This forum is a mess!

40 Posts

OptimusCrime Reply #1, 9 years, 9 months ago

Hello guys.

Some of you might know me from IRC, some of you might not know me at all. I've been using Modx for about three years now and I also consider myself somewhat active in the community (at IRC and over at Github at least). I've always wanted to become more active in these forums, but every time I visit them I get the same thought almost instantly: "what a frikkin' mess!".

The forum is structured in a way that does not work at all, there are no moderators that activly move/close/migrate/split threads and there is no clear indications where certan stuff should be posted.

For example:

Revo/Evo got both discussion and support in the same subforum.
Revo/Evo has subforums for each version, but these are almost not used at all. Also Revo is lacking a subforum for 2.3 for some reason.
People ask for help in the General Discussions-forum (where this is posted). I thought this forum was for "everything else"
What is the difference between the 'Revo/Evo Discussions & Support' and 'Revo/Evo Development'? People post same kind of questions in both.
The [SIG]-subforums have no activity and just spreads posts even more.
Internationalization is a subforum under Around the world, when most other subforums are for one language, not the Internationalization-implementation in Modx.

What I suggest:

- Producs
-- General Modx Talk (talk about modx in general, no help, no support, just 'what is up with modx')
-- Modx3 (just to have a place to discuss the next big step)
-- Revo Support (ask for help here)
-- Revo Discussions (NO help or support, just general discussion about the CMS)
-- Revo Core Development (where is Revo heading etc)
-- xPDO (support, discussions, development all in the same subforum)
-- Evo Support (ask for help here)
-- Evo Discussions (NO help or support, just general discussion about the CMS)
-- Evo Core Development (what is up with Evo)
-- Modx Cloud
-- Other
--- Design & Templates
--- Tips & Tricks
--- I18N

- General
-- General discussion (any talk about Modx will result in pain here)
-- General Support (support not converning Modx)
-- Webworker lounge

- Modx Around The World
-- Meetups
-- [All the different languages here]

- Add-ons
-- Revo Extra Development (questions/help for creating your own extra)
-- Revo Extra Support (help with existing Revo Extras)
-- Evo Add-ons Development (questions/help for developing own add-on)
-- Evo Add-ons Support (help with existing Evo Add-ons)
-- [Other Add-ons/Extras goes here]

[ed. note: optimuscrime last edited this post 9 years, 9 months ago.]

MODX Staff
2,502 Posts

Jay Gilmore Reply #2, 9 years, 9 months ago

It looks like the forums ate your suggestions. sad

I am keen to see them and happy to do anything we can to make them simpler and more usable.

Author of zero books. Formerly of many strange things. Pairs well with meats. Conversations are magical experiences. He's dangerous around code but a markup magician. Blog ✦ Twitter ✦ LinkedIn ✦ GitHub

40 Posts

OptimusCrime Reply #3, 9 years, 9 months ago

Nope, it did not. I just have this weird tendency of pushing the back-button when I have written something looong, and lose everything. So I just had to be sure.

My suggested forum-layout is posted over.

PS: I tried with nested lists, could not get it to work. It might have been that you saw.

MODX Staff
2,502 Posts

Jay Gilmore Reply #4, 9 years, 9 months ago

I like your suggestions. Nearly all of this is quickly doable. Are you suggesting we remove the version subtopics and subtopics from Extras? It's not clear from the above. I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this as well.

All the best,

Jay

Author of zero books. Formerly of many strange things. Pairs well with meats. Conversations are magical experiences. He's dangerous around code but a markup magician. Blog ✦ Twitter ✦ LinkedIn ✦ GitHub

40 Posts

OptimusCrime Reply #5, 9 years, 9 months ago

Thank you Jay

Well, I think having Revolution 2.2, Revolution 2.1 etc as subforums is somewhat messy. It would make a lot more sense if we also had one for 2.3 and moderators moved posts concerning only one version to the correct subforum, keeping topics that strech over multiple versions the only ones that are allowed to be posted outside the version subforums.

Also, the subforums for the extras are fine.

40 Posts

OptimusCrime Reply #6, 9 years, 9 months ago

Edit: Also a general Modx forum under producs could be a good idea, to have a general place to talk about multiple versions of modx at once.

