What could I be doing better? - Page 2

Perhaps there could be a thread (don't know where it would go to be prominently available to all) where people could post requests/suggestions for tutorials. I don't know how effective this would be though; three months ago I started a similar thread in the vb.net forum asking for suggestions for code snippets. There were no responses.

That's a good idea RevJim. There could be a button under the "Tutorial" tab that says something like "Propose a Tutorial Topic" or something like that. In other words, it would be nice to have an "official" place for people to manifest their desire for a particular topic to be covered in a tutorial, maybe even a voting system to prioritize the current proposed topics according to popular demand. And as moderators, we could do the "dispatching", i.e., finding a member who can and is willing to write that tutorial, or that comes forward wanting to do it.

I know that I would be totally willing to write some more tutorials. And a lot of simple topics don't require much time or research to write. But the problem is having the motivation (from the community) and topic ideas, having a kind of official "to-do" list with votes would solve both problems. The votes on the topic idea could also be transfered to the member who wrote the tutorial, as a little extra incentive.

I've even tried multiple times myself to solicit ideas for tutorials and such with absolutely no luck, and it can't get any more official than that!!

I am hesitant to spend significant time coding up a feature to organize, classify, and rate tutorial submissions, if there are no tutorial submissions that ever need organizing, classifying and rating.

As Dani says, whenever we have tried to get the tutorials thing off the ground it just seems to fall flat thanks to no real interest in writing them from within the community.

Writing a good tutorial is a lot of work, it's not something you can slap together. I still have a to-do list for some topics (mainly PHP), and there is a thread somewhere with some ideas, however, can't find it ATM. The downside IMO is that I expected much more comments/feedback/questions/discussions from the community as a result to writing one.

Tutorials are great and I've read many of them over the last few years, just wanted to throw that out there. In saying that, there will only be a limited number of people from this site that could actually pull off writing a tutorial imo. As pritaeas states, they're a lot of work which means they take a while to make so as you really smart geeks help the lesser geeks like me, where will you find the time? I know I'm not qualified to write a tutorial, unless it was a VBA fro Excel tutorial but that's about it.

Perhaps tutorials are a bit too much, what about a "Top Tips"? At the Code Cage, we have a sub-forum where users can submit their top tips and that has been rather successful. Top tips are generally task specific whereas tutorials are like essays. Something to ponder!

Writing a good tutorial is a lot of work, it's not something you can slap together.

That's why I started the thread to solicit vb.net code snippets. Writing up a piece of code/sample project to illustrate a concept requires a lot less commitment than writing a tutorial. However, judging from the number of times I've had to refer posters to a particular snippet, most people are just too lazy to even browse/search the code snippets. Of course, I have no way of knowing how many people have actually done a search and made use of the available snippets.

when i was using the daniweb before that change, it was nice. but when you have changed that, it was even more nice, but took some time to me to get used to with it.

secondly, i dn't know why people are not posting the questions or replies. changing platform can't be the reason according to me. if i am nitin, i have doubt, if it is getting solved , then i dont have any kind of problem with daniweb and it's platform. The day when i will not get my solutions, i will loose interest. so platform as an user has no issues. i have introduced daniweb in my college to my juniors which are around 200 in number and everybody is using it to full extent.

thridly, one thing which i don't feel good is the pop-up which comes my way when i post the new thread(still not a major issue). and one need which i feel as a user on daniweb is to have spell-check. other mathematics forums have this thing, and make me much easier to write there when discussion go so long. that's set!!

@dani and all truly saying with core of heart, whatever disaster comes, whatever platform is changed, whatever hell happens, but the quality of people and gold of knowledge and experience which people here has, will never allow daniweb to go down. :-) true it is!! And if i say something about tutorials, then i have already said this thing to James sir many times. I wish if he write some tutorials on some good data structures. because his way of telling something is out of the world!! i am not prasing him, but truth is truth!! tutorial is the thing which can attract a massive traffic here. if daniweb people has capability to do this thing, may be it will take some time, but still we can have a start ? thanks a lot.

