Re: Challenge section
Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 7:40 pm
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.
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.
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.
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.Then we have to remove 'Security' because there are security forums?
Unless they relate to PHP. If they don't, then yes, get them outta here!Same for Javascript and Linux.
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 of course for PHP, because there are PHP forums out there.
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.And maybe theory and design, because probably there are forums for OO design
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.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.
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.