Yes, all fair points (and I wasn’t around then) although the reason for stripping out / merging some forums is that they were basically withering on the vine. So it seems to be an issue of changing times rather than a wish on the part of SitePoint to change things. Before the forums were reordered, the staff did discuss this at length, wondering how—if possible—to turn things back to the way they were. But it seems nothing lasts forever … and people don’t seem to be turning to forums now the way they did some years ago. The forum admins are very open to any ideas people have about the way forward, though.
@CMS_Dude ;: I include you in the handful of individuals here who can dig deep and discuss development beyond copying code or downloading themes but regardless of how he’s asked the question, he raised a valid point. The quality of development discussions has dropped considerably in the last couple of years. I’ve been here a while and I’ve seen it drop and I’m concerned about it too.
BTW: your suggestion isn’t going to help find an answer his question. He’s not a newb. This place used to be the exact place where you could go ask highly technical questions of complete strangers and get help finding the answers. No question was “really dumb” or “useless” It helped grow a community because the more people were helped, the more they chipped in helping others. Now, not so much maybe…
I’m going to jump in here because things are getting a bit heated (and off topic). Thanks for your post @deeve007; you certainly make a very relevant point. I’ll attempt to address it.
The bottom line is this: the nature and purpose of forums has changed. They used to be places where people would come to bounce around complicated ideas with their peers. Experts hung out here because there was nowhere else to hang out. That isn’t the case any more. There are so many other options for that kind of interaction that people don’t waste their time with forums where they are constantly interrupted by newbies (for want of a nicer way of putting it). Forums are now environments for (1) people looking for a quick answer that they can grab and leave and (2) beginners that like the anonymity of asking what they think may be perceived as a ‘dumb’ question in a theoretically nurturing environment. Those are both valid reasons to be here, but they pose a problem for us in terms of retaining experts. The two groups are incongruous and are looking for different things.
The decision to cull the forums was mine and it has nothing to do with business or money. My sole responsibility is to look after our community. Unfortunately the sheer number of sub-forums was making it a daunting place for newcomers so we scaled back to help them out - they are our bread and butter these days. I don’t believe that the structure of our forums have anything to do with the change. It was happening before that and there is nothing stopping people from creating an advanced thread in one of the forums that we retained - all the old threads still exist, they were just merged. Those subforums had such low traffic that they weren’t serving any purpose. Without an audience to take part in the threads, things were lying dormant for days or even weeks at a time. Our traffic is still the same and registration levels haven’t changed - it is just our demographic that has.
I wish it wasn’t the case, but it is so we have to move with the times.
We redesigned the newsletters and split the Tech Times into more specific niches. There is now newsletters for Ruby, Cloud, Mobile development and PHP.
I hope that answers some of your questions. 
Oh, I just saw your response @ralph_m ;. Thanks for shedding some light on that.
Hey HAWK, nice to see you… and thanks for piping up and bringing some info into the mix. Actually I’m impressed with the overall demeanor considering how things can become inflamed on “the interwebs”. There’s definitely some button pushing but the reactions and answers seem pretty level headed.
Now that deeve007 brought up the subject I’m a bit curious, and/or perplexed about it because I always felt there was a lot of value in the knowledgebase that was the SP forum. Also, I wonder what happened to some of the members from way back when. I guess they’ve moved on to other interests. Maybe as ralph_m mentioned the questions stopped coming up and times have changed.
My interests have gone from general web development to specific CMS work and CRM work which is challenging but much more narrowly focused. I set my forum settings to show me all new threads from the CMS section on a daily basis (via email) but unfortunately not a lot of questions come up under my particular areas of interest.
While I can totally see the logic in this decision … I believe the unfortunate consequence has been exactly what has been mentioned in this thread. You might be attracting more newcomers, but in order for them to stay, they’re going to want to have some more experienced developers to learn from. And unfortunately, some of them may have moved on seeking greener pastures.
Maybe there’s a happy middle ground that could be stricken. I, for one, would welcome an opportunity to mentor and pass along some of what I know … provided this place wasn’t just over-run with Wordpress users who just want free technical support all the time. I practically jump at every Joomla or Drupal question … just because it affords me an opportunity to talk about something that isn’t Wordpress (which is a fine CMS by the way – just not the only one).