P.S I am too small to suggest all these things, but still suggested those things which i can. thanks :-)

as a person who just found this site it looks interesting and I intend to either answer questions or ask some but I make it a habit to sign up and read several posts before making my own in general. site seems easy to navigate though a bit odd on some areas but I'm using a phone so we can blame that for now

changing platform can't be the reason according to me.

It can if it's a technical issue. The new platform makes much heavier use of javascript and newer browser technologies than the older platform did.

i have introduced daniweb in my college to my juniors which are around 200 in number and everybody is using it to full extent.

Awesome! Thank you :)

and one need which i feel as a user on daniweb is to have spell-check.

We have that now :) Well, kinda. It's semi-working. Click the green checkmark to spell check a preview of your post.

@dani and all truly saying with core of heart, whatever disaster comes, whatever platform is changed, whatever hell happens, but the quality of people and gold of knowledge and experience which people here has, will never allow daniweb to go down. :-)

Thank you!!!!!!! :)

and what about tutorial part ? :-) thanks for so many thanks :D

This is totally based upon my own opinion and is not to hit out at anyone, or, take favour in any other question based forum that may exist on the internet.

• Boring at times, not very quick paced

At times it can be, and, this seems to be mainly due to the amount of time it takes for people to respond to questions. I come on here mainly to help people and seek other places to be ask questions. I feel as though, more fast paced and dynamic sites gain a higher reception and at a quicker pace. For example, in my experience it generally is easier if I'm coding away to just ask a question on another site and gain a quick reply that is not very discussion based i.e. What compiler are you using whereas on DaniWeb your question could not be replied to, or take hours for someone to reply. I know I will receive negative feedback for this, but, IMO this is the case.

There is very little to do other than post/reply to questions. The site claims to provide a community based questions and answers forum and yet there is actually very little for the community to do. There are times where I've come online and scanned through the questions to find the same type/style of questions being repeated or certain people have answered and thus makes me think meh no point even replying. There is a nice atmosphere and good vibe in the IRC and I think this should be used/promoted more or implement one on the actual site.

I found myself in a discussion when I was studying about different question websites and generally people would say: I go on daniweb just to ask a question and then that's it. That's all I'd use it for and generally, the people would just do that. I noticed whenever a programming assignment was handed in I would see massive amounts of questions being asked about the particular topic and then they would just go. Whereas their opinion on stackoverflow was that, they provided a level of "acceptance" and therefore rep points mattered and you actually learned something from them, you picked up actual skills from reading the questions rather on daniweb it's just seen as Hey I've got a programming question, I'll ask it on Daniweb because someone will help me! Whereas if I don't do any research or make an attempt and ask on stackoverflow my question will get down-voted and I won't get any help (Kinda like, I would always go to my mum first and then she would ask my dad) daniweb being the mum, stackoverflow being the dad :P

I don't think you're personally doing anything wrong, I just think there needs to be more community involvement, and, it seems to be too generalised in terms of the topics here. Idk, I find the community center more interesting than the topic questions these days.

I love daniweb though and will continue to use it (Providing I don't get out-cased ;))

I don't think you should get downvoted for that, you make some valid observations.

phorce, for the most part, I do agree with you. However, my question still exists: What could I be doing better? You answered the question as to what is wrong with DaniWeb (for which I agree with your observations), but what could be done to fix those problems?

My job at DaniWeb (aside from selling advertising and keeping the business going) is coding up a system that allows people to communicate with each other. In what ways should the system be improved to improve the observations that you described??

I think you should add a 'hey someone else posted while you were making a post' notification. I accidentally reposted the same thing as someone else who posted between me opening the reply and hitting submit.

In theory, I like that idea, but I'm not so sure how much it would contribute towards my ultimate goals. In other words, we'd be adding an additional database query to every article page (which can get costly) and the only thing that could come of it would be discouraging people from posting when they otherwise would?

I accidentally reposted the same thing as someone else who posted between me opening the reply and hitting submit

That is a common occurrence in help forums. A lot of the time an alternative approach is given by the second solution, which is always nice. I have always liked multiple solutions, even if they are very similar.

