Mini tutorials

You could probably use the GameDev Wiki for that. Or you could write an article and submit it to the GameDev Articles and Resources section (which seems like the more appropriate place).

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Original post by MikeTacular You could probably use the GameDev Wiki for that. Or you could write an article and submit it to the GameDev Articles and Resources section (which seems like the more appropriate place).

(Just now realized I might have been a bit short in my op :P)

Yeah sure but both of those have a problem:

Wiki: to be honest, I think people want credit for what they write. If the write it in the wiki nobody knows it was them etc. In a thread people can comment on their work and, a bit silly perhaps but important I believe, rate them. You write something, you want credit for it.

Article: I think this alternative is a bit intimidating for the more hobby oriented developers, I think this is something most people "leave for the professionals". Above that, the whole process of submitting an article just screams "ONLY SUBMIT REALLY REALLY GOOD STUFF", they have to follow standards and be approved etc, real intimidating all of it ;) I think a lot of people got kind of medium good stuff that just might help someone that they want to share, but is nowhere near the scope of a full article.

The way I'd suggest to to do this is to simply put a new sub forum, but I'd put in on top of all the others, and make sure people know about it.

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Original post by chot Wiki: to be honest, I think people want credit for what they write. If the write it in the wiki nobody knows it was them etc. In a thread people can comment on their work and, a bit silly perhaps but important I believe, rate them. You write something, you want credit for it.

Understandable. There are times when the credit is important, and to some people having the article attributed to them is something they really want.

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Original post by chot Article: I think this alternative is a bit intimidating for the more hobby oriented developers, I think this is something most people "leave for the professionals".

To be honest, I think that's a good thing. There are lots of people with only an average level of experience, but they are still very eager to help people and earn kudos in the community. Many a time though, these people will give advice that is downright wrong, inadequately explained, or in some way damaging to the progression of the beginner they're trying to help (I know I've found myself doing this before). I honestly think articles, tutorials, or other things like this should be left to the professionals who know what they're doing.

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Original post by chot Above that, the whole process of submitting an article just screams "ONLY SUBMIT REALLY REALLY GOOD STUFF", they have to follow standards and be approved etc, real intimidating all of it ;)

Again, I think this is a good thing. There should always be standards set and requirements for approval, as well as a peer reviewed edit. This filters out the useless, mundane, or incorrect articles.

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Original post by chot I think a lot of people got kind of medium good stuff that just might help someone that they want to share, but is nowhere near the scope of a full article.

Not all articles have to be lengthy or about revolutionary grand subjects. They can be short and relatively simplistic. There's even a Sweet Snippets section for short but useful code snippets. Chances are that if someone wants to write something that doesn't meet the standards for becoming a GameDev article or sweet snippet it isn't worth posting.

In the articles section is a section that seems to be exactly what you want:

Sweet Snippets


Sweet Snippets are relatively short articles that focus on a very specific aspect of programming. They contain source code and an explanation of how to use it. If you'd like to contribute a Sweet Snippets article (which can be as simple as expounding on a post you've made to the forums) send it to writers@gamedev.net.

Edit - Bleh spent too much time reading articles before replying, MikeTacular beat me to the punch.

There's also absolutely no reason why you couldn't just make a thread in an appropriate forum here and make it a mini-article or tutorial. People do this from time to time, I just typed in Tetris into the search and found this for example.

great suggestion! One of the best I've seen yet.
And The success of this type of concept has been proven @ code project!

I am with you all the way chot.

The op is not suggesting current gamedev is inadequate. he sees a potential improvement to make it better.

RE: "Again, I think this is a good thing. There should always be standards set and requirements for approval,..."

And there usually is; as in the case of the 'code project model'.

" as well as a peer reviewed edit. This filters out the useless, mundane, or incorrect articles."

A very good point; and the best part is that chot's suggestion is still consistent with it, while still being an improvement:

This beg's the question: Who are our peer's?
Is it not the target audience of this site: like you and me?
hobbyist and proffessional alike?

The best stuff will naturally float to the top, while the rubbish (if not discarded)sits at the bottom (rated as such).

The kind of concept chot suggests could breath a new vibrant life into this site, which feels like it has remained static over the years, while other game dev related sites have honed thier sites onto thier target audience, such as gamasutra: where much of the current content tends to be very brief higher level concepts related to development process improvement or Intel sponsored stuff specifically for the proffessionals (elitist is it? sure: and rightly so; it's there target audience).

To be realistic, however, I suspect the cost of including/revamping the concept chot suggests into Gamedev may need to be justified/determined as effective/non-prohibitive?

Another point: many times I have seen the same old question asked in the forums over and over again and replied to over and over again (ground hog day-esque). And comments like: "someone should write up a tutorial on subject X" so that the info is more conveniently accessible from the one place(hopefully).[what a waste of space on your servers it must be? and poorest use of 'search time'?]

The current solution is to do a search on the topic on the forums; problem is: the one topic can/usually is titled many different ways (depending on the op's POV/choice of text in the post's title. Sure it works. but what a painful search it can be/ with or without success;Even when the info does exist somewhere on the site, it can seem inaccessible/non-existant even[sad really]. [Sometimes you get lucky: e.g. someone may have already trod the path you are on and refers you to the content they have found]

The/A form of Chot's suggestion could be implemented to alleviate the problem?
And how much redundant space containing the same old info (but simply under different titles in the forums) could be saved?