Off Topic:
at the risk of going totally off topic, I think this is just a sign of the changing world (a bad sign imho) and the “Me Generation” wanting instant gratification and solutions.
And it’s not just on this website. I currently also post on webdeveloper, codingforums and devshed and it’s a sign of the times on those websites as well.
Yes, a few years ago there were a lot more “technical/tutorial” type threads and discussions. Nowadays, I would say at least 60-70% of threads I visit anywhere are related to a student, newbie or DIY’er who has got themselves sinking in coding quicksand and is looking for someone to drag them out for free.
The way I see forums in general nowadays, is basically as fast code drive thru’s with very few users looking to actually learn anything. Most just want a quick FREE solution to their immediate need.
I monitored the stats very carefully for a long time before making the call. It was already happening, rather than being a consequence.
So your stats can measure the collective level of expertise and/or years of experience of those posting? 
That’s one heck of an analytics package!
Nope, but they can measure the amount of traffic to the different forums. The advanced/specialised sub-forums got low traffic and the response rate was dropping rapidly.
Well I wonder if that’s because the advanced topics had reached the saturation point or were there other reasons. I know we’ve had some really talented people come through here and move on as their careers took them in other directions. Was it because the topics were no longer being discussed or were there no experts to answer them? * Oh, that’s not really a question, it might not be something we’ve got stats for… I’m just pondering the thought…
Yeah, it’s something I think about a lot. I think you’re right - people learned and moved on, and then the internet changed so a new school of people didn’t settle in the same way. People are consumers in a different way these days. For many it’s about a quick fix, not a place to make friends.
I don’t have the answers so I try all sorts of things. And I’m always interested in your opinions.
Like Sarah and Ralph I feel that it’s a natural progression for forums and online communities, and not necessarily a sign that anything is going wrong at SP.
Twitter, Github, Blogs and Local meetups provide more focused ways for people who are really interested in some topic to learn / share and communicate with others who have the same interests.
Forums are more accessible and allow anyone to ask questions so it attracts a lot more people who a new to it and the Sitepoint books are also geared towards beginners.
Those are some of the reasons for the change in demographic.
Wow guys, thanks for continuing this discussion so constructively & informatively. You’ve definitely provided me with some good background about the forum, and hopefully anyone else paying a visit and wondering the same thing.
PS: When I think of code hacking, I’m not offended. I remember when being a hacker meant 2600 (http://www.2600.com/) and things like that. Now when I hear hacker or code hacker, I think of Makezine or Hackaday.
No, it’s not a term that anyone should get offended about.
Cheers.
Depending on your definition, one could say that developers and “code hackers” are pretty much the same thing.
Both of which utilize codes to create or alter things, so the differences between the two aren’t too significant.
From the perspective of experienced developers who embrace change and pursue greater knowledge…there is a huge difference between “hackers” and “developers”. Quality assurance, project management, best practices, etc. These are all skills a professional developer should be familiar with. Hackers are concerned with getting the job done, at whatever expense (their own sanity and definitely that of others who might later maintain the codebase).
I still think there’s a place for hackers. When you need a quick fix to a problem, the hacker is much less likely to over-analyze the problem.
Only problem is that, in many cases, the hacked job might wind up breaking something else unintentionally. Or it just makes for code that isn’t as easy to maintain. You might save yourself 4 hours using a hackish method … and then spend another 8 hours fixing a byproduct of that hack later on. Or an extra 15 minutes each week that just keeps adding up little by little because ultimately, all you did was address the symptom rather than the underlying disease.
It’s all about short-term versus long-term. Where I work, we have two titles: Developer and Architect. The architect’s role is to worry about the underlying structure and maintainability, while the developer worries about implementation. We don’t always follow that model to the letter, but I do like the idea of having the “architect” title, and I believe it’s a title that should be adopted more frequently in the industry.
Hi,
I too have been around since the days of deeper discussions, collaboration, and experts that congregated here together. The demographics yes have changed, but it seems to be a little cyclical. Many advanced people had to field the same sort of basic questions over and over when the times where deeper discussions were more the norm. Given that many of these people became highly involved with corporate work, open source initiatives, and standards committees (mostly triggered by them being experts). I have noticed in the last 4 months a new wave of advanced people beginning to emerge. I don’t mean to say that it will go back to the old days but I have seen a small rebirth of expertise in the PHP forums say. I know there is still alot of expertise in the Design You Website, Program Your Website, and Host Your Website.
