“The best way to increase participation is to jump right in and ...”
No.
The best way is to have new people be able to quickly understand.
Intuitive.
If you WANT to KEEP visitors, expecting them to figure everything out... to jump right in... this is NOT the most effective technique.
Who died and made you king?
As soon as you make something fool proof, along comes a fool looking to make a name for themselves.
No offense, pal, but I’ve been here going on damn near ten years and I know how it works. If people want to understand what goes on here, they can read the home page. It’ll tell them all they need to know about it.
Speaking of “jumping right in,” there’s a section on the home page entitled “Jump Right In!” - it takes you right to the forums. What could be simpler than that?
If noobs want to ask questions, they can post questions either in the format of a thread or in the comments on the thread. There’s plenty of friendly people here that are willing to lend a helping hand to those who are willing to learn. If people are too sissified and have too thin a skin and they wanna whine about the way they get piled on in here we don’t want ‘em! (Cue Tom Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More”...) Most all of us have gone through this at one time or another (other than the really early guys circa ‘98/’99).
PS: All anyone needs to know is, I’m in charge.
Yes it is.
Learning HTML formatting by trial of fire worked for me.
/s