I think 'what you could be doing better' depends upon your vision for DW. How do you want to see it in say 5 years? It's not going to be an SO clone, but is the 'forum format' old hat? Not in entirety, but as the main method of communication between members? A few people have mentioned the iRC channel. I like this - it develops a community spirit better than a 'dry' discussion in the forum, which may be like speaking to a mate on a different planet, according to the time it sometimes takes to get a reply.

I pretty much hate all this new-fangled social networking nonsense, but I seem to be one of the last remaining DW Luddites. The 4 SN button are shown below the editor box. Is this the best place for them? I never click them (sorry) as I never see them. Anyway, wouldn't make any difference as I don't have any friends - but I could have - if the DW iRC was in my face :)

Where are all the DW videos? tutorials, interviews, vidcasts? OK, Daniwebpress has a channel on YT, but nothing new for a year.

PLease - this ain't no rant - just a few ideas - some of which I'm sure you've addressed to some degree already.

Also how about member relationships? Can we follow/unfollow a member as in other sites/apps like Spotify, Grooveshark (would it be useful?).
What happened to the 'friends' thingy? Nice for noobs to cosy up to regulars. Feeling of belonging. I won't mention the 'ignore' thingy :)

What about consolidating identities - yes I know there's the option to give your skype, aim, google+ data - but could this be developed further so that we could see a members tweets? I'm just chewing stuff here, coz I don't really use this stuff myself. Perhaps members wouldn't like that sort of thing. DUnno.

I didn't really see the point of vBulletin's friends feature because there were no benefits at all to being friends with someone. I felt like my endorsements feature was a good replacement for it.

What would following a member do, exactly? I've thought of giving the ability to micro-blog within member profiles with status updates, but I'm hesitant because it seems incredibly hard to moderate.

Following a member I suppose could give you a feed of their activity - Big Brother!!! Like

24/6/13 22:43 diafol posted to 'Worst Joke You've Heard' in 'Geeks Lounge'
24/6/13 22:44 Dani infracted diafol for a ghastly joke on 'Worst Joke You've Heard' in 'Geeks Lounge'

Top of the head stuff - like I said I don't really go in for that kind of thing.

I didn't really see the point of vBulletin's friends feature because there were no benefits at all to being friends with someone. I felt like my endorsements feature was a good replacement for it.

No, I see your point, but perhaps you were looking at it from the wrong angle. A regular member perhaps wouldn't go and ask other regs / noobs to be a friend - that would be a bit odd maybe, but a noob trying to immerse him/herself in a new community may find it reassuring and get a nice warm feeling when a reg accepts. Okay we have the introductions thread for some of that.

The endorsements, I think serves a slightly different purpose. AFAICS, it's an acknowledgement of sorts, that this guy/gal knows what they're talking about. Pinch of salt with that of course, but that's my take.

Microblogging - great, but only allow trusted members? I agree moderating that could be a nightmare and it could take away from useful discussions in the forum.

I still think that creating a closer community could drive greater interest.

The endorsements, I think serves a slightly different purpose. AFAICS, it's an acknowledgement of sorts, that this guy/gal knows what they're talking about. Pinch of salt with that of course, but that's my take.

Yes, it is meant to be an acknowledgement of sorts. But, like I said, I thought that vBulletin's friend feature was pointless and useless, so I designed the endorsements feature to keep that ability for members to show that they know each other from their member profiles, while trying to give it a sense of purpose (introduce that you have respect for the person you are endorsing, and make the endorsee feel good about their skills).

I still think that creating a closer community could drive greater interest.

I agree, but it's hard to do that when on one hand I'm getting feedback that there should be a closer community, but on the other hand you're telling me you wouldn't use these features or see the point in them.

