[eluser]elvix[/eluser]
My two cents -- I subscribe to what's likely the main RSS feed and see tons of random n00b questions float by. For the most part, it's easy to let them pass by and pick off the ones you want to help with.
I agree it's sometimes really hard to even know what words to use to frame your question. But the best solution is to provide lots of alternate methods to browse and search for answers. Right now, you have the user guide, the forums, the wiki, and Google -- the latter two of which are pretty useless if you're still struggling to describe your problem, which leaves you only the user guide before you give up and hit the forum.
What I'd really like to see is set of articles, recipes and best practices that could draw some attention away from the forums. Wordpress has done this (to the extreme) with their Codex. The wiki has some great stuff in it, but honestly, it's really difficult to get around (search is awful). It needs a full rewrite, imho.
A simple page with basic and even advanced articles would provide a really welcome resource, I think. "Removing index.php from your URLs" would be my vote for article #1  , but I'd also like to see articles on best practices for managing your code base, reorganizing file structures (i.e., moving app/ and system/ from the web-accessible dir), etc.
There's a lot of really smart work that's buried in the forums. Pulling it out into a more digestible format would be a great help to everyone.
[eluser]jdfwarrior[/eluser]
[quote author="elvix" date="1246394960"]My two cents -- I subscribe to what's likely the main RSS feed and see tons of random n00b questions float by. For the most part, it's easy to let them pass by and pick off the ones you want to help with.
I agree it's sometimes really hard to even know what words to use to frame your question. But the best solution is to provide lots of alternate methods to browse and search for answers. Right now, you have the user guide, the forums, the wiki, and Google -- the latter two of which are pretty useless if you're still struggling to describe your problem, which leaves you only the user guide before you give up and hit the forum.
What I'd really like to see is set of articles, recipes and best practices that could draw some attention away from the forums. Wordpress has done this (to the extreme) with their Codex. The wiki has some great stuff in it, but honestly, it's really difficult to get around (search is awful). It needs a full rewrite, imho.
A simple page with basic and even advanced articles would provide a really welcome resource, I think. "Removing index.php from your URLs" would be my vote for article #1 , but I'd also like to see articles on best practices for managing your code base, reorganizing file structures (i.e., moving app/ and system/ from the web-accessible dir), etc.
There's a lot of really smart work that's buried in the forums. Pulling it out into a more digestible format would be a great help to everyone. [/quote]
+1 for that.
[eluser]slowgary[/eluser]
Pushing noobs out of the circle is not the answer, as it only prolongs ignorance and definitely doesn't help to spread the good word of CodeIgniter.
I think a system of user written articles would be wonderful. We could vote the articles up or down (digg style), then have a few sticky posts in the forums for newbies, one with a title that says, "QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY AN ARTICLE WILL NOT BE ANSWERED IN THE FORUMS".
[eluser]jedd[/eluser]
My two cents on the recent suggestions.
Money might be an effective filter, but the idea unsettles me. As Michael points out too, people that are trying to help are unlikely to want to pay for that privilege.
Sticky forum threads are horrible .. really really horrible. Apart from being horrible, they also make it obvious that you have conceded defeat and can't afford a wiki. Having sticky forum threads when you already have a functioning wiki suggests .. well, yeah, you get my point. There are some serious problems with the wiki - the place most people are likely to head first when looking for some answers to things - and until that problem is resolved, the forums will continue to take the place of an effective repository of knowledge.
I recall perhaps three months ago someone - one of the old timers I think - getting excited about re-jigging the wiki from scratch. Finding the thread will now be next to impossible, of course.
Perhaps having a link to the wiki on the forum pages might be a good start - it'll remind people of its presence. At the moment, it seems to me that once you've entered the forums you've pretty much left the main CI island.
[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
How about a helpdesk/FAQ system, where we can add content for things we see often? That way, you can either type in a question, or several key words. How is this different from the forum search function? Simple, there should only ever be a single article pertaining to any given subject (which of course can be updated). It would be just like a wiki, only the search back end will be on steroids. I think that this is the solution we need.
