Site announcements and information discussion

I absolutely love this site and its layout. It’s vastly superior to many of the other sites you find on the web. Easy to navigate, and the content is relevant and entertaining. However, I am constantly left bemused and frustrated when trying to understand how it all works.

What triggers what? For example: My message tally hardly ever increases regardless of how many conversations I start and engage in, how many comments I make, how many postings I create, how many threads I contribute to, and how many status updates I post.

I can find no definition of what constitutes a ‘message’. Is my message tally based on received messages or sent ones?

I am fairly active on the site but my advancement in terms of ‘trophy points’ is very minimal. This is largely because I must be missing something and groping in the dark. The rather limited ‘help’ section, in its current format, fails to turn on many lights.

Whilst the people at the top of the hierarchy are rightfully applauded and appreciated for their excellent site AND their dedicated hard work in making it what it is, I have to say that the ‘help’ facility doesn’t reflect the otherwise high standard of presentation found elsewhere on the remaining 99% of the site.

I feel if new members spend a week or two trying to comprehend how the site works and find it confusing, then they will just move on somewhere else. Which would be a shame.

Well the above posting just increased my 'message' tally by one, so I have part of the answer to my question already. Lol.:D