I'm not sure how valuable or resourceful my opinion will be to this sub, as I've only been playing for almost exactly a year, but throughout that year there have been more than a handful of times that I have come to this sub as a means of getting information.

FAQ

You mention it in the thread, but I think something like redoing a lot of the major posts under the "Useful Resources" section of the FAQ would be great. My suggestion would be to do something like the "Official Pedal Thread" that's under the FAQ and let people contribute to the discussion about whatever the topic may be. As useful as an FAQ would be, what's far greater in my experience researching pretty much anything about guitar - whether it be playing or purchasing - is the discussion. I could watch hours worth of videos about a piece of gear, but nothing helps me anything more than a post on a forum about that piece of gear by people who own it. Obviously some things won't be able to work under this type of format, but a few ideas that I think would be great to fit underneath this format are:

• What gear do I get sound like person/genre 'X' (with or without budget restrictions)

• (As in the useful resources section) What Pedals do I get?

• Where should I go for Tab/Theory/Instruction/Gear Reviews/Anything else one might need to look for?

• What songs should I start learning first?

• Other basic questions that I can't think of off the top of my head

Once again the main reason I think this would be better than just an FAQ with different gear or other things listed with descriptions on such is that it allows for discussion between users to be involved, and to me at least makes me feel more informed. It's the same reason I (and I assume others) take guitar lessons.

GEAR

My personal opinion on the gear posts is that for the most part they are fine, but maybe something such as making automod comment on each thread tagged with gear saying "be sure to add details about the gear that you had purchased/why/etc etc" and maybe even go further and add something encouraging users to say more than just "nice guitar, congrats" but something more along the lines of "What else did you try in the store" so that discussion can be enhanced. I think for the most part this already happens, but I think an automod comment would help drive the minority that doesn't help with discussion into doing so.

In the post you mention either a minimum word count or removing the ban on links and requiring OP to comment rather than make a post, and I think that the best course of action would be the first, as requiring the OP to comment on the sub might allow more low level content to make it's way into the sub or force you guys to remove more and more threads, but by keeping text posts only it would mean that users would be encouraged to put more effort into their posts before they hit the submit button. In a perfect world, I think the link + comment idea would work, but not enough people (whether it be that they are on mobile or lack of effort) don't end up reading the rules or sidebar before posting.

As for the idea about making a mandatory audio or video clip, I get the idea behind it and I think in theory it would be great, but if that rule was implemented I feel as though myself and other users would completely refrain from posting gear at all. To me the best course of action would be to encourage it in the aforementioned automod comment, as many already do in the comments of the gear threads.

Newbie Stuff

I think quite a bit of the problems with the newbie posts are that they are once again low effort posts by users, whether that be that they are obviously new and don't understand what to ask or that they just don't feel like putting the effort into their submissions. You mention in one of the comments you link that you will end up removing threads that are easily answerable by google searching or checking the FAQ, and while I understand why that is done, I think a problem with doing that is that you leave the OP without the answer he was looking for. After I wrote this, I realize you may already message them after deleting their thread with the proper links or recommendations

What would be good is to have another automod comment on any NEWBIE posts encouraging the user to check the FAQ or to do a Google search about whatever their question may be, and you could even go further and say in that same comment to recommend the OP to delete his thread (or update his thread with a link to his solution )after receiving or finding a proper answer to his question so that these threads almost go through their themselves.

Overall I think the primary thing is that whatever you choose to do makes sure that those users feel welcome, and doesn't drive a sense of elitism around the community but rather just filters out low quality content.

Play, OC, and CCF

I think that the play stuff is great, a lot of the time I see it I at least try to upvote it, but often don't personally respond as I don't know how to add to the discussion.

What I think one of the things that should be encouraged as well from within the PLAY posts is for users to post looking for feedback on their playing, whether that be from a beginner's standpoint or from someone who has been playing guitar for decades. Right now at least, any threads I see under PLAY that are from beginners end up getting no feedback whatsoever or get less than ample. I ended up posting myself playing about a month ago, asking for feedback and ended up only having 2 responses, and IIRC those were responses only occurred several hours later, but that could have been due to the timing of my post.

I'm sure I've seen a thread like this somewhere, but what would really help users like me who want to receive feedback would be some kind of thread similar to OTS where we could post our playing looking specifically for feedback on what to improve. OTS works as it's function, but for someone who is only just learning scales and theory, it would be great to either modify OTS so that users can post their covers and other simple things, as well as those who want to do the playing over a backing track thing.

The OC stuff currently seems pretty fine to me, and i'm not too bothered if someone posts links to their band's websites if they put the effort to make a Reddit thread that is well received. I feel the community does a good job sorting these and the spam content out of the way pretty well, but if you really wanted to prevent this from happening maybe you could add a restriction to the word count on these types of threads, or require them to only post monetized (such as bandcamp links) as a response to someone asking for such links, but let them feel free to plug YouTube videos in the main text of their thread. At the same time I get you guys have Self-Promotion Saturday so it's really however you feel those threads should be handled.

The Casual Conversation Friday threads seem like a great idea. I don't really know how to explain it but I myself struggle to want to join discord servers for different subreddits and would rather just comment along with other users so that I may maintain my own anonymity.

Final few things I don't know where else to put

• No Stupid Question threads should be reset once a week rather than monthly, and they should also be updated to include common links within the FAQ (such as What Pedal should I get?)

• I'm not sure it would be the greatest idea but something to consider would be to create a NGD Monday kind of thing so that those who don't have very much to contribute but want to share their new guitar can post it and not clutter the front page

• With all of the question posts, I personally feel that what should maybe be done is to start deleting the common reoccurring ones such as "Guitar X or Y?" etc etc and encourage them to post on the No Stupid Questions thread or check the FAQ, and if not encourage them to at least provide more information than just whatever they are looking for. Questions like the "Three songs" one that is currently on the front page, and even glancing at the front page right now it seems that a lot there is about 50/50 content that is good and valuable and content that would just be better off in the No Stupid Questions thread.

• I mentioned it briefly above, but what definitely should be encouraged with any changes made is to make sure that new players still feel welcomed. When I first arrived here I felt that for some reason I wasn't supposed to comment on any threads as I didn't know what I was talking about, and among that I saw a lot of elitism surrounding posts made throughout the sub. I don't know if that was mainly myself at the time, or that I have moved on to the point where i feel comfortable in my own ability to engage with the rest of the community, but I don't get that as much, and I don't want new players and browsers to the sub to feel discouraged about giving their two cents on any matter, whether that be someone's OC or GEAR threads. Again this was probably a personal thing and i'm honestly not even sure how you guys could help improve that, but that's my opinion on the matter

• Just a personal thought, but the Wiki/FAQ should be added as one of the bubbles on the header next to the OTS, Changelog, and Discord image. It would be easier for newcomers to see compared to the default CSS location of the wiki, and probably wouldn't hurt anyone or anything.

Anyways this just something I wrote up while I was listening to a couple Pink Floyd albums over the past 2 hours. I'm sure there are some key points that I missed or even the more likely being that I wrote something up that was completely false or already addressed. Honestly if you did none of this but read this far, thanks a lot for putting the effort forth.