What I REALLY would like in this forum...

[eluser]Johan André[/eluser]
...is a new forum called "Professional development only" or something similar.
I browse the forum everyday and (I understand it's important for beginners) getting really tired of all those "I wanna have a form that saves to database"-kindof questions. Most of the time the questions are asked by people who:

a) does not know the basics of PHP (many times probably they don't have experience of ANY programming language).

b) does not even bother to read the userguide.

c) seem to want quick solutions created by other people.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to help other people. I think it helps me getting better. But I don't like helping people with no intension to try learning the basics of the framework themselfs.

90% of the stuff asked at this forum is CLEARLY described in the userguide or in other tutorials/screencasts or blogs.

When I started to learn CI I choose it because I knew PHP pretty well and I read the userguide. Not parts of it, but ALL of it. When I develop I use the same userguide all the time for looking up syntax and stuff.

On the other hand, the CI-community is one of the most friendly there is. This is great because it attracts new users.

Just some thoughts...

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
Interesting idea, however it wouldn't work... Arrogant people may consider themselves professionals - Where would you draw the line? Maybe they should implement a forum dress code? I think they only way it could work is if the forum was invite only. Or perhaps it could only be available once a certain number of posts has been reached? Personally, I don't have a problem with the current forum structure. If someone is being lazy, they either a) don't receive assistance, or b) have the error of their ways pointed out to them. Sometimes even both. I like to lurk in the shadows and then pounce with my ninja-like reflexes, and beat people to death with the user guide when they least expect it.

[eluser]garymardell[/eluser]
I like the idea, probably not the name. But having a forum whereby questions regarding basic usage will be moved and more advanced talk can take place, maybe regarding more advanced concepts, design patterns, business side of php. Whatever the users think of really can thrive more. Currently there is such talk but it gets bumped to the bottom by the overflow of users asking questions about the framework. The same question does come up time and time again, yes its good to help but there are limits to your endurance of such topics. I think it will give people a chance to know each other more and not just cross paths suggesting solutions to a problem.

[eluser]jedd[/eluser]
It's a nice idea, but no idea if it's practical. The automatic door opening once you hit a number of messages might work, but OTOH it might just encourage people to bump up their message count with silly messages so that they may then spread the silliness further still.

People are strange, don't you know?

Anyhoo, I think the whole forum layout, much like the wiki, probably needs a bit of a (savage) going over. I suspect it's a very low priority for anyone with the necessary privileges, given the other work going on at EL.

I can't tell (in the sense that if you show me a thread, I can't work out where it came from) the difference between CodeIgniter Discussion and Code and Application Development, for example. And that's probably because no one else can - the distinction is so subtle as to be lost. Features and Bugs should probably be merged. Lounge and Introduce Yourself similarly.

I reckon once you removed a lot of the ambiguity, and directed newbies to an obvious forum, it'd be much easier to have and run a dedicated forum for the more sophisticated and discerning clientele. You could call it Drinks with Umbrellas.

[eluser]jdfwarrior[/eluser]
I totally agree with you, however, like the rest of the guys mentioned, I don't think it would work. I too really like helping people but it really irritates me to no end when you see people come in the forums that have obviously made absolutely no attempt to find their answer. They just want someone to do it for them. They don't wanna search the forums for previous answers, they don't wanna check the FAQ's/wiki/User Guide, and they act as if Google doesn't exist. A great example.. removing index.php/mod rewrites. There is a post about it just about every day.. I get so annoyed by stuff like this that I've almost quit posting on the forums

[eluser]slowgary[/eluser]
I don't mind the current structure (although I'm probably the prime example). I agree with Jedd that a few of the topics should probably be combined. All in all, some people like to help no matter how stupid the question, and others can easily just read the subject first and decide not to bother. People who haven't taken any time to search for the answer end up with no replies, snide remarks, or a friendly answer from someone who didn't mind spending the time to help a noob.

A recent poster asked how to get a timestamp from the string "9:00 PM", and it took several replies to get him to understand that strtotime() was the answer to his question. His next question... "How do I turn the timestamp back into a date format?". And I thought I was dense for not knowing that the constructor was optional.

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
[quote author="slowgary" date="1246347431"]A recent poster asked how to get a timestamp from the string "9:00 PM", and it took several replies to get him to understand that strtotime() was the answer to his question. His next question... "How do I turn the timestamp back into a date format?".[/quote]

Would that be timetostr()?

The way I see it, is that CodeIgniter is excellent, and the more people who use it, the better. Being nice to dense people is part of what makes this forum so great, so if replying to a dumb question gets just one more person working with CodeIgniter, all the better. That's just my 2 pence.

[eluser]tonanbarbarian[/eluser]
[quote author="TheFuzzy0ne" date="1246347918"]
The way I see it, is that CodeIgniter is excellent, and the more people who use it, the better. Being nice to dense people is part of what makes this forum so great, so if replying to a dumb question gets just one more person working with CodeIgniter, all the better. That's just my 2 pence.[/quote]

While I do agree about the more people using CI the better I do think that there are a lot of people who do not bother to read manuals. Maybe we need to point people to the relevant manual pages as part of answering questions.

Case in point, show the user the strtotime() man page on php.net and it contains a link to the date() function which could be used format the date, as well as other alternative functions too.

Unfortunately I think there will always be some people who much prefer to ask rather than to seek

[eluser]Thorpe Obazee[/eluser]
[quote author="tonanbarbarian" date="1246348796"]Unfortunately I think there will always be some people who much prefer to ask rather than to seek[/quote]

So true. And they actually get mad when you ask them, "Did you read the user_guide?".

[eluser]Phil Sturgeon[/eluser]
I could knock up a phpBB mod that would ask new registrants 5 random questions about CI. If they fail to get 4 out of 5 right, they will not be registered.