The chat feature is a a major factor, and not just "set" chat rooms either, provide the user the ability to make their own chat rooms, as well as having multiple rooms where people can speak about different topics. Even if this is not possible, or would take a lot of implementing then bring the functionality of the IRC into the domain, people like to talk. :)

Enhance the community features, and, trust the users - especially the ones with high rep and who have been around for a long time. For example, in a case the other day, a user was making threads that just had I need help, Please can you help me and this could have been resolved quickly (Either with enough negative downvotes then the thread is removed from public viewing OR deleted). Same with editing the question. Daniweb recieives a lot of members who have very little english and although I have learnt to translate the point they are trying to get across it can be frustrating at times posting back saying What? or What is it that you want to ask? whereas if members with a certain repuatation score could edit the thread to make it more understandable, this would provide a clearer question. (Let's be honest, if I'm looking for a specific question and I come across a daniweb page that someone has asked which isn't even readable english, I'm not going to even bother reading it).. Validity is important. This will give the members something to work towards. At the moment, repuation points are meaningless, they do not mean anything and therefore no-one actually cares whether or not they get downvoted or upvoted and therefore IMO they spend less time answering a question fully and with the best description. If I knew that I would score +5 (example) repuatation for an answer I would be more inclined to actually answer the question fully.

Make the users to be able to suggest topics. E.g. Is coding and IT all that there is to talk about? What about other topics? I'm sure everyone on daniweb does not just spend 100% of their time thinking, dreaming, experiencing code and hardware (or maybe they do!). Hobbies and other interests (Whether it is inside or outside of computing) should be considered. This should be put forward by the users and will prevent the forum being resitricted. It will not grow because people only have the ability to talk about what they have had the ability to talk about for the past 2+ years (from what I've experienced) IMO.. Here's an example:
I have a question about Raspberry Pi am I going to post it on DaniWeb? Does Daniweb have a place where I can post topics about Raspberry Pi's where there is active discussions and questions on such a subject? No. Not when sites have a whole forum and community dedicated to such a platform and I'll know I'll get an answer. I could post it here and not recieive an answer for about a week.

IMO: The chat room will provide the ability to discuss topics, and, will mean that quick, short questions: What does C++ do will be restricted because these can be asked in the chat room. as @diafol kinda points out that the forum is dry!

Sub-note: Who uses private messaging anymore? I haven't used it in ages and don't think I ever will.

Hope this helps :) If my points offended anyone, let me know!

What would following a member do, exactly?

From time to time, I've had a few people PM me and say things like "whenever I see that you have posted a reply somewhere, I always check it out because I know it will be interesting to read..". To follow a member might just mean that there is a new tab within the "watched articles" or somewhere like that that would display all the threads on which the members that you follow have recently posted. I know that you can just go to the member's profile and check out the "contributions", but it would be nicer to have it aggregated for all the members you might wish to do so on a regular basis.

I also think a chat feature might be useful, I wouldn't know what exact shape it would take though.

I agree, but it's hard to do that when on one hand I'm getting feedback that there should be a closer community, but on the other hand you're telling me you wouldn't use these features or see the point in them.

I don't use them as I've never felt the need to (Facenonsense, Twits ad nauseum), BUT, DaniWeb is where I 'hang out' in my spare time. I love it and would engage with community-based features on-site. Just because I'm a cantankerous, friendless whatever, doesn't mean that I should be held up as an example of your average DW user. In fact I'm probably the antithesis of such a person.

Just because I'm a cantankerous, friendless whatever, doesn't mean that I should be held up as an example of your average DW user. In fact I'm probably the antithesis of such a person.

On the contrary, it's been my experience that the mentality of the most active members is an accurate representation of the segment of our audience that is open to becoming more involved.

The chat phorce described seems a lot like irc which I found through this thread actually. Biggest issue with it there's about 7 people there and mostly idle.. Personally I don't like Facebook can't even remember the last time I signed in and I have a twitter account...maybe one tweet dont know don't check there either.

I'm not a big user of the main social media outlets either, and also, I think it would be wrong to put too much focus on those "muggle-facing" outlets. If I find an interesting thread here, it will most likely be technical, and thus, not likely to be something I would share with my family and friends. On more professional networking sites (e.g., LinkedIn), the chances of that happening grow quite a bit.

We have share with LinkedIn though, too.

Yeah I know. I'm just saying, if you plan to do anything more in terms of connection with social media, places like google+, twitter, and facebook might not be the best places to direct efforts.