24,544 Posts

BobRay Reply #7, 9 years, 9 months ago

I like that organization a lot.

Extra versions are problematical no matter what. If you have a separate thread for each version, people have to wade through all of them looking for answers. If they're all under one thread, it will contain information that is no longer valid.

I think having the versions as separate sub-topics is the lesser of the two evils since most people will use Google to find solutions and they can see the version number the post refers to in the header and know when it's a significantly older version.

Ideally, submitting an extra would create a main topic for the extra name if it didn't exist, and create a sub-topic under it for the specific version if it didn't exist (and forward the submitter to that sub-topic).

That would make life infinitely easier for an extra developer. wink

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2,213 Posts

AMDbuilder Reply #8, 9 years, 9 months ago

Great suggestion! It never hurts to revisit how things are organized, and update them based on usage. My one suggestion based on your suggested structure would be as follows:

General MODX Chat
General Web Dev Chat
Web Dev Lounge / Off Topic
Other
- Design & Templates
- Tips & Tricks
- Misc...

In short if a topic isn't directly related to a product/service it shouldn't fall under the Products grouping. My two cents on version sub-boards would be reduce and/or eliminate them. Ideally, put a required (Currently Installed?) version field for posts and include that with the subject (like Question/Answered). I would think this might help search results more than grouping post to version sub-boards.

That approach also eliminates version confusion when making a post, for example if they just upgraded or want to upgrade. It would also be AWESOME to adopt an EOL/LTS (End of Life/Long Term Support) strategy, which is mirrored in the forums. It's unrealistic to support all versions of all products indefinitely, people need to upgrade at some point in time.

A few EOL/LTS examples:
cPanel - 12 months from initial release - https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/ALD/cPanel%2520&%2520WHM%2520Long-Term%2520Support
modmore - Varies - https://www.modmore.com/about/versions/
PHP - Varies - http://php.net/eol.php

I'm personally amazed MODX supports PHP 5.1.x still (http://rtfm.modx.com/revolution/2.x/getting-started/server-requirements), I would think they could save countless hours of testing by limiting support to say PHP 5.3.20+, but that's a bone for another post

Enough rambling, thanks again for the suggestions! I look forward to seeing them implemented.

Patrick | Server Wrangler
About Me: Website | Tweets | MODX Hosting

2,877 Posts

mrhaw Reply #9, 9 years, 9 months ago

I certainly agree... http://forums.modx.com/thread/91323/modx-forums-highlight-evo-evolution-threads

Anything is an improvment.

@hawproductions | http://mrhaw.com/

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40 Posts

OptimusCrime Reply #10, 9 years, 9 months ago

Okey, how about something like this? Notes under the layout

- Modx
-- General Modx Talk (talk about modx in general, no help, no support, just 'what is up with modx')
-- Modx3
--- General Chat
-- Modx Revo
--- Revo Support (ask for help here)
--- Revo Discussions (NO help or support, just general discussion about the CMS)
--- Revo Core Development (where is Revo heading etc)
-- xPDO
--- Suppoert, Chat and Development
-- Modx Evo
--- Evo Support (ask for help here)
--- Evo Discussions (NO help or support, just general discussion about the CMS)
--- Evo Core Development (what is up with Evo)
-- Modx Cloud
-- Other
--- Design & Templates
--- Tips & Tricks
--- I18N
 
- General
-- General discussion (any talk about Modx will result in pain here)
-- General Support (support not converning Modx)
-- Webworker lounge
 
- Modx Around The World
-- Meetups
-- [All the different languages here]
 
- Add-ons
-- Revo Extra Development (questions/help for creating your own extra)
-- Revo Extra Support (help with existing Revo Extras)
-- Evo Add-ons Development (questions/help for developing own add-on)
-- Evo Add-ons Support (help with existing Evo Add-ons)
-- [Other Add-ons/Extras goes here]

Here Products are renamed to Modx. Under Modx you have 7 subforums. One for general Modx talk (any version). One subforum for Revo, one for Evo, one for xPDO and one for Modx Cloud. I also feel like Other fits in here, because it is "Other" in terms of Modx development, so it makes much more sense to put it under Modx than "General".