Seeing Double??

[Hackmaster]

Hello everyone!

I have an issue, and an idea to fix it. all it needs is admin support. so....here's the pitch:

As you all know, this site is used mostly by turing users. there are thousands of posts, and they all concern very different subjects. some people want to talk about networking in turing (very advanced as far as turing is concerned), whereas others want to know "wyh inst' my Proggy WorLKing!?!?!?"

I have made the point before that people need to be sensitive to other people's skill levels when in the turing forums, but now, I have an idea that may help to eliminate that distinction.

Why not make 2 forums?

you would have 2 forums in turing. one for advanced users, and one for beginners. you would have all the current subjects in both. when you have people asking for help with pong, and then you have some people (like ericfourfour) who are writing string classes, and event handlers. I'm sure you will all agree that those are on an entirely different level.

also, you would break up the tutorials. when you have some talking about character graphics, and some dealing with classes and networking, you again have 2 separate levels of integrity.

You don't have to make it into beginner/advanced. you could make it into school/extra-curricular. or something. whatever.

Also, for the skeptics that will say that noobs will post thier pong in the advanced forum, sure. they will. but they will be flamed, and the post will be moved. compsci may not be a huge site, but it has a great community. and besides... that's what mods are for.

speaking of which, hacker dan, if you are thinking of doing this, I would volunteer to be a mod for one of them. I don't even care whether it's advanced or beginner. but the thing is, I think that something needs to be done to accommodate the the multiple user levels.

also, this isn't needed for other forums, because they either don't have enough posts, or the people in them are all advanced. you don't really need a forum for beginner's O'Haskell.

so please, gods of compsci, hear my cry... split the turing forum... we need it.

[cool dude]

hmmm... i see several issues with this. First issue beginners usually come to this forum to get their assignment done. notice how they post everywhere. sometimes not even the turing section at all. they post the first thing they see the word turing and thats it. They're not going to be deciding which is advanced or beginner. as well i can bet you that you will be seeing double posting. they think that you don't visit both forums so they'll post in both. Another issue is that its hard to consider what is advance and what isn't. You may think that making a hello world program is advanced because you just started and you think everything is advanced. There are many flaws in making this. Also you said if they post in the wrong forum we flame them? As you said this is a good community and we really try not to flame anyone here unless there is a really good reason for doing so. People come here for help and posting in the wrong section and getting flamed at and getting their post removed makes our community only look bad. In my opinion i do not suggest another forum.

[Cervantes]

I think the big problem with your idea is that it's difficult to draw a line between beginner and advanced. Also, I'm not sure I agree with you in that we actually need two forums. Yes, there is a difference in quality of material in the Turing forums, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should be separated.

[apomb]

Hey, heres an idea, why don't we make two whole sites, and make one only for "advanced users" and one only for beginners, and make the other site password protected, so only people with over 1000 posts can enter? wouldn't that help weed out the non-1337 from the uber-1337 haxorz? OH WAIT!! there already IS one ... but, being a quiet, yet experienced member, I'm not allowed in there. Look, theres no need to make a whole forum for people with higher than most post count ... thats what i thought frc was for, for those more advanced users. Anyway. in my opinion, there should be no need to separate skill levels, especially somewhere where its easy to ignore the odd 1337 5P33|< and excessive

Quote:

!111!!!!!!!!!1!!!1

-age in a genuinely "advanced" thread. now, its not like this is going to have any impact on the decisions of Dan, or anyone else who is FOR the "Elite room", but i just thought i'd make my thoughts known.

[rdrake]

CompWiz333 @ Tue Jan 16, 2007 1:35 am wrote:

Look, theres no need to make a whole forum for people with higher than most post count ...

Agreed.

CompWiz333 @ Tue Jan 16, 2007 1:35 am wrote:

thats what i thought frc was for, for those more advanced users.

Everybody may use it .

It is very difficult to separate those which are considered "noobs" from those considered "advanced." Really no matter what you do you will upset somebody. It is best left how it is.

[ZeroPaladn]

Thus is the world we live in today. You can't please everyone. I've tried.

rdrake wrote:

CompWiz333 @ Tue Jan 16, 2007 1:35 am wrote:

Look, theres no need to make a whole forum for people with higher than most post count ...

Agreed.

Perhaps not a whole forum, but just an chunk of it. 1000 Posts is hard to make up, I've been here over a year, and I have barely 400. If you hit 1k posts, you definatly care about the site enough to contribue so much to it. It is people like that who deserve their own area of the site, a place where it is their own and not cluttered by oh so horrible spam(which we've been getting alot of lately) and "PLZ D0 M3H PR00G13Z" posts.

As for the current disscusion on breaking up the Turing forum, I find it unnessasary to break up that section of the site. It's degrading to some of our users (whether they have lots of experience in programming or not is aside the point).

Imagine that that the whole site was broken up into that whole "1k posts and non-1k posts", with all the newbie stuff in the latter and the advanced in the former. Experienced users would have to post 1k times just to access the stuff they're looking for. Even those with less experience will find that "Hey, I can't learn anymore!".

Even without the post restriction, some of our users will feel restricted and unwanted. Nobody likes being called a newbie, even if it is true.

[md]

Of course it doesn't help that all posts in off topic are ignored for "post counts". I for instance spend half my time helping people and half my time causing trouble in off topic. Because the off-topic posts don't count towards my "post count" I actually have twice as many posts as it says I do (or did... v3 counted them all at first so I'm much closer to my true number of posts).

