Thank You Bob Beatty
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I'm stealing this post from another community because it so perfectly fits this conversation. I won't link the thread because it is a thread of people complaining about another specific community, but that's not relevant or needed for this particular post to be poignant. Here is the quote:
I must admit this is the one bit of [community name redacted] that absolutely infuriates me because it's so backward that I can't work out how it ever got into such a mess.
Right now I want to post a new question about replacing my mobile phone - does it go in Android because I have an Android phone now and have some Android specific questions? Does it go in iPhone because I have some iPhone specific questions? Or does it go in Mobile Devices because I have some general questions?
The categories are just too complicated IMO and need way more than a lick of paint.
The complaint here has nothing to do with the community in question. It's really a complaint that applies to every community that uses categories and specifically technical ones. We use categories here but we use them for things that are pretty high level and clear - Community Announcements, Self Promotion, Industry News, Job Postings, The WC and then the big "one category to rule them all" for all of the actual, technical discussions for which the community exists. It if is a technical question or discussion, it goes in the one giant group and everything is sorted out by tags from there. If you want to post cats, you can, just not there. The WC is for that. If you want to discuss IT careers, that's not a technical discussion but an orthogonal one, there is a category for that. Careers are clearly defined as a different thing from getting Windows deployment advice or figuring out storage performance numbers.
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And another quote that just posted minutes ago:
The difficulty as a "customer" here is that I simply don't know where to post.
Reminds me of a non-IT forum I'm on where they've tried to compartmentalize everything so now all that that happens is you either have to guess which sub-forum will get the most views, or you cross-post in every single one and get moderated for cross-posting.
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@scottalanmiller I've seen this often on various communities. That is why I like the idea of tags here the way Google uses labels. What we need is a better way to view tags baked into the nodeBB system.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller I've seen this often on various communities. That is why I like the idea of tags here the way Google uses labels. What we need is a better way to view tags baked into the nodeBB system.
That's something I'm wondering is if NodeBB needs to do this one or if it can be done without the developers. This might be something that we can do in HTML and CSS. At least part of it. Having looked at it a little, I think we can get at least partway there without altering the intrinsic capabilities of NodeBB. Now for the idea of super tags, or "categories" that contain multiple tags, that's going to need a plugin for sure. But for some stuff I think that we can do it without code changes, maybe. At least enough to get started.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller I've seen this often on various communities. That is why I like the idea of tags here the way Google uses labels. What we need is a better way to view tags baked into the nodeBB system.
That's something I'm wondering is if NodeBB needs to do this one or if it can be done without the developers. This might be something that we can do in HTML and CSS. At least part of it. Having looked at it a little, I think we can get at least partway there without altering the intrinsic capabilities of NodeBB. Now for the idea of super tags, or "categories" that contain multiple tags, that's going to need a plugin for sure. But for some stuff I think that we can do it without code changes, maybe. At least enough to get started.
Well a plugin would be better for that anyway wouldn't it? My understanding of the entire nobeBB ecosystem was that everything was plugin.
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@JaredBusch said:
Well a plugin would be better for that anyway wouldn't it? My understanding of the entire nobeBB ecosystem was that everything was plugin.
Yeah, they lean very heavily on that. It's not a great philosophy, though, because basically it is just another way of stating that the platform has no features because none of the plugins are supported. So if there is critical functionality in a plugin, you don't really have that functionality. I think it is a horrible plan and it is our top concern using the platform. If it were only major extensions, things that were really outside of the norm, then sure. But things that most people would consider completely core features are in the plugins so it basically leaves us with a platform where nothing officially exists or works.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Yeah, they lean very heavily on that. It's not a great philosophy, though, because basically it is just another way of stating that the platform has no features because none of the plugins are supported. So if there is critical functionality in a plugin, you don't really have that functionality. I think it is a horrible plan and it is our top concern using the platform. If it were only major extensions, things that were really outside of the norm, then sure. But things that most people would consider completely core features are in the plugins so it basically leaves us with a platform where nothing officially exists or works.
Well, I ha not thought about it in that way and I see how that is going to be an issue with functionality.
I know some people complain that the site layout sucks. but generally that seems to be complaints about the landing page. That is completely valid though. A solid landing page with stuff based around the tags would be good.
I mean all in all, the community is just that. A community. There is nothing else except the posts. So there really should not be anything else on the landing page.
I love the general responsiveness of the platform as well the general smooth flow of reading and participating. It is much better than any old school BB platform I have ever used.
I have used a number of them over the years of my D&D campaign website. I was contemplating spinning nodeBB up for my current iteration instead of the gimpy built in Wordpress forum I threw in there in 5 minutes. I just haven't taken the time to install a test system let alone figure out how to tie the login to my WP site logins. I have seen people talk about doing it on the nodeBB forum so I feel I can due it, just. need time.
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@JaredBusch said:
I know some people complain that the site layout sucks. but generally that seems to be complaints about the landing page. That is completely valid though. A solid landing page with stuff based around the tags would be good.
I'm 100% on board there. Landing page as it is, is useless. And we need one that makes sense, makes it clear where you are and why you are here and gets you to what you are looking for.
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@JaredBusch said:
I love the general responsiveness of the platform as well the general smooth flow of reading and participating. It is much better than any old school BB platform I have ever used.
Me too. After nearly a decade of daily posting to IT communities, this one is vastly easier for me to use. Easier to find things, faster to post, easier to use. But there is a lot of polishing that needs to be done.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Easier to find things,
Everything but this. Search sucks every time I have used it.
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@JaredBusch said:
Everything but this. Search sucks every time I have used it.
Yes, it needs to be improved more than just the upgrade to Solr, which we've done. I wonder how long till Google makes this less of an issue?
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