we specifically developed the mirrored How To forum as it's own separate destination, and the reason for that is so that when people visit the CNET How to site and use the How to forum there, they will stay within the How to site's experience. If we just link from the How to site to the CNET forum's How To forum (I know this sounds confusing), people can and will get lost and we didn't want to create that confusion by linking people off to somewhere they may not be familiar with.
I hope this clarifies why we did this, I know it sounds confusing, but those are our reasons for our doing so--the bottom line, keep the confusion to a minimal. I guess when mods and other members start pointing links to other forums, that's when it starts to make things confusing. ![]()
Cheers!
-Lee
I just noticed. Can How To visitors have a full forum listing?
From 'this' CNET's How To web page;
http://howto.cnet.com/?tag=rb_wrap;rb_content
visitors can submit a question and then view it in the How To forum, but there are no other forums listing in the left hand column. In fact there is no left hand column.
My example - http://howto.cnet.com/7723-11310_39-561247.html?tag=contentBody;threadListing
A more permanent example - http://howto.cnet.com/7723-11310_39-560586.html
If they then go to "CNET > How To > How To forum', (top of page), they just get the How To forum listing again with no forum navigation in the left column.
I wonder if they should be offered all the forum options.
Quite often when visitors post quick questions that are likely to be involved, responders will suggest re-posting in one of the more specialised forums.
This is different to what general forum posters see when we visit from the Forum Main Page. We get this listing;
http://forums.cnet.com/how-to-forum/?tag=contentMain;contentBody which shows the left hand navigation column.
This might confuse the How To visitors if/when we make that suggestion. Is there any possibility that How To visitors could be offered the other forums?
It might help them to understand more .
Mark

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