(1) The technical FAQ is carefully hidden on the let’s encrypt web server in the ‘about us’ section
(2) it’s not indexed
(3) it’s not linked in the front welcome message of this forum
The third problem is the most depressing I think; providing a link in a big bunch of text displayed automatically to the right of the entry window when first posting is not as useful as it would be if displayed before people start to ask their first question. When people have a problem and begin to explain it, they don’t want to be distracted.
Discourse can display more text in addition to the utterly useless message about notifications and I can’t begin to understand why this simple feature is not used.
See discuss.linuxcontainers.org for an example (they are overdoing it but it’s another usability mistake)
Besides that, Discourse automatic text formatting is a hideous pain and the first introduction to the forum should absolutely include a brief intro to the </> button to avoid unreadable goo when configuration files are directly pasted to the forum.
I guess you are talking about the question template? If the person asking question is not technical, it helps to give a little help to formulate the problem. If the person doesn't give the answer to the question in the template, it's harder to help them.
I like the really visible blue top. Maybe it's more visible that the first pinned post.
I agree that it's painful,but I'm a little afraid that adding more text/explanation for that point will be confusing, the more text they have to read the less they will read. (and a moderator can always edit the post to add the missing formatting if it's too hard to read)
If you could write the blue top text, what would you put inside it ?
A mix of these three pinned posts?