requests :slight_smile:

#15

Absolutely Rob, thanks so much, and I hope you’re back’s doing well?

I’ve bookmarked this and will get to it in the next few days if @sampattuzzi doesn’t get to it before me.

Thanks again.

1 Like
#16

Thanks @Ben, Unreal is the only forum to have the images per sub-category and the about info against it. All the others are the same.

My back is getting better but still not right, too much staying still I suspect, frustratingly its now causing the sciatica to flare up! Grrrr…

Thanks for asking though…

1 Like
#17

Per sub-forum there is one special post, the text of which shows up on the summary at the level above. For the Unreal Section 1 it’s this post which needs editing, so no need for me to create it. However I think this is the post your’e saying you need to be admin to edit. I’m not sure what’s wrong with it though? Meanwhile I’ve pinned it.

Re those thumbnails, I actually quite like them but am thinking of updating them to something more unique and relevant like a screenshot from the game / final 3D model.

Maybe we should do a Skype chat sometime for fun, and to trash this out.

#18

Nowt wrong with the Introduce yourself post, but that sub-forum lacks the “About the S01 Intro” blah blah topic, which all of the other sub-forums have (at least in the Intro sub-forum for each course)…

So, in order to have them all the same, the Unreal forum needs an “About the S01 Intro” topic posts, the text of which I could then set to be similar to the other “About” topics in the other course forums and link to the “Introduce yourself” topic that is already there.

The main difference is that the text that would typically appear in the “About the S01 Intro” topic is actually in the title text at the very top of the sub-forum next to the thumbnail - this is different to all of the other courses and only occurs for the Unreal course.

If you want the thumbnails I would agree that having them different would be beneficial, but also that the other course forums would also then benefit from having them - this would maintain the consistency across the forums.

I don’t think the text at the top (title text next to the thumbnail) however is as obvious as the “About the S01 Intro” topics you have posted in all of the other forums.

Screenshots to help explain;

Unity:

1333Ă—750 82.1 KB

Blender:

1333Ă—750 80.4 KB

Unreal:

1333Ă—750 91.7 KB

At the higher level, looking at the sub-forums for the Unreal course, this looks a tad odd…

1333Ă—750 206 KB

…but perhaps only because they are all the same…

#19

@Rob are you happy to close this now? It’s looking reasonably consistent to me now.

Happy New Year by the way!

#20

I guess so. The images are still different. e.g. Unreal has them for every sub-forum unlike the others but it has been over 2 months and I guess if it concerned anyone other than myself, e.g yourwelves, you’d have updated it…

I did what I could regardinf the About and Welcome topics across the original forums but I dont think this has been taken up on the new ones (python / asset pipeline) so again I’m guessing it wasn’t wanted.

I will close the topic as requested.

Happy new year to you also @Ben.

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