Redundant forums

Quote:

Original post by alnite It's time we break this API barrier. Notice that I did not put any "DirectX", as this confuses so many newbies and pops out threads like DirectX vs OpenGL. When a newbie visit our forums, hopefully they read the description first, and read the "Direct3D, OpenGL" in the Graphics programming description and clears up some confusion.

The DirectX and OpenGL forums get a lot of traffic, and the issues in each are almost totally separate from the other. Why merge them?

Quote:

Notice that I also propose Operating System forums. If we have Everything Unix, why not have a Windows forum? Yes, Windows is overly user-friendly, but occasionally we still see threads asking for help using Windows.

Unix gets a specialist forum because only a small proportion of people use it and have an interest in it, and the issues there aren't of much use to most other forum users. Windows doesn't need one as it is the de facto standard, in much the same way that we don't need a C++ forum.

Wow, you put a lot of time into that, and you've made some interesting suggestions. I'll take them under consideration, especially the comments about the FAQ.

However, your organization suggestions are based on the assumption that avoiding redundancy is a priority. It's not for me. If having redundant forums results in beginners (or anyone) occasionally posting in the wrong place, then so be it. I don't see that as a big concern.

My main priorities when organizing the forums have been:

1) Keeping the topic of the forum narrow enough that the amount of traffic is manageable
2) Keeping the topic of the forum broad enough that the traffic isn't too low (unless the forum meets the next criteria)
3) Providing forums for topics that either have a strong focused community, or that represent an emerging or otherwise important topic that we want to encourage discussion of. Examples of this include the .NET forum, Consoles, PDAs and Cell Phones, Scripting and Mods, and Software Engineering.

Your organization throws out many of the forums under #3, introduces several new forums that would fail #2 (e.g. video programming, and probably Apple), and would definitely create several forums that violate #1 (e.g. general programming, and probably graphics programming).

With the large and diverse audience that we have, there's no way we can come up with an organization that everyone will like, so we have to go with what fits our objectives for the site.

I have to agree that merging the graphics API forums would make things more confusing. They are quite different, and most posts are addressed exactly towards implimenting something with the API. It would just force everyone to include the API in the subject, or not get a question answered because they neglected to.

Quote:

Original post by Kylotan The DirectX and OpenGL forums get a lot of traffic

Even GDNet Lounge still have more posts than the two combined. I don't think that should be a problem. :)

Quote:

and the issues in each are almost totally separate from the other.

Quote:

I have to agree that merging the graphics API forums would make things more confusing. They are quite different, and most posts are addressed exactly towards implimenting something with the API. It would just force everyone to include the API in the subject, or not get a question answered because they neglected to.

API-wise, they are separate, but the programming concept remains the same. Textured quads, bump mapping, vertex shaders. I am thinking about adding the API in question in the thread title (i.e "[Direct3D] How do I...") to clearly indicates which API the thread starter is using. That way if people want to answer questions specific to OpenGL, they don't have to bother reading every single thread. They only need to read the tag. The same thing for other programming forums (sound, input, and video).

Quote:

Original post by Myopic Rhino My main priorities when organizing the forums have been: 1) Keeping the topic of the forum narrow enough that the amount of traffic is manageable 2) Keeping the topic of the forum broad enough that the traffic isn't too low (unless the forum meets the next criteria) 3) Providing forums for topics that either have a strong focused community, or that represent an emerging or otherwise important topic that we want to encourage discussion of. Examples of this include the .NET forum, Consoles, PDAs and Cell Phones, Scripting and Mods, and Software Engineering. Your organization throws out many of the forums under #3, introduces several new forums that would fail #2 (e.g. video programming, and probably Apple), and would definitely create several forums that violate #1 (e.g. general programming, and probably graphics programming).

Well I don't know that you have these priorities [smile]. I just think the new forums such as .NET and Alternative Game Libraries really aren't necessary.

Alternative game libraries have gained more popularity, and I believe more and more will come. The reason why I divide the programming forums into four major parts: graphics, sound, input, and video is the because they are the main components of game development, and will stay that way for a long period of time. If there is a new library coming out, and it gains popularity, we don't have to create a new forum for that particular library. When the XNA gets popular later on, are we going to create that also? What about DirectX if it loses popularity? We don't want to remove the outdated forums because some people are still using it, but they don't receive a lot of traffic either. What if SDL becomes more and more popular, then we have to split it to a new forum. Eventually GameDev.Net will full of API-specific forums.

Why do we not have programming language forums, such as C/C++ forum, VisualBasic forum, Phyton forum, C# forum? They are diverse, but they all fit just perfect in the General Programming. And I think we can do the same to the API/libraries.

This design is "API-independent" so to speak.

Quote:

Original post by alnite but the programming concept remains the same. Textured quads, bump mapping, vertex shaders.

I don't think those kinds of questions belong in the API forums. I thought that was the pupose of the Graphics Programming forum? I agree that usually someone first learning is going to need to know both facts: how to do it, and how to do it with their API. But it is much easier to teach them these things through their API.

EDIT:

Quote:

Why do we not have programming language forums, such as C/C++ forum, VisualBasic forum, Phyton forum, C# forum? They are diverse, but they all fit just perfect in the General Programming.

I think it would be better to divide these. But it would also be really difficult, considering just about every other technical forum would be in every programming language branch off.

By the way, I also agree that there are too many forums. But only because most people tend to stick to specific forums, and it's hard to get responses in others, which very few people visit. But as the GameDev population grows, that problem will go away.. I hope :)

[Edited by - Jiia on July 13, 2004 12:44:16 AM]

Quote:

Original post by Jiia Quote: Original post by alnite but the programming concept remains the same. Textured quads, bump mapping, vertex shaders. I don't think those kinds of questions belong in the API forums. I thought that was the pupose of the Graphics Programming forum?

Yup - at least, that's certainly the purpose I've come to believe and am promoting.

The problem tends to be - at least with an established community like this one - that you can't just "reshape" the forum and expect the community to expand/contract to fill the space. It becomes much more important to respond to what the community wants and needs, rather than simply pushing it into what you'd like it to be.

And personally, I'd hate for GDNet to become a place where people come for help with "Anything related to problems and troubleshooting of a specific OS." We do game development, not tech support - it just so happens that one makes us fairly adept at the other. The last thing we want is people coming here purely to take advantage of that. (Unless by "problems and troubleshooting" you meant things like the Win32API, in which case it's a better idea).

I always posted API-agnostic topics in Graphcs Programming, while taking implementation specific problems to the relevant API forum. This is my own interpretation.

Game programming is, for me, something that relates directly to games, whereas General Programming may or may not be relevant to games.


The more specific forums are intended to be a sort of passive advertisement. Not necessary, but they serve an important, albeit subtle, purpose.