We want your opinion - Improving Codeguru

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PeejAvery

:thumbd: to blogs!

---

blogs on codeguru, right? Not in general. Blogs are better in the sense that it doesn't need to worry about many things that an article needs to cater to. Blogs can be short. They may be simple tips or discuss small issues, bugs, best practices. They are short (but surely can be longer). They usually don't fit into the style of an article. However, too many blogs really becomes unmanageable and trackable for readers.

Dr Dobbs portal has a combination of both. Articles and blogs. blogs also work as a notification of a good article that has come up. They help pass information quickly. However, I think on Dr Dobbs, the blogs are exclusive to some high quality professionals in the related domain. For C++, there is Andrew Keonig there (previously it was Pete Becker, I think). His blogs are interesting.

By the way, I don't know why Brad is worried about the quality of articles. Is there a decrease in number of articles being submitted or quality? What is the original concern?

Brad, how about a wiki-style section at the end of each article, where any user can modify the content. IOW, no user except the author can modify the content of the article itself, but any user can modify a section at the end.

I recognize that any user can add comments to the end of an article, but I think the comment system is not efficient and difficlut to navigate. The above suggestion would effectively flatten all comments into a single page. Or maybe it could be used in conjuction with comments (improved comments, anyway).

Mike

Hi Brad !
The only thing which could be a bit better is the editor itself when implementing copies of code directly out of VS C# 2005 IF I'm e.g. implementing old VB code in this editor in the VB forum the code lokks as it is in VB. If I do it in C# I have to go over the code as it has one empty line between each line.I need to catch all newline chars and then using 'Enter' for linechange only. I didn't understand why this is. Also if I'm typing code directly into the editor the positioning of where the code will be on the screen is a bit difficult. e.g typing 3 Spaces before the code moves code much more then 3 spaces to the right. I think you know what I'm talking about. So generally I would prefer to have it a bit more WYSIWYG as it s in the moment. But this is all. Colors of the borders and all that isn't what I'm looking for in a forum like codeguru.

Not sure what the scope of blog would be. Would it be open for all, or will there be moderation.

Personally, blog's work well for more personal-opinion kind of thing, and or, announcements to discuss for a site like CG. Personally, if a dialog could be stretched off of an article that would suffice , IMHO. That will serve pretty much the purpose of a blog.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by exterminator

By the way, I don't know why Brad is worried about the quality of articles. Is there a decrease in number of articles being submitted or quality? What is the original concern?

---

There has been a decrease in the number of article submitted as well as a decrease in the precentage that are quality articles. We don't post every article that is submitted, but we try to post all the good ones :). I'd like to see us get the number of submissions higher and the precentage of quality articles from those submissions higher. :)

I also feel it is time for me to request developer resources to make some updates to the site. As such, I'm also interested in other suggestions (such as the blogging idea) and the feedback regarding such ideas. This site is driven in large by all of you, so I want to make sure all of you have input into making it better.

But I'm also interested in getting a bump in the number of submissions because good content is worth coming back for! :D ;)

Brad!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikeAThon

Brad, how about a wiki-style section at the end of each article, where any user can modify the content. IOW, no user except the author can modify the content of the article itself, but any user can modify a section at the end.

I recognize that any user can add comments to the end of an article, but I think the comment system is not efficient and difficlut to navigate. The above suggestion would effectively flatten all comments into a single page. Or maybe it could be used in conjuction with comments (improved comments, anyway).

Mike

---

wiki-style section could be a good idea. I've seen something similar to the php documentation site.

http://www.php.net/docs.php

Well, that is not actually a wiki, but a possiblity to post messages on each page. I would rather prefer a wiki, because in a forum-like posting style, people would start asking questions there instead of the forum. That happened to several of my articles. In a wiki, it doesn't make sense editing questions. ;) Though I don't know to what extent such a feature can be integrated with the articles.

I think some 'wiki' additions to this site can make very good sense. Obviously this wouldn't be to the forums, or necessarily to people's custom articles. There are a few great uses of it, though, for this site. The FAQs is one example where a Wiki might make more sense. I've a few others :)

I've added wiki functionality to my list. Good suggestion!

Brad!

I know this is not quite what you were asking for but:

The ads on the left of the forums are the single most annoying ads I've ever seen. It plain and simply makes this forum a bad idea to browse at work. (Which is exactly where most people use the forum)

I don't want to explain to anyone why there is a fat-dork in business attire dancing like a schoolgirl and waving pom-poms around, on my screen.

That ad alone makes ***********, a MUST HAVE...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by crackersixx

That ad alone makes ***********, a MUST HAVE...

---

Blocking of ads is a violation of the AUP.