Sami wrote:Well, I guess that's my major issue with all of this; I want the PHP Developer's Network to stay the PHP Developer's Network.
Sami, you captured my thoughts exactly.
First, thank you to the mod team for opening the discussion to the public. As we proved a few months back, the community is what drives these forums, and nothing else. Making the community part of the discussion, and the development is key to staying successful, so thanks for continuing to include us. Not every mod team would.
With that said, yes, there are other programming languages out there. Perl, Ruby, Python, C, and more. But lets be honest.. Perl has the perl monks, and several other major community sites. Ruby has rubyonrails, RubyCentral, and several others. As does Python, as does C.. the list goes on.
Most other languages not only have a solid central site, they have numerous solid alternatives. Sadly, if you remove phpdn, thats not the case for PHP. Sitepoint is elitist in the extreme, has a horrible layout, and ads anywhere they can shove them.
I really feel strongly that branching out from php (and the client side languages like AJAX and JS that it can produce) is losing the focus that makes the forums worth visiting. Coming to these forums means hearing php-knowledgable solutions to php-problems. The absolute last thing I want to see is six months from now, a post saying "Well, I don't know how you n00bs do it in PHP, but in C..."
And mark my words, you WOULD have that happen if you start mixing the language focus. Different languages have different passions and strengths, and mixing them is NOT a good thing. Read through the 'fun' threads here on coldfusion, C, and so on. The majority of the threads end up in a nasty mudslinging contest. Thats not what I want, and I can't imagine thats what other members want. (If it is, I'd be headed elsewhere).
Thats the first point (PHP or other languages).
The second issue, as to revamping the network.. It desperately needs to be done. Horribly, horribly badly. Many of the original sites in the network aren't updated, aren't relevant, and in some cases are downright bad choices. I'm more than happy to get specific, but I'm trying to keep it general and polite. The list of network sites needs to be not a historical record of who happened to know who back when. It needs to be a collection of sites that work *together*, not against each other, and with admins that visit the forums often.
When I was chosen to be a mod, that was my requirement - that we would undertake revamping the network list. My reasons for leaving are diverse, but the heated discussion around specific sites in the network was definitely part of my decision. Stubbornly clinging to the past instead of making a solid set of resources that help people isn't progress - its just the opposite.
Each resource should be independently considered. Open a seperate thread, and ask users where they go for that. Where do users today go to get information about php security? I guarantee its not the site in our network today! What about snippet sharing sites (Evilwalrus)? That site is offline!
Once we get a feel for where users go, we can either work with that admin to become part of the network, or, we can see if some enterprising soul wants to make a bigger, better version. Me, I'm working on making a new, and better EW-type site. Several members wanted it, and I have the resources to make it happen. But I am truly worried about whether it can get into the network once its launched. If a site can be *offline* for over a year, and not get revamped, what are the criteria?
The process needs improvement, is what I'm getting at. Define the process, and update it. Everyone could use better resources, and by involving the community, not only will we have the best resources, but we may even encourage new resources to be developed.