Carson said:
Bring down the number of forums there are and generalize the focus of the boards. For example, instead of having forums for individual programming languages, I think it would be worthwhile to have forums for different
genres of programming. You could have boards for web development, systems programming, game development, etc.
It's also worth mentioning a hard truth. There are a lot of programming communities, and they offer a lot more than your board has to offer. If you want to be successful, you have to have a niche and you have to offer something different and unique. Why would I want to join your forums over
Dream.In.Code or
CodingForums.com? Why would I use your community for support instead of StackOverflow?
Stack Overflow doesn't really allow for much discussion and it seems really weird the way it is set up. If I can't get around it, I don't know how beginners can. Plus, SO doesn't have tutorials... just questions and answers and a lot of the times those "top answers" are wrong or don't work because what you find on google is old or it never worked to begin with. With THMCC I would make sure that everything works and stays updated, if it isn't updated, I would reopen the discussion with "I realize this doesn't work anymore, anyone have an updated way of how to fix this?" or I would provide the updated way, I haven't decided on that yet as it hasn't come to that yet, obviously.
Didn't know about dream in code but I saw coding forums and imo they both have 10x more forums/categories than I have... so I don't see why I would bring mine down when it is already limited to begin with. The only things I have listed are places that have at least 1-2 topics in them. You can't see the categories I have but don't have anything yet, whether tutorial categories or forum categories. Only I can see those.
I completely agree, there are a lot of programming communities and then there are a lot of communities that offer programming on the side as well but THMCC wants to re-invent those programming communities so that not only are they for the more advanced programmers but they are for the beginners as well. We want to make sure everyone is included and as a moderate programmer myself I can see both sides (beginner and advanced) and DIC & CF seem like something a more advanced programmer would join, it seems overwhelming to me as I wouldn't know where or what to post first. I'm trying to change that with THMCC. Plus, I don't like the platform both of those sites use, I hate that programming sites are mostly on XF or VB. We are using IPB which is yet another change I hope to make.
Electric Booty said:
Not to be so rude, but like Carson said there are so many forums.....and yeah exactly why would we use yours?
What makes yours so unique from the others?
You gotta be unique in your own way.
Don't worry about it. Harshness only gives me the reality of the situation. I haven't responded to Carson yet because I was upset when I first read it so I let myself calm down and realize the situation I was actually in. I didn't want to post something irrational.
🙂
Anyway, if you look at DIC & CF that he listed they have 10x more categories than I have... so why should I limit mine? Then I would have 10x less than what they have. Plus, if you read what I posted to Carson you would see that I only have sections that have posts (at least 1) in them showing. Even then I try to hide the ones with little posts.
THMCC is unique because it is not run by an advanced programmer. In fact, some may consider me a novice/n00b and that's fine. I don't have all of this knowledge to work from. I'm learning just like my members. While I may not have the answers, I'm hoping that my future members will. Also, we are using a different software and we aren't aimed to help the majority out there. I'm aiming to help the minority. I don't care about the majority, I just want a forum that has posts at least one post a day. If that was something that happened, I would be ecstatic. I don't care about the activity that much but as long as there is SOMETHING, I'm happy.
Plus, we also have tutorials which I don't see DIC/CF having. I don't know of any other programming forums that are just as big as them as I don't count SO as a forum as it is more of a Q&A website that has mostly wrong answers. Well, maybe not mostly, but from what I've searched for and found there, they are wrong.
Carson & Electric Booty, if I did hide any sections (IF being the key word here) what sections would you recommend I hide? I'm asking as this seems to be a similarity that you guys agree on.
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Also, I want to add that this is a passion of mine. I plan to become a teacher just so I could teach students coding or at least something with websites but I would be ecstatic if I could teach them how to code. This has been a dream of mine (to teach coding) since I taught my Uncle how to code and now he is a better designer and coder than I am. Just seeing what I taught him and where he went with it brings joy to my heart. Sounds cliche and stupid but it is true, I love knowing that I taught him the beginnings about how to bold text, how to underline it and how to make a layout from scratch.
I did that by myself with no one else around to help me and now he is better than me.
I want to do that tenfold with this website and when I become a teacher.
I've also posted a longer explanation of why I do this on my twitter (and facebook):
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1slhhga?new_post=true
