Ramesh Posted March 4, 2003 Share Posted March 4, 2003 Hi all, I was thinking....would it not be useful if we had a section for new users (begineers ) and a section for advanced users. Maybe split General Chat into two ? Makes it easier for the two groups to focus on their section. (and when we have a moment , we can dive in and help those new users who are in the same position as us many months ago) Just a thought...what do you think ? Regards, Ramesh Special Effects / 3d + Flash Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 4, 2003 Share Posted March 4, 2003 I second the idea! 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 In a lighter vein : who qualifies as a beginner, and who is a certified advanced user? Jan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 :D That would be my question too? The number of posts one makes certainly doesn't qualify them as an expert by any means......I post a lot, I try to help where I can...but, write an original piece of code???? I don't thin so.... :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moyashi Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 :idea: I'm sure most users would classify themselves. I come from a background in perl and living in a perl enviornment until I came over here to osC. I'm still a beginner in many parts of the system eventhough I'm working on a fourth version of my mod. I personally would head to the beginner section for some points and and the advanced forum for others. Let the user decide :wink: Since we're talking about forum structures. I would really like to see a code related forum. I hate asking for php help in the General Chat forum. Also, I think that such a forum would draw more of the php experienced people back into the forums more often. NewsDesk(934) / FAQDesk(1106) / OrderCheck(1168) ::: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toolcrazy Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 I mentioned a beginners channel a while back and the only response was BirdBrain and she was all for it. I do see one draw back though, is that some of these newbies have a habit of posting in the wrong forums now, what is the chance that they will do it when there is a beginners forum. I'm also all for deviding up the forums a little more. I thought the addition of General Chit Chat and My Store was wonderful . In fact this thread should be in General ChitChat not General Chat. Steve ------------------------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 the worst case scenario is: beginners will post only in the advanced section only to get faster and reliable answers :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mugitty Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 1) Eliminate: General Chat (well, archive it because it's so loaded with info) 2) Add: F.A.Q. Channel Most frequently asked questions about osC - Look here first! Make it the first forum and seed it with the top 20 or 30 most often asked questions 3) Add: Coding Discussions on coding for osCommerce :idea: ... if you want to REALLY see something that doesn't set up right out of the box without some tweaking, try being a Foster Parent! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paganini Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 Well I am definately a beginner, an osCommerce virgin some might say!! :lol: I am for whatever works, and am just grateful that this forum exists at all. Let's face it, everyone in here has basically built my cart for me!! Cheers Todd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moyashi Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 hehe, we all want fast answers :wink: I'm in agreement with a faq area too. Or at least a sticky that points to one of those sites that offer so much information. NewsDesk(934) / FAQDesk(1106) / OrderCheck(1168) ::: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrukh Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 2) Add:F.A.Q. Channel Most frequently asked questions about osC - Look here first! Make it the first forum and seed it with the top 20 or 30 most often asked questions 3) Add: Coding Discussions on coding for osCommerce :idea: I definitely agree with both of the above suggestions. FAQ would be really helpful to the newbies but in every other forum i have been too, newbies will try to get there hands on an expert before even trying to refer to the FAQ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattice Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 The beginner / pro idea will not work. What will happen is all the beginners will post in "beginner" but not enough pro's will visit that channel. So the newbies all start posting in "pro" anyway... seen it before, just doesn't work. About the FAQ: That's being looked at right now ;) "Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon_l Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 As regards an faq forum....I saw a good idea on (I think) the phpBB forums. When a question was asked, and solved, one of the forum moderators takes the question and answer and posts them to a read only forum. I reckon that something like this would remove a large amount of traffic from the other forums - due to the amount of times the same question gets asked. Jon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 One of these days (in my own lifetime :) ), when I have fully absorbed the volumnous code that osCommerce has .... I will want to write a pdf having a walkthrough to the most common jobs in here ... ummm, would rather build up on the wonderful guide oscdox.com has. Well, that's a dream project I would love to do only when osCommerce has firmed up on its versions, and daily code hacks do not upgrade it at the source level. Just my2c. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 I say the default search feature on the forum itself is very poor. The following should help. First, the parameters radio buttons to the search field are wrongly formatted. Second, it doesn't have the advanced search option (to include additional fields) or any way to search within search results. Third, every forum visitor should have some way to *save searches* as a personal bank of knowledge. With the excellent core-team members with Mattice as the talented SuperCop guarding the forums, this should be a no-brainer for them. And would save a lot of annoyances that appear in here very often. (Mattice, pls. don't mind my remark ... its not personal .. I secretly aim to learn the acerbic language you use with defaulters) How does it all sound? Jan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moyashi Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 ahhh, but the forums here at osC use phpBB :D You should post your great ideas over there too! haha, how about somebody donating vB or gossamer-forum ? NewsDesk(934) / FAQDesk(1106) / OrderCheck(1168) ::: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toolcrazy Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 Harold has already said that if someone is willing