For me...it depends how a guidebook is written. A guidebook that is hard to navigate isn’t much better than having a bunch of threads scattered everywhere. But most guidebooks I encounter nowadays don’t have that issue, so we’re good there.

And when it comes down to threads —I always preferred there being one for the required general lore and other for site functions & OoC stuff, and others for not-quite-required information for joining. As long as a longer thread has an index at the start of each post or somewhere easy to access, it wouldn’t be that much of a pain to navigate. And for sites that allow player lore, threads are pretty useful for that too.

So overall, to me it doesn’t really matter that much. CTRL+F is my friend when it comes down to both. Both guidebooks and threads can look good, be easy to read and navigate, it depends on the design. We can even do some fancy things with jcink with the coding for threads to make gudebook threads look different compared to regular threads.

im a big fan of guidebooks esp when its seamless tabbing instead of like... just reloading each new page. i know coding it in is an actual hot mess and a half in terms of actually inputting the data on the staff end. but lord as a user i am abso in favor of it.

threads are okay if it's a site that doesn't have a ton of lore and information needed to know. even a mix of both threads + guidebook can be good if done right.

guidebook + webpage supremacy through and through. it just makes it so much easier to organize things, and i'll never go back to having a billion threads on site lol

ugh i guess i'll code a guidebook then. i was lowkey just lazy

and maybe my subconscious desire for a billion threads to compartmentalize my thoughts is not necessarily healthy. maybe.

The site I'm currently working on is using threads instead of a webpage, just because I was lazy and it was easier to make mobile friendly.

*turns into astral goo to peek into your wip and absorb through osmosis how you organized it*

will/does it have multiple posts in one thread?

This has been very informative/comforting to know! Thank you for sharing! You bring a good point about it looking good in mobile! My design is also similar to yours (trying to be as simple and plain text as possible) so *_* 

Kinda ultimately undecided now...so I'll just try doing both for now and see where my gut takes me

Nothing against threads, but guidebooks are superior. They're easier for members to read, and easier for staff to edit. Coding a guidebook can be a hassle, but once you get it to look just right, it's very rewarding. If you look around the interwebs, you can probably find a comprehensive tutorial on how to make a guidebook that's ALSO mobile-friendly.

Oh i know how to make a guidebook. But *throws hands* coding… and designing… and i’m one of those who complain about having to skin but it’s me who cares about tge design the most and i cannot be satisfied otherwise. All these valid points that i completely agree with are in a death match against my toxic relationship with web design

I think, on some level, I "noticed" guidebooks, but it wasn't until I read this thread that it really clicked re: how many I've seen lately. I've been mostly out of the RP circuit for a few years now.

I think they're both great! Guidebooks look really nice and are certainly easier to jump back and forth with, but I probably wouldn't do them on a forum myself unless someone else did all the coding part for me, so for now I'll stick to having multiple threads.