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Do we need a sticky thread for tutorials?
Do we need to create a sticky thread and put a bunch of links to tutorials in it? Seems we're getting a lot of folks coming here to ask basic questions rather than reading the tutorials. Putting a set of tutorial links at the top might help them get more immediate answers to their questions.
Comments
Many of the tutorials are...difficult to grasp particularly for twine 2. Part of the reason I joined this forum is because so many of the "go to tutorials" and explanations kind of read like this: Ok, so Twine is a simple tool to make html interactive fiction. So here's some links or recs for learning CSS, which will help. However, Twine uses different mark ups, and now let me explain Twine 2 by listing all the differences from Twine one. Further let me explain Twine 2 by explaining Twine one's mark ups in terms that are clear to me as someone who worked with Twine 1 and/or knows basic CSS/Java code. Also I'm not going to mention what you need to know to make X or Y work and assume that you'll already know what I'm talking abbout because I gave you those recs even though Twine can use differing markups and Harlowe, Sugarcube, etc. are all slightly different."
That's an oversimplification to an extent, but it's a summary of what I've been experiencing. I have somewhat of a learning difficulty when it comes to translating things from instructions to action, and many of the threads on this forum do a great job of giving examples of how the style sheets and codes should look, and how to manage them. But many of the tutorials suffer from the curse of knowledge where "I", as a person whose involved with this system/as a person familiar with the coding for it am writing from a position where certain knowledge is assumed. And it is quite clear the authors don't intend to do that. They try to make tutorials for people familiar and unfamiliar with Twine and CSS and java. However, the tutorials aren't as intuitive as some people with experience assume. I am slowly getting the hang of Twine, but I find many tutorials would benefit from feedback from people who know nothing about Twine or code at all. Because I have found myself basically bounding from a book I borrowed on CSS, to a Twine one tutorial in order to translate a tutorial on twine two if I can't find the info on the forums here.
EDIT:
Going to add it's not just on this forum, but IFDB and IFarchive both operate from this assumption of certain fundamentals that a person has no reason to know or understand. There are certain things that are explained in great detail but are still contingent upon knowing the IF community as a whole...and quite frankly that's frustrating.
But you need to understand/remember that a tutorial is generally story format (and sometimes version) specific so each tutorial link would need to be clearly labelled to describe which story format (and possible version) it meant for.
Is there any sort of sensible progression between the formats? Say Twine 1/Sugarcane for someones first story - to learn passages and variables, then Twine 1/Sugarcube for their second - basics of sugarcube, then Twine 2/Sugarcube for their 3rd - current environment (or is Twine 2/Sugarcube Harlow derived)?
Twine 2 is not a progressive upgrade of Twine 1, it is just another Twine editor written in a different programming language.
I believe that a new Author should use whichever version of Twine (1 or 2) they feel most comfortable with but they do need to be made aware that Twine 1 is not currently being actively updated and that some Story Formats are only available for a particular version of Twine.
eg. Jonah is only Twine 1, Harlowe is only Twine 2, etc....
Oh I'm well aware of that. The problem is that doesn't help. It's not simply a matter of not reading thoroughly but many of the tutorials aren't intuitive and/or are referential to the point of being kind of hard to grasp. Even the tutorials I understand now I look out and they aren't great for people new to the concept of twine.