Forum Restructuring

[Huntress]

Changes made...

It's nice to finally see some topic areas up. I guess that means the site really is going to go live

That's the idea!   :sign5:

[COBOLdinosaur]

A couple of thoughts here.  

• Tere are a few threads where we have gotten good discussion going solved dome problems in the tech questions forum, but also in the building forums as well.  We should preserve those in the forums as seed.  
• Once we have the forums up, the mentors in them might want to start a couple of topics with current issues, and others can comment in them as well so we have some activity already showing as we come up.
• breaking up the web as serverside and clientside might mis-direct.  Client/server covers a broader spectrum than web development. It migh tbe better to call it Web Development of Web Development Tools for the languages (both client and server side) and Web Infrastructure for the things like web/app servers and browsers.  
• We can add browser in the infrastructure part; I can handle that and we have additional support.
• We will need to have a category for programming as well.  It can start with COBOL.  I'm not sure enough of myself in Java to include that unless we see some additional support.  I certainly can't handle alone; but COBOL I can do in my sleep.
• After you do an initial set up, you might need to PM or email some o the members who earlier indicated tht they would support various technologies.  When we lost notifs there for a while; we seemed to get a drop off in participation and some of the members have not been back for a while becasue we told them we would let them know when we were ready to set up their topics.  That is especially true of members who have an interest in technologies we did not during the building like ASP, .NET, Windows, etc.
• We can also drop a word in at SE, and do a little underground recruiting at "other sites" where there are experts who have indicated they will be interested when we get the site up.
• I Absolutely agree that we do not want to set up any forum that we cannot support.  If thre is no Mentor commited to a forum then let's not set it up.  It is easy enough to add new forums and even categories as we need them; but we do not want to end up with any dead zones.
• There is nothing wrong with setting up more than we need and then re-arranging and trimming right now.  It is probably a good way to actually see and feel a setup; and actually putting them up, will help to motivate the Mentors pitch in and help define their areas. Let's play, experiment, and see how different arrangements look and interact. It is a chance to involve some members who may have felt left out of the action up to now because we were not using the technologies they can help with.

[Huntress]

Precisely why I wanted to get started on this now instead of waiting.  If you want to make the changes to the categories, be my guest.  I'm going to work on drafting a mass mailer to haul everyone's proverbial asses back in here and find out who wants to mod and where.

[COBOLdinosaur]

I hope that mass mailer is still working.  I don't think we have tried it since I fixed the notifs problem.  :?

I will get round to looking at the setup later.  I will try out a couple of things.  It does look good to see real forums starting to go up.  

I guess that means the site really is going to go live

Did you ever doubt it?   :^)

[Huntress]

About the mass mailer......it's bwoke.   :-s   Check your PMs.

[COBOLdinosaur]

Yeh I did a workaround that should solve the anti-spamming limit.  I PMed the instructions.

[Huntress]

Woohoo!  That worked!!!  Subjectline=Forum Restructuring/Mentors Needed

[COBOLdinosaur]

:cheers:

Hah! got it in one try.  :^)

[Huntress]

And now I'm off to post in every single freaking forum that I created this morning to search for volunteers.  A woman's work is never done!

[Srirangan]

Are we a web development experts' round table? Or do we have scope to discuss programming subjects/languages and topics like algorithm design etc.? :scratch:

[COBOLdinosaur]

The whole point of the format is to put no limits on discussion.  If something goes way off topic or ends us multi-streamed we can just split it into multiple discussion.  If we get a discussion that would be better in a different forum we will just move it.

A discussion simple starts with the presentation of a problem or a query, and where is goes does not matter if there is an intelligent discussion.  Somewhere along the line a solution or multiple solutions may be found; but for some things there is no solution so alternative might be explored.  

We don't want to keep thing in boxes.  Knowledge should be fluid and available.  You do that by not restricting the range of discussion with a lot of petty procedural rules.

If we find there is a lot of discussion on a subject we are not covering then we will create a new forum for it, as long as tehre is a Mentor to support that forum.

So I think the only real restriction is that the discussion are of a technical nature.  We are not going to do politics, religion, or recipes, unless the Governing Council decides they want to do that.

[Huntress]

I'll create any forum discussion areas that a Mentor wishes to take.  If you'd like to take on one or three.  I've added the Mentor title to your username btw, if there's no objections from anyone.

[Huntress]

Oh, and I've added an Operating System category too.

[Srirangan]

I'll create any forum discussion areas that a Mentor wishes to take.  If you'd like to take on one or three.  I've added the Mentor title to your username btw, if there's no objections from anyone.

No no. I'm all in favor of discretion being exercised. We need to know why we are doing what we are. There's no justification for creating 100 odd subforums having no discussions in them.

[Srirangan]

I'll create any forum discussion areas that a Mentor wishes to take.  If you'd like to take on one or three.  I've added the Mentor title to your username btw, if there's no objections from anyone.

No no. I'm all in favor of discretion being exercised. We need to know why we are doing what we are. There's no justification for creating 100 odd subforums having no discussions in them.

That being said, we do still need to ensure we have a system that is open to future expansion as and when required. We ofcourse have an excellent system already in place.  :notworthy: @ cd& and the rest of the core team