The problem with searching the forums, is that there's often a lot of posts to sift through, some of which aren't as helpful as they could have been. I've done it myself in the past, where I've searched the forum, and after 15-30 minutes of reading posts, I just decided to ask instead. Generally, I use Google as opposed to the forum search, since I find Google more comprehensive.
With a helpdesk, we don't need to worry too much about content structure in the same sense as the wiki.
I'd really like to see this idea move forward. I'd also really like to see a community collaboration on this project, rather than one person, or just a few people working on it.
[eluser]brianw1975[/eluser]
I hate to bump up an old post like this, because I am sure it gets talked about all too frequently but lately I have been wondering about Rep Points that some forums have or have plugins for...
When a user reaches a certain number of rep points they get access to more advanced areas. It would help keep the area free from the FAQs that get repeated posting, and it will also give people incentive to help out more...
Another option that I just thought up would be to alter the search results page into two sections (maybe tabbed) where the forum search first searches the user guide, then the wiki, and then finally the forums -- and this would be the default action -- the advanced search could be set to only search the forums (through checkmarks).
feel free to slap me for bringing this up again.
[eluser]renownedmedia[/eluser]
I was also thinking we needed a higher level forum... Maybe requiring 100 posts and one month of being a member. No offense to the non-english-speaking people who ask dumb questions answered on page one of the manual every single day...
[eluser]bretticus[/eluser]
Well, I guess I'm giving another forum a plug, but for years I've lurked around phpbuilder.com (no hyper-linky at least.) They have a "newbies" forum for folks just getting started (forgive me if someone else mentioned this already, I skipped 2 pages.) That seems to work well. If you don't want to answer those questions, you skip that forum. Yes, some dumb questions get asked in the more specific forums but most newbies stick to their forum.
I don't mind answering those questions unless it's completely obvious they are fishing for a freebie. I agree that you should learn some PHP (or any other coding language) at least before jumping into CodeIgniter. Other times it's just that they are so new they have no foundation with which to "put it all together."
I remember back in 1996 when I was switching majors from engineering to IT. There wasn't a whole lot of online resources back then. I remember joining an irc channel full of sys admins. I started asking questions about their conversation. I was basically told to get lost. Just recently I participated in some chat where I mentioned that I wrote mostly PHP code and a snobby rails/django guy informed me that I am a newbie based just on using PHP.
Somewhere along the way we all asked stupid questions to get the experience we have behind us. I see no reason to exclude anyone based on their level. I feel that if they really want to learn, they should be helped no matter how dumb the question. There's no harm in an RTFM once every now and then also.
[eluser]BrianDHall[/eluser]
My vote is perhaps for a wiki-style FAQ system, or maybe even a yahoo-answers style FAQ system. Then one someone asks a question that's been asked 10 times in the last week it could easily become a standard to just link them to the necessary FAQ and no need for repeating the same information. It could easily grow into a very powerful resource, like "An Unofficial Advanced Manual for CodeIgniter".
[eluser]moodh[/eluser]
Uhm, I have a potential solution to a part of the goal:
I'll leave a more advanced problem-solving forum out of this idea, but a more advanced discussion forum isn't a bad thing; design patterns, general development theory, not really coding related.
The main problem is the level of topics, simply just don't allow *new* topics in this forum, rather have admins, moderators (or a group of regulars) move interesting topics (a shadow move if you want the topic kept in another category too).
Having interesting discussions kept in a separate area benefits everyone, even newcomers as they'll reach this level sooner or later, and having every topic of that type grouped up makes searching much easier.
The only downside to this idea is the amount of work the right people would have to put in (especially administrators unless a few other people is given rights to move topics).
However: Most other forums I tend to read do have an advanced area, and the level of discussion alone is enough to keep the newbie threads away, otherwise a simple move solves it =)
Looking forward to a move distinct forum, as reading old threads for more knowledge really sucks when every 5 other threads is about changing your .htaccess.
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