I think segregation is bad sure; but there are definitely times where limiting certain activities (like karma) to users with X posts, where X is some reasonable number, is a good idea.

[Hackmaster]

note, guys, that I didn't say that they would be separated by post count. that's stupid. yes, 1k posts means something. but shouldn't 100? the basic noob who wants easy answers will have roughly 5 posts. I think that we shouldn't do it by post count, but perhaps by discretion. I think that people (aside from the noobs) will be smart enough to choose the right forum.

and cervantes, I think that a line might be determined in school and extra cirricular. I think that if you go outsde the borders of "class", you start to get advanced.

[Clayton]

I figured it was about time I posted in this thread.

The problem with your "in class" to "extra-curricular" segregation is that, just because you are doing something for fun, doesn't mean that you are any kind of pro. In fact, how would you tell if someone was doing something for class or for fun?

Separating the Turing forums up wouldn't help either, as was said above, how are newer members supposed to access that information if they need it? They can't.

As for privelidges for users with 1K posts, yes, there should be a section for those users. Even though it is just an Off-Topic type section where we can talk, it is nice to have a place of our own, and gives something for other users to work for.

Hackmaster wrote:

and then you have some people (like ericfourfour) who are writing string classes

That was me actually

[cool dude]

Freakman @ Tue Jan 16, 2007 5:50 pm wrote:

I figured it was about time I posted in this thread.
As for privelidges for users with 1K posts, yes, there should be a section for those users. Even though it is just an Off-Topic type section where we can talk, it is nice to have a place of our own, and gives something for other users to work for.

Some more space we can spam

[apomb]

ok, well i did talk to dan about this topic, and we came up with the idea to put those nifty little stars under our names to good use. To Make it so that people with EITHER 1k+ posts OR minimum 3 years active ... this would eliminate the fear of noobishness, since the only one that might effect would be TokenHerbz ... and it would also be alowing the current under-3-year members with +1k posts. Though, this would be dealt with at a later date.

Oh, and ZeroPaladin, your [quote=ZeroPaladin]1000 Posts is hard to make up, I've been here over a year, and I have barely 400. If you hit 1k posts, you definatly care about the site enough to contribue so much to it. It is people like that who deserve their own area of the site, a place where it is their own and not cluttered by oh so horrible spam(which we've been getting alot of lately) and "PLZ D0 M3H PR00G13Z" posts. [/quote]

ive been here almost 4 years, and its not because i dont love this site, or dont contribute to it that i cant access the +1k areas, its because i am a reserved person, and i have other interests. Alot of my posts are in offtopic.

[md]

3 years? 1 year is WAY more then enough to eliminate noobish spam.

[ericfourfour]

Freakman @ Tue Jan 16, 2007 4:50 pm wrote:

Hackmaster wrote:

and then you have some people (like ericfourfour) who are writing string classes

That was me actually

What is it? The third time this has happened now.

Another idea: Maybe make it so they can't make their post subjects contain more than three consecutive exclamation marks or capital letters. Even try it. I bet you can't make a sentence using three consecutive exclamation marks or capital letters that does not qualify as annoying.

[Dan]

ericfourfour @ 17th January 2007, 12:37 am wrote:

Another idea: Maybe make it so they can't make their post subjects contain more than three consecutive exclamation marks or capital letters. Even try it. I bet you can't make a sentence using three consecutive exclamation marks or capital letters that does not qualify as annoying.

I already thought of the capital letters and there should be some code that stops topics from being in all caps. Exclamation marks could be intresitng to look in to.

[[Gandalf]]

Ok...

md, you have a point, but there's also many points against off topic posts counting. Basically, on one hand people are saying that users should be "ranked" based on their knowledge and contribution to programming discussion on this site, and on the other just plain old contribution. The problem with the latter, which you are suggesting, is that you're weighing posts in OT the same as in the programming sections. Sure, a post of yours in OT could be 10 times as benefitial as someone's post in say, Turing Help, but Off Topic is off topic, it's not something directly related to the site. The other point is that some people could / would just spam or make posts like " that's hilarious " to gain a higher post count and hence a higher "rank."

As for CompWiz333 and possibly rdrake, you're taking the whole 1000 posts forum way too seriously. It's not some elitist place to make fun all you underling peons, it's just yet another place to have discussion. A slightly different kind of discussion because of the limited user group.

Your point about being more reserved and therefore not posting as much is quite valid, although again, it highly depends on what we're counting. If, as I understand, it's what knowledge you've put forth on the forums, then it doesn't matter if you're a genious if you haven't contributed anything. The problem is weighing knowledge and quality vs communication and contribution.

This brings me to the conclusion... There's really no reason for any revolutionary actions.. Things ran just fine in the past, and they should continue to do so even with a few minor changes or additions.

Generally though, the whole seperating stuff into more forums is a bad idea that only makes things more complicated. Really, do we need such a thing? No. Will it improve anything? Highly doubtful. You can't expect to change the nature of most of the people who seek Turing help or even any other kind of help. There will always be "noobs" - some annoying - some not as much.

Hrm... That's my sort of rant... Who knows if it made sense or even communicated what I tried to get across... Ah well, we shall see. Auf wiedersehen!