[J Greig]

I'm debating on whether or not to write up some tutorials on my forum to share with the community. I've been searching the web and I can definitely see that there are some tutorials which need to be done, not just for MyBB, but for phpBB too. My question is, are tutorials worth writing on a forum and how would it effect activity? I don't want to create a bunch of great tutorials and have guests view them and not even register to say thank you.

What are your thoughts and do you think tutorials are worth creating?

[Sam]

You could create hidden tutorials where the user has to post to view the rest of the content. From what I have seen, guests do not tend to sign up and post after reading unless they have to. There will be the odd sign up but it won't be worth the amount of effort you put into writing the tutorials.

[J Greig]

I was thinking of only showing a portion of the text to guests and the whole thread to registered members. But will this work? From my experience, people still don't like registering just to see more text.

[Mr.Panos]

You could create hidden tutorials where the user has to post to view the rest of the content. From what I have seen, guests do not tend to sign up and post after reading unless they have to. There will be the odd sign up but it won't be worth the amount of effort you put into writing the tutorials.

I agree with Sam. It's a nice advice.

[Michael W. Smith Fan]

I don't think they'd be worth it that much. Especially since there's always more than one way of doing things. You could write a tutorial, but just because a method works for you doesn't mean it'll work the same way for the next person, and that same method may not work all the time.

[shamzblueworld]

Sam's idea is good, if you want to place them in the forum, have them hidden from guests, I'd say they are definitely worth writing, especially if they are subjected to the community, it can improve the forum.

[J Greig]

I don't think they'd be worth it that much. Especially since there's always more than one way of doing things. You could write a tutorial, but just because a method works for you doesn't mean it'll work the same way for the next person, and that same method may not work all the time.

Why wouldn't it? Here's an example. If I wrote a tutorial for MyBB so that reputation comments are only viewable by admins and the user itself, why wouldn't that work for everyone? It's only 2 edits, 1 to a template and 1 to the reputation.php file.

[shamzblueworld]

But I'd also like to say that it wont hurt if you let it readable to the guests as well, by that way you can get people to your forum from google search, which is quite useful.

[Michael W. Smith Fan]

I don't think they'd be worth it that much. Especially since there's always more than one way of doing things. You could write a tutorial, but just because a method works for you doesn't mean it'll work the same way for the next person, and that same method may not work all the time.

Why wouldn't it? Here's an example. If I wrote a tutorial for MyBB so that reputation comments are only viewable by admins and the user itself, why wouldn't that work for everyone? It's only 2 edits, 1 to a template and 1 to the reputation.php file.

I guess I was looking at general issues. I know for like installing mods and stuff it would be the same process for everyone, because that would be how it is supposed to be done. I guess I was only looking at like general issues and whatever.

[CyberFreak]

If the tutorials are unique and people won't be able to find the info elsewhere then they probably will sign up to see the full tutorial. If there are similar tutorials around then they will probably just select the search result below in Google. 1 thing to think about when it comes to requiring users to log in to view the whole or part of a tutorial is that it may totally stop or atleast limit the ranking of the page as not all the content can be indexed. If you make an exception for search bots users can grab the full tutorial from the Google Cache or by changing their useragent. You may thing that not many people will do this but baring in mind the people you are targeting (forum owners) they are more likely to now these work arounds then typical web users.

If you have ads on your site, it might be financially good for you to make the articles public and hope that users will promote your tutorials and therefore increase traffic to your site and hopefully increase ad income.

[TimeRider]

I was thinking of only showing a portion of the text to guests and the whole thread to registered members. But will this work? From my experience, people still don't like registering just to see more text.

I have actually registered on some forums to see the tutorials. I got help sometime and sometimes not. So It depends if you put up a working tutorial.

[Anushajain]

I have seen some tutorials on how to earn money online, but they didn't give any information without charging the money..

[Arpit]

You could create hidden tutorials where the user has to post to view the rest of the content. From what I have seen, guests do not tend to sign up and post after reading unless they have to. There will be the odd sign up but it won't be worth the amount of effort you put into writing the tutorials.

I agree with Sam, your forum should have enough of quality content to make a guest as a member.

[singhabhishek251]

Tutorials are always a great things to write because it helps not only to needy, but also helps that community to grow and if you do not want to show them without registration, then make it private that at-least you need to register before viewing them.

[yashrajkarthikey2]

I agree, its very tough to master these forums without tutorials..

[Jybraek]

Well a good forum that I visited had tutorials on it for a lot of things related to coding..what you can do in this situation is try and make the tutorials in a way where you know the user would love to ask you questions regarding it. Make a project or something and don't just post a whole tutorial in one go. Divide it into parts, try and get the users to ask you questions on what problems they might be facing with your tutorial and how to resolve them. Or ask them what they would like to see added into that tutorial.

For example lets say you decide to create a tutorial...you want users to build an addon..so the project will be addon Newpoints for example..you give the code..a little bit..detailing what is going to be happening then ask users input like what else would you like to see in this that would make it better.

[ksridharprasad]

Hi Jybraek,

If we understand on line tutorials that is worth enough, if we cannot follow on line tutorials it is waste. I have started learning HTML code via on line tutorial, but who can clarify my doubts. I could not understand the tutorial after one week,so I have stopped learning if it is off line I can clear my doubt by asking questions to my tutor.

[himanshusaps]

Yes sure, why not, I think, forum is very good place to distribute knowledge through a good knowledge base, because you have a good community there which actively discusses the pros and cons of the courses and popularizes the courses to more and more people...

[Jybraek]

Exactly the whole point of a forum based tutorial is to help those that are having trouble with some things. So don't worry just go ahead with your tutorials. They count as relevant content anyways.

[yashrajkarthikey2]

You must offer courses, but only to those who are signed up and active users of you forum...