Challenge section

We know you have an opinion on how things should be run around here. These are suggestions for the forums, and the website.This forum is not a place to ask for suggestions to your own coding (or otherwise) problems.

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Ollie Saunders
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Re: Challenge section

Post by Ollie Saunders »

I feel like you have animosity towards the forum and that your comments are a bit harsh.
Not true. I have no animosity to this forum. This is a great forum! This is the best forum I know. Serious. I'm just neurotic; I'm like this to pretty much everything, including myself.
The issue here however is that these were created years and years ago and agreed upon by many of the founding members. That said, if something is identified as an improvement and is feasible, we will make the change.
To be honest I should really be working rather than posting here. I could do that analysis but I think I would regret using my time that way.
I disagree with your comments regarding the Database forum. The database forum is distinct from PHP - Code in the sense that questions in it are related to crafting database queries, tuning queries, broken queries, what data types to use etc. This is not related to PHP. Granted there is a little bit of overlap on occasion, for the most part the Database forum is the correct place to post database related questions.
OK. But, if that is the case my first reaction is whether a PHP board should have such a forum at all when there are plenty of boards specialising in databases? I'm sorry to be such a hard ass but that's just how I work.

I think this is what lead me to believe it was for using PHP with databases
Forums index page wrote:Questions about the MySQL, PostgreSQL, and most other databases, as well as using it with PHP can be asked here.
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Benjamin
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Re: Challenge section

Post by Benjamin »

Ah you know if you have a database question you would rather post it here ;)
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Ollie Saunders
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Re: Challenge section

Post by Ollie Saunders »

Maybe. :/
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Darhazer
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Re: Challenge section

Post by Darhazer »

Ollie Saunders wrote:OK. But, if that is the case my first reaction is whether a PHP board should have such a forum at all when there are plenty of boards specialising in databases? I'm sorry to be such a hard ass but that's just how I work.
Then we have to remove 'Security' because there are security forums? And maybe theory and design, because probably there are forums for OO design. Same for Javascript and Linux. And of course for PHP, because there are PHP forums out there :crazy:

Let me disagree, databases are important part of the life of the web developer and virtually every PHP developer have worked or is working with databases. And... my topic, 'updatable view questions', have nothing to do with PHP, although it was because of a PHP application.
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Ollie Saunders
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Re: Challenge section

Post by Ollie Saunders »

Imagine a new board, where are tags applied to threads and there are no separate forum categories whatsoever. In this new system there would be a "PHP" tag and a "database" tag, among others. Do you think this new board would be better than the current one? If you think that is better than the current system must be worse. Now, ask yourself why that might be better and you might be able to identify some of the problems with the current system. The answers to that question are far from simple. This is something more easily understood intuitively than explicitly.

Keep imagining that new tag-based board for a moment because this leads on to my second point. My opinion is that, any thread created in that new board without a "PHP" tag wouldn't be worthy of being posted in the board. Why? Because this is a PHP board above all else. At least this is the attitude that the moderation policy seems to be projecting and I agree with it. If we're doing other things, we're being distracted. I heard the secret to successful blogging is apparently to blog purely on a specific topic. I can appreciate why that might be a good idea and I think you can explain PHPDN's success by the fact that it specialises much better than so many other forums. I just think we could go a little more extreme.

The problem we have is that we have to categorise threads into a one-to-many relationship with forums. (Threads can go in one, or the other, but never in more than one). So when you create a forum like Databases that has a blurry distinction from PHP I feel a little uncomfortable. "Is this relevant to PHP?" I ask. And it's difficult to know. The Databases forum either allows us to specialise that much more effectively or it allows us to diverge from our purpose and identity. Actually I think it does both, simaltaneously and the relationship between the two is non-trival.

Basically, you can summarise this with: If we tagged threads instead of boxing them this whole problem would go away.
Then we have to remove 'Security' because there are security forums?
The posts in PHP - Security should be related to PHP and security. If they are just related to PHP they belong in PHP - Code if they are just related to security they belong on a board that specialises in security.
Same for Javascript and Linux.
Unless they relate to PHP. If they don't, then yes, get them outta here!
And of course for PHP, because there are PHP forums out there.
Contrary to how I phased it before (your points were useful as they allow me to see my error) this is not an issue of whether it is done elsewhere but whether it is relevant to the purpose of the board, which is, both in principle and practise, centred around PHP.
And maybe theory and design, because probably there are forums for OO design
Actually I think this is an excellent category. Theory and Design is specific to the theory and design as it relates to PHP. That changes everything. Design and the application of theory is remarkably contextual. People rarely talk about theory and design without relating back to PHP in that forum; even if they tried they'd think about it in terms of PHP.
Let me disagree, databases are important part of the life of the web developer and virtually every PHP developer have worked or is working with databases. And... my topic, 'updatable view questions', have nothing to do with PHP, although it was because of a PHP application.
Perhaps I've just got it all wrong with thinking this forum was about PHP first and foremost and it's really about PHP as much as it is web development in general. Although it does seem to me that there's a very PHP-centric user base and I attribute the board's success to its specialisation. I think we've just lost our way a bit, mostly because we're constrained to this primitive categorisation system.

I may have been wrong to single out databases in the way I did. It seems people will defend the inclusion of existing forums to the death and yet there's a strong attitude of exclusion in the moderation policy. It is inconsistent. Although even with the attitude of exclusion I'd still expect challenges to be voted through because it's so relevant to the spirit in which the board was founded.
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Eran
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Re: Challenge section

Post by Eran »

I think you got it mostly wrong. We are all PHP developers at heart, but obviously, our profession touches many other technologies as well. We have here a congregation of experts of sorts, if they can be helpful to each other on other topics besides PHP, then the more the merrier. The board name reads - "phpdn - php devloper's network". It does not explicitly refers to only php development, but rather to the PHP developer, which is probably involved with more technologies than just PHP.

And regardless of naming, the spirit of this board has progressed as such that web development concepts at large are discussed here freely. Filtering it back to just PHP related subjects would go against the spirit of the forum as many of us see it here.
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Ollie Saunders
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Re: Challenge section

Post by Ollie Saunders »

Something else occurred to me. We do occasionally get performance related questions, so a forum dedicated to that might be nice too.
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