to take over the FAQ's, he would turn it over to him or her. I also happen to agree with something else one of the team members posted. They have a lot on their plate, and just don't have the time to work on a FAQ section. I would rather they focus on OSC and leave the questions to the membership. I think an easier customizable OSC is more important and lot of the questions would go away when they finally move all the editing and customizing to Admin. I also agree that the search function needs a lot of help, and that?s an under statement. I?ve realized that breaking up or rearranging of the forums is not the answer. Getting OSC easier to customize is the answer. But that is a long way off, and we should leave the team members to continue to work on the best e-commerce system in the world. I do have a suggestion for the team. Put a link to the FAQ?s next to the search button. They are a little hard to find, if you are not familiar with the structure of this site. Steve ------------------------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattice Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 With the excellent core-team members with Mattice as the talented SuperCop guarding the forums, this should be a no-brainer for them. (Mattice, pls. don't mind my remark ... its not personal .. I secretly aim to learn the acerbic language you use with defaulters) Talented supercop? Acerbic language? That really hurts, especially coming from a 13 post newbie that's telling people they're idiots if they use 2.2-CVS... But by all means... download phpBB, hack the search and send us your creation. We all appreciate it. Mattice "Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon_l Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 If there are tasks that need doing, which are open to volunteers, they should be clearly posted somewhere on the website. Or even better, add a forum where tasks can be listed and ask for volunteers. There are plenty of people that want to help with the project if they are given the chance. I'd be happy to help with things such as an faq section, as I am sure others would. I've long been of the opinion that the developers have better things to do with their time than remove unacceptable posts and continually have to answer the same questions. Why not appoint a few people as forum moderators, so the developers don't have to worry about it? Jon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burt Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 I've long been of the opinion that the developers have better things to do with their time than remove unacceptable posts and continually have to answer the same questions. 100% agree. I'd prefer to see the people at the sharp end of developing Osc doing just that, and not having to worry about editing posts and being all round nice guys etc etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paganini Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 You know what would be a really great idea, is for all of the users in here to contribute all of the challenges they faced and their solutions and then have them all compiled into say a .pdf format and make an osCommerce Concise Users guide!! :idea: Either way, whatever is decided I am just grateful that this forum exists otherwise the only place I would see a shopping cart is at my local shopping centre. :D Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 7, 2003 Share Posted March 7, 2003 I think one of the best things would be if people leared how to use the search button first. I see so many posts asking questions that have been asked and answered a million times before (Ok I exaggerate with the million times). Like how do I change the shop name. How do I change the shop colors? etc. I think new users should spend a few hours just looking at the older posts and searching. It would save a lot of frustration. I tend to get bust in cycles and when I return after an absence the first thing I do is search on topics that interest me an also just browse all the forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 7, 2003 Share Posted March 7, 2003 I think one of the best things would be if people leared how to use the search button first. I see so many posts asking questions that have been asked and answered a million times before (Ok I exaggerate with the million times). 100% agreed :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moyashi Posted March 7, 2003 Share Posted March 7, 2003 100% with burt. It would be nice to open up osC to allow more folks taking care of the mundane non-code based help (ie, faqs, moderation, docs) :arrow: search button I've seen this problem also at other places, and have seen some folks turn synical because they've posted around 10,000+ to a site and have to do searching for others. However being a newbie isn't that easy either. I'm relatively new to osC and have spent hours looking for things too. (ie, what's the default login as a customer ??? .... answer: still evades me). I truly believe cutting off newbie where's blah blah, how do you blah blah questions should be done at the informational level on the main site or in the forums with locked threads. Searching itself can at times provide hundreds of threads (depending on the site of course) with many being irrelavent. So, when some one has "actually" do searches (trying different combination of words) they end up going to the forums. Think about it, if you're a newbie and don't know that you should be looking for "SID" instead of "google relevance" how are they going to find what they need? So, I do feel for the newbies as well, since they have to learn the phrases that they need to know to find what they want. Heck, I, myself, ended up writting a mod because I didn't realize that there was already something available that I could've used. (hehe, I did/do enjoy the study value of the whole adventure though) BUT, if the contribution area would've been called "mods" (like many other places) and if there was a search function, I wouldn't have posted some of the typical newbie questioiins myself. ok, I'm not ranting here but more of thinking out loud. :wink: So, I'm in agreement with that the dev team is doing a great job and also in agreement with trying to find some way to help out with taking some of the public relations work load off of the dev team's busy desk and moving it onto some one else's. cheers! I really do love osc :D NewsDesk(934) / FAQDesk(1106) / OrderCheck(1168) ::: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rthrash Posted March 7, 2003 Share Posted March 7, 2003 I agree the searching could be improved. It isn't exactly intuititive, either. For instance when searching on "move server" and "*move server*" I get 6165 and 8082 results, respectively (and either one is a daunting number!), and none of which on the first page of results has anything to do with actually moving a store between servers. Ryan Thrash Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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