Thursday 22 April 2004 2:24:16 pm
Welcome to the moderators Alex :)
>>Forum threads I see your point, the forums could become fragmented and difficult to follow. This needs to be addressed, I you would allow me to waffle for a bit. There as I see it are a few types of messages on the forums
1. Request for help/replies to these
2. Discussion (sugestions, event conversations, release comments, products conversations etc)
3. Spam (abuse/rants/adverts) - I have groups these... but rants can be useful, people tend to be at their most truthful in these. 4. Inform (links to bugs/product releases php etc) You are right again, the progression from problem to new learning and subsequently to practice is a vital roll, if not the most important role in a forum. True solving problems is important but for the long term growth of a product this type of evolution is vital. If we can assume that the above is true then we need to start organisng the forums around this. I feel that the current forum structure fulfils the need for people to "view the latest". But does not address the issue of turn the learning in the forums to good practice. So what to do? I think the first step is to reorganise the forums. My suggestion, rather than have install/setup/developer/general/suggestions we look at a new format. This new format should reflect the progression of eZ publish developers as they learn the product. The current setup is more of a role based setup.
Sysadmin - install
Designer - setup
Coder - developer
general - catchall suggestions - catchall I feel that if we change the forums to reflect the learning cycle we can better server the eZ publish community. This would enable allow community members to select the forum that matches there skills I would suggest the following as a "straw man": this is my experience so comments please.
*Getting going - Getting your basic environment ready This would be an area for the I can't see images, I can't login, where is admin type of questions.
*Entering content - Adding and remving content Online editor usage This could be a forum dedicated to working with the package, entering content, understanding how to make use of the product features. I am guessing lots of end users can see the eZ site as a "tech" only zone. This should not be the case. We only exist because of end users and so we should reflect their needs.
*Customising - Change emails/basic temaplate/ini
One someone has eZ working and they have entered a little content and gone... hey I like this.. I want to know more. This stage would be one of changing template .tpl, ini and the email files to get something usable
*Extensions - PHP developing, extensions, kernel Experience eZ publish developers or PHP developer who want to intergrate with eZ publish.
*Commerce - Shop Working with ecommerce sites in eZ
*Translations - Working with languages Language translations. Talking about mutlilingual sites and how they work
*Administration - Server administration How to optimise, maintain the perfect eZ site form small to large installations As we are dividing the forums people in the forums can help people going thru the same things. I know, you are likey to get people "stay" in certain forums, but the knack here is to represent the forums in a way that enables a global view of the forums whilst maintaining the intimate relationship with your core subject or skill. This could be completed by allowing different views on the forums. So, your could have:
* the basic latest 5 first in each item.
* the latest 5 in each forums unanswered
* Show me topics i am interested in * Show me unaswered topics I am interested in There are many other types of view you could have but I think its worth taking a step back and exploring the possbilities of what we could do with the forums before we move forward.
--tony http://www.visionwt.com
Tony Wood : twitter.com/tonywood
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