1. The article submission system is still bad. The interface is designed like to be used in Mobile, and not on 17-22inch monitors.
2. The font used to display the article is very small. The ads are occupying more space, are of bigger font sizes.
3. The Article rating system makes no sense. No way to find out how many people have rated, how many times viewed et. al.
4. The article search is pathetic (as commented by many). Article search is done by search.internet.com, and gives redundant information (if correct article found by mistake!)
5. The comments area forces to view in different page, and not in same page. Puts many members away from it.
6. The article categories (to browse) are still stone age! Look at the 'Codeguru Navigation' in home page. Where are the new technologies??
7. The articles summary page does not show what technologies are used. It shows only when you open the article itself.
We recently had a management change that should help going forward on adding features and updating this site (to some extent). We are also in the process of going through an ownership change as well (Internet.com was sold and is going through SEC approvals).
I mention this because in the first case, I think it will be a huge help. The second case is still to be seen what impact that will have; however, the future new owners and I have already talked about new, better CMS systems and such. Such 'big' changes won't happen over night, but there are time frames being discussed and such.
As to yoru twelve complaints. I've made many of the same ones . Some, I've not. I'll see what a we can do to spec out some of these changes. There is one of these that you -- and the members of Codeguru -- can help me with.
I've had a couple of new categories added to Codeguru, but not very many because it requires getting developers involved (not how it was suppose to work). If you guys can help me with what categories we should add, I'll do a push to get them all added at once. That is something we can fix quicker and a little easier.
Many of your other requests I have asked for and have been a low priority for our developers (who manage 100+ sites for Internet.com). I'll see what I can do to push some of these changes through again. This includes things like the # of raters and such.
We did do some monthly competitions for a while. There was little to no interest so it was hard to justify the extra work. There are a few things in this category that I have tried to push through as well. Things that recognize contributions, authoring, and more. I'll see what I can do in that space as well.
As to the article interface -- I've been complaining about it since the time I first saw what the developers created. I completely agree that it is a pain in several ways.
Bottom line - I can't argue with many of your points. To do some of it, I need some help from some of you. The moderators have seen some of the stuff I requested (high-level spec'd). I'll see if I can do another push to make some of this happen.
In the mean time -- Can you guys help me with the category topics you want added? That we should be able to make happen independently.
Brad!
(Thanks for the constructive criticism. It helps my case when you guys state this stuff!)
May I request CG to enlarge the edit box for writing/editing the article? I hope that is trivial to do. Because even when the article length is quite short, there is still a lot of vertical scrolling to do, just because the edit box is too small.
Just a little suggestion which I hope the management can kindly consider.
Thank you!
The constructive criticism listed by the OP, Ajay Vijay, are very good and are most probably felt by many CG website users. I remember that there was a time CG was the king in terms of quality programming articles but sadly, CG has been superseded by CP which is constantly improving and expanding.
Ajay :
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree to the fact that CP articles are better than CG's. You will find that a lot of CP articles are just there for the sake of being published. As an article reviewer here for CG ( and Ajay, you should also know this ) is that we concentrate on Quality and not quantity So, saying that CP articles are better than CG's is actually wrong, and unfair towards all the great authors that have contributed to CG. The last time you have submitted an article was in 2005...
I'm not attacking you or anything, I'm saying that if you feel that the CG article system has issues, blame that, and not the articles.
I really disagree with point numer 10 and number 12.
In reference to number 10 : The code does indeed stand out, if the article was correctly formatted with Pre tags, it looks very pretty.
In referenece to number 12 : There is a View Profile link, and an About the author section. When people click on the View Profile link, you'll get access to all the articles the author has written.
Originally Posted by CBasicNet
I remember that there was a time CG was the king in terms of quality programming articles but sadly, CG has been superseded by CP
@HanneSThEGreaT
Yeah, the last article published was in year 2005. After that whenever I found time and thought of submitting article, the Article Sumbission page has put me down!
About point 12:
CP code content in easily differentiable than the other article content, and vice versa. Which is not in case with CG. Both contens intermingle. What if I am interested in Article only, and not in code? And later I need to quickly glimpse over code.
About point 13:
I am aware about 'About Author' link, and I would have mentioned it, but did not for brevity.
"You can view the Author's details only after clicking, and finding other articles. But that involves navigating to another page - which most users won't bother."
I still vouch for CP for quality, over CG. Most recent CG articles are of no use. They don't get hit by search engines. Reason? Developers aren't looking for the concepts presented in CG. I am not counting on quality. But when I search for some concept, I would find it on CP!
About point 12:
CP code content in easily differentiable than the other article content, and vice versa. Which is not in case with CG. Both contens intermingle. What if I am interested in Article only, and not in code? And later I need to quickly glimpse over code.
Sorry to sound like a broken record here, but I still disagree on this point ( especially ).
If we take a look at this article ( for example ) :
This is the last thing I want to add ( I forgot earlier )
Originally Posted by Ajay Vijay
About point 13:
I am aware about 'About Author' link, and I would have mentioned it, but did not for brevity.
"You can view the Author's details only after clicking, and finding other articles. But that involves navigating to another page - which most users won't bother."
What makes their Author section more special than CG's ¿
And scroll down, we'll see the same type of info ( as it is here on CG ), OK, fine, the facebook profiles etc. are ther as well, but is that info really absoultely critical to know ¿. Ah, OK, their pictures are a tad bigger, does that really make so much difference ¿
It shows the same type of summary about the author as CG, unless there is something else ¿ ¿
Articles posted on Codeguru do get exposure that article on other sites don't get. For example, most article listed on CodeGuru get linked and listed on Developer.com (see bottom of home page) as well as on internet.com (see Codeguru box, http://www.internet.com/developer/ )
I update my articles quite often with new article sections and new sample code to correct the previous bugs or new features and because CodeGuru articles are published to the homepage less frequently than CodeProject, it may seen to the other CG users that I am spamming CG with my articles.
As a sidenote to Brad: I always publish my articles on CG first, then port them over to CP after a few months, so that CodeGuru has the exclusivity of publishing my articles first before CodeProject.
I know I've been negative, and few of you might not like it. But it's for improvement.
A major irritation faced by me! I am currently writing an article, and took few hours break. The browser window was open (where we type the article content). I came back, started typing few more, invested few minutes to get groundwork, and then I hit 'Save'.
And then I see login page. Okay, I gave my credentials, and I see the same page. But my content was NOT saved. I was very much frustrated!
Clicking on back doesn't work either, the content is lost!
Last edited by Ajay Vijay; October 26th, 2009 at 02:29 AM.
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