Working that out could be just one of the criteria used to cost an alternative approach: Yes/No?

Not only is it a great idea; It may well be very doable!
Any criticisms can/will help clarify the proposal.

[Edited by - steven katic on June 21, 2009 3:21:07 PM]

steven katic: wow yeah, you nailed what I tried to say :)

As you say (if I understand you correctly) being able to rate threads would greatly benefit this, as it would be very easy to see which tutorials/articles are plain rubbish.

I think steven's post answered dmatter, Skibum and MikeTacular's posts for me already :)

what I would also like to see is the moderators and others with direct links to this site to contribute thier views on this topic. Ultimately it will not be a matter of weather(bit rainy here at the moment) this is a good idea or not, but weather, the people that can make/influence the change to happen, see it as a good idea (I assume they will have the most reliable info that would contribute to the feasability of the idea). Frankly, it sounds like an exciting venture to investigate.

Superpig has, several times, alluded to an idea that might one day (perhaps even soon since he is working on the next iteration of GDNet) make it into the forum software where threads can be tagged with keywords and users can construct their own forum groups containing threads of specified tags (existing threads would be retroactively tagged somehow). Your proposal could easily be realised within such a system: 'tutorial' and 'article' threads would be gathered under a custom forum with the appropriate filter tags set.

I don't think people don't find solutions to their problems because topics or titles are poorly worded; I think it's because a lot of people either 1) don't know what to search for or 2) are too lazy to do a search. As far as rating the posts so the good ones "float to the top," such an idea is already in discussion. Not to mention I don't think they'd really "float to the top" because after a few days (or weeks or whatever) the thread will be buried and will only be found via the search button, which means we're back at square 1. If you really want to rate articles, don't worry. According to Gaiiden, such a feature (or one with some similar type of effect) is coming (though it doesn't sound like threads themselves will be rateable).

Personally, I don't think it's a great idea (I'm just gonna be blunt). We already have an Articles and Resources section where tutorials or little walk throughs or whatever can be posted, and GameDev V5 is bringing a whole lot of new functionality that (from what I hear) sounds like it might satisfy your request in one way or another. I don't see how creating some forum is going to be helpful at all. Why not just use the Articles and Resources? What functionality are you looking for that the Articles and Resources can't fulfill? If you're thinking is that "it's too intimidating" then you either 1) don't have something worth sharing (no offense, but some things are just too simple or have already been beat to death), 2) don't have the skill or experience to write about something with firm understanding of what you yourself are doing (this is critical, you must have a firm understanding of exactly what it is you're doing and why it's a good solution), or 3) need to man up, write the article, and submit it (just because it's intimidating and gets reviewed doesn't mean you can't do it) [smile]

[edit]

While I love to be blunt and straight to the point, I hope I wasn't too blunt. I hope I haven't sounded harsh or anything like that. I'm just playing the devil's advocate and am asking the hard questions that I think need to be asked and addressed before any real work is done :)

[Edited by - MikeTacular on June 25, 2009 8:19:28 AM]

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Original post by MikeTacular 1) don't have something worth sharing (no offense, but some things are just too simple or have already been beat to death), 2) don't have the skill or experience to write about something with firm understanding of what you yourself are doing (this is critical, you must have a firm understanding of exactly what it is you're doing and why it's a good solution)

Well this is one big part of why I think this is a good idea. Maybe to _you_ it's not worth sharing, but maybe it saves somebody else hours of work? Even things of poor quality can still have great value. And I really disagree that you have to have a complete understanding of a topic to be able to contribute; first of all many topics aren't covered _at all_ right now an thus even a mediocre article would help people. Secondly, solving a problem without a complete understanding is generally a _good_ thing, it's called abstract thinking. Now if can solve the problem without understanding it completely, why shouldn't you be able to write about it in a way that will help other people in the same position?

Also, I'm pretty confident in peoples own judgment, I don't think people would spam the forum with crap material but rather take reasonable care to make sure their article is of good quality, remember it's still their good name (and rating) on the forum that's on stake here.

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Original post by MikeTacular 3) need to man up, write the article, and submit it (just because it's intimidating and gets reviewed doesn't mean you can't do it).

That's easy to say, but are the masses listening? If people aren't submitting articles (which is my impression) then theres a reason for it and just telling them to change wont help.

No worries about offending anyone MikeTacular, not for my part anyway :) Anyway, I think the concept is pretty clear and after this point I guess it's just personal opinions and politics left to discuss. Up to the mods from here on for my part.

RE: "That's easy to say, but are the masses listening? If people aren't submitting articles (which is my impression) then theres a reason for it and just telling them to change wont help."

lol. e.g. Yeah, then you would have to wonder why I decided to have an "OpenGL" article published on TheCodeProject that some would say would have been more appropriate to publish on a site such as Gamedev.com. (If you look at the Multimedia/Opengl section of TheCodeProject you cannot miss it- maybe?)