In addition SitePoint has created more specific areas of expertise like PHPmasters.com, DesignFestival.com, BuildMobile.com, CloudSpring.com, and RubySource.com. Each of these sites have member with considerable expertise in their respective areas. This rollout and change takes time to establish and to organize, but I have also seen SitePoint proactively tying these resources back into SitePoint, and I believe this trend will continue. Given this it is more likely that experts will give some more focus to SitePoint forums.
The world is becoming more abstracted from the ‘real workings of things’, consumers like this microwaves, cars that can park themselves and you can talk to rather than pushing buttons, media boxes that magically can via a usb have all pictures, movies, music, connect to network servers and with hdmi to your 2 inch/ 6 cm flat screen TV. This trend has led people not to have to learn what makes things work or how to fix them. Do you know that I have a neighbor that had a $750 screen door that they were going to throw out because one screw had fallen out and they wanted a different colour! I asked them if I could remove it for them and installed it in my house. They were amazed that a home owner could do this; however 20 years ago this would not even been considered as the door would stayed were it was and the home owner wouldn’t think it was a poor quality door for missing one screw. The type of many of the questions that are on all forums not just SitePoint very much reflect this more abstracted layer of people who expect speed, ease of use, and for it just to work.
If we look at our physical communities; a town or village that we might have grown up had been disappearing over the last 20 years, people got lost in the seas of people in the big city, the sense of community had be changed and in some cases lost. We’ve seen that impact our community at SitePoint. However, if we take the lead of villages and towns (at least in our part of Canada) they are starting to be reinvigorated, people are moving back and a whole new group of people are finding the community values and ways of doing things. This is part of a cyclical nature that has been documented since the 12th century and I believe it starting to happen to SitePoint by some of the new highly skilled people that have arrived, stayed and starting new discussions.
Sorry about the long post, but I love community and I want to help build a strong one here. Part of this is leading by example
Regards,
Steve
That might also be more due to it being a sub-forum. What really attracted me to Sitepoint … was the fact that it was the only place that had a “CMS” specific forum, and it’s in a bulletin-board format. As my alias might suggest, I am most interested in CMS’s. That’s primarily what I care about, and that’s what I like to talk about; Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal. Mostly PHP-based, but I’m also curious about those built with other languages.
And this place was the only one I could find that had sort of this general “CMS” board. Unfortunately it was buried underneath all of these other sub-forums, and now it’s sort of mangled in with this “Wordpress” thing. It’s not any great mystery why it hasn’t historically been very popular. But I can say with good confidence that the popularity of the opensource PHP-based CMS is absolutely exploding out of control. And there is a void that could be filled, and a lot of contributions that some guys like myself might be able to make to such a forum.
That’s the reason I started that post yesterday about what CMS’ are being used on Sitepoint (http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?869383-What-s-your-CMS-of-choice). I know everyone and their dog knows about WP but what about the others… Perch for instance I had forgotten about.
I somehow got out of general PHP/.NET development about 5 years ago and got heavily into CMS an CRM development. I’d like to see the CMS & Wordpress section become a CMS (Content Management System) forum to see if it encourages more discussion about CMS in general not so much where do I get this WP theme or plugin.
Yea, I noticed that, and I figured that was your motivation behind starting it. Good idea.
I’d like to see the CMS & Wordpress section become a CMS (Content Management System) forum to see if it encourages more discussion about CMS in general not so much where do I get this WP theme or plugin.
I think it would be very helpful to people who are looking for the right tool for a job. And it could help save a lot of people time and frustration trying to fit round pegs in square holes. Or from using a kitchen-knife to cut down a tree … or using a chainsaw to butter their toast. All of these CMSs are being developed by such strong communities, and each one seems to be attracting a different approach to things that people could be leveraging better. We’re really spoiled with amazing choices; each one tailored for a specific type of site.
I currently work for a Drupal shop and we have this saying … Drupal is our hammer. And when a hammer is your only tool, every problem starts looking like a nail. There are a lot of reasons why specializing in Drupal is great for our company. But professionally, a lot of reasons why it’s good for me personally to stay on top of everything out there.
There’s a lot of truth in that for sure
Off Topic:
True Story: A buddy of mine actually put a stereo and speakers in his car with the only tools he had, a break knife and a set of vice-grips.