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A beginners lounge?

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 8:16 am
by Syranide
Have you ever considered adding a "beginners/basic" forum? for all kinds of questions regarding PHP.

It would be great in the way that it is easy to determine the skill of the user, in such way that one could easily know how much that person needs or what he is out after.

This is used in another forum I'm at and it works really great. Mostly I like it because it allows you to discuss with more skilled people better (no disrespect, but trying to convince/learn/advice beginners often lead to more confusion than help)

Worth a thought if you ask me, it is a good way to raise the level of the discussions a little in common topics, countrary to what it commonly becomes, answer and be quiet as they don't give a <span style='color:blue' title='I&#39;m naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> because they don't understand.

And no, it's not to create a class divided community, RULED BY DICTATORS, SWIMMING IN THEIR WEALTH, WHILE LESSER PEOPLE SUFFER AND THE *cough* yeah, uhm... where was I ;)

EDIT: smurfs are nice yes

Re: A beginners lounge?

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 8:46 am
by Roja
Syranide wrote:Have you ever considered adding a "beginners/basic" forum?
With perhaps the sole exception of the "Theory" category, I thought the entire forum was intended as a place of learning where experience didn't matter much.

No one knows everything, so in at least some topics here, everyone is a beginner. If they aren't, they were once, and became more than that by asking questions.

If anything, I don't see mods and veterans here criticizing beginners - usually its beginners who mention it (ala "I know this is a newb question, but.."), when in fact there are no stupid questions.

Just my thoughts.

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 9:42 am
by Syranide
That was exactly what I didn't mean...
What I meant was, commonly you see someone do this overly overkill superduper large solution for something which could be done in 3 rows... and then you think... hmm, how bout' telling him that, and suddenly you are now asked questions about that and you are faced with 1 hour of discussion to make him drop it.

All I'm saying is that I like that fact of having two forums, one for those who feel secure and are looking for a little more of advice (and not so much, please help I don't know what "foreach" is), and one for those who just need plain help.

Just a thought.

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 10:07 am
by Roja
Syranide wrote: What I meant was, commonly you see someone do this overly overkill superduper large solution for something which could be done in 3 rows... and then you think... hmm, how bout' telling him that
AH. Now I'm on the same page. Me likely much.

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 4:20 pm
by neophyte
Hmmm I'm wondering about self classification. I've seen on other forums where noobie questions appeared in the advanced category and vice versa in the advanced section. Honestly, I don't think there are any advanced or noobie questions. I've seen mods ask relatively simple questions -- not often though. Just the same, what is "advanced" to one may be "noobish" to another. Lets not segregate it out. If you were to over answer a question for a beginner maybe someone who is an intermediate coder picks up on it and learns from it. I think a beginners/advanced section would evolve into an old hat -- new hat scenario. Any question besides, "code this for me" is a good question in my opinion.