I’d be interested in knowing if you have a separate category for welcoming new members in your community.
If you have one, is it limited to welcome posts, or do you also use it for newbie/beginner questions?
For my support community, we will be encouraging people to post a first topic to introduce themselves so that we can answer their immediate needs and orient them (it’s a community for people who have diabetic cats, so often there is a lot of anxiety and sometimes emergency situations where time is of the essence).
I think it would also make sense to use this “Welcome” area for people to ask basic/general questions (either on feline diabetes or the community) rather than have sub-categories for them. But I’m not sure.
So I’d be interested in hearing what other people’s experiences are with this. How are things set up in the communities you manage?Thanks!
And sometimes people’s first posts are not intro’s but questions so it’s often more reasonable to file those in a better location more related to the question.
Sometimes it’s both, then it becomes a grey area. Unfortunately humans often present situations that are not easily categorised
This is an interesting question. If I understand correctly, not only are the welcome topics intro topics, but could also be “quick help” topics. In that case, a #Welcome:Introductions category may not be well suited.
One thing I thought of was either tags, or chat. If the topic needs quick help, you can tag it as such. Or, perhaps use Chat for quick questions/answers.
There’s a topic that covers part of your questions
edit: oh well, you already answered to this one.
re edit… This quote sort of answer your “separate topic” question:
That said; having to create a new topic in a new category after introducing themselves is a bit more friction for new users to participate on the forum, but I think having questions in introduction topics can quickly become a mess
In my experience, I’ve found that dedicated “Welcome” categories often see low engagement. Most new members fall into two camps:
They jump straight into conversations because their immediate need outweighs any potential “shyness.”
They “lurk” for a while to gauge the culture before ever posting.
Usually, people don’t want to post twice (once to say hi and once to ask a question). They’ll almost always just combine them. Once they are past that initial barrier to entry, they tend to just flow into the existing discussions.
That said, community culture is everything! Success for these types of categories depends on whether the community is small and intimate or a larger space where reputation is built over time. Personally, I’ve seen more success letting intros happen naturally within the main discussions.
I’ve also always been a big believer in reducing categories as much as possible (see my previous thoughts here) and only adding them when the need becomes obvious. If there are overlaps in intent (e.g., a “Questions” category vs. a “Welcome and First Question” category), it creates “choice paralysis” and initial confusion.
I like to think of Categories based on intent (asking questions, sharing tips, etc.) and Tags as a way of grouping those intents (e.g., #first-question, #emergency, #new-member). This keeps your top-level navigation clean while still allowing you to track and orient new arrivals.
