@toniperic - I just pick up this point too:

Or the most simple of them all - let us ignore users!

imho I dont think thats the right way.

This is a learning site, People need to feel welcome and included to learn. If the (genuine) newbie comes here, chances are high they came to learn, and part of learning is asking the idiot question now and then, and not being afraid to ask it is so important. Inclusive is a good word.

and another $0.02 while I'm on - thats why I dont really agree with with Jeffrey's dismissal of needing moderators. A few trusted helpers to do stuff like switch posts to the right forum, helpfully pointing people to areas where they might find their ready made answer, etc etc. Forums always generate a lot of mess (lol) and sorting it out is a lot of work that arguably really does need doing.

anyway, enough already

regards

l.

Laracasts is not elitist - not even remotely. It's simply bigger than ever, and maybe we're starting to see that the forum could use some better organization, since we're receiving dozens and dozens of new conversation threads every day. I'll work on that.

@JeffreyWay

Laracasts is not elitist

then I sincerley apologise for quoting a conversation that suggested it was

regards

l.

A few people saying something on a social network does not indicate the opinions of a massive community. I've worked very hard to be accommodating and friendly to people of all skill levels.

If there are examples of users being rude to newcomers here, please send through links and I'll take a look. But I haven't really seen any.

Laracasts may not be elitist but perhaps some of it's members are, that is forums for you, all have the same issues.

I think this kind of site is actually better suited to the more traditional forum layout, one where the newbie questions that get repeated over and over are placed in their own section where people can answer if they are good enough to but can avoid if preferred.

I also don't think it's fair to call out people like @bashy in the way they have. I mean the guy is number one on the leader board because he has chosen to be that helpful, not because he had to. To then call him out as an expert that should answer a particular way or word his replies better is just wrong in my view. You are trying to tag him as someone you want him to be rather than the person he is.

The search is an issue, I have asked questions that have been asked and answered before however the search did not give me the results that could have identified that, thanks @toniperic for the site:laracasts.com foo bar example, that actually worked for every search I just tried and in a more effective way. I am sure @JeffreyWay will improve that over time.

The bottom line though is that as a learning site it will attract more people with questions than those that can answer them and many will be in the newbie category that I myself fit into rather nicely at this moment in time.

I also don't think it's fair to call out people like @bashy in the way they have.

Agree 100%.

I am sure @JeffreyWay will improve that over time.

I'll add ElasticSearch sooner than later. I agree it's badly needed.

Biggest help I can use at the moment is figuring out the category structure. I don't want to give people a massive dropdown list of categories to choose from.

Search is a great start, maybe that will help a bit with the duplicate threads (if the search is what is stopping them from seeing the other threads).

For the categories, keep it general but allow for the different types/areas.

This is my rough idea;

• Laravel 4 (4 needs to be split from 5+, don't get many questions for 3)
• Laravel 5 (same above)
• Lumen (get quite a few questions that get lost, I'd like to learn more as well)
• Forge / Servers (not sure if this one needs to be Forge only for some reason)
• Learning / Discussion (some sort of category for learning new things or asking a questions and wanting a discussion)
• Off-topic (personally, it shouldn't be included but people will post it anyway)
• Other Help / Advice (a category for other help not related to other categories, maybe not this exact name but you get the idea)

Scrap "General", it's always going to be a mess. It should be in "Off-topic".

@bashy got some good categories together! I would scrap the Forge category, now that you have Envoyer as well. Just name it server so people can go there with their setup, homestead and server questions

@blackbird Yeah I wasn't sure if "Forge" was added on request by Taylor or something... I'd say that too "Servers" or "Server Management".

If you add Forge then you need to add Envoyer and Homestead as well. Most people who know something about servers will probably know answers on those services as well ;)

Maybe it would be helpful to look at the current threads and see in which categories the questions being asked actually would belong. That way you discover what is actually being asked a lot and split categories so that each category has a decent amount. Otherwise you might create categories of which one becomes very big/full, while another has hardly any questions. And then you have the same problem as there is now (with 'general' getting all questions).

@bashy I think the categories you propose could be a bit more specific. There's still quite some overlap between the ones you give. A 'general' question could be posted in Laravel 5/Learning/Off-topic and Other help, so that's four.

Maybe Learning/discussion could be named architecture or advanced. And Learning/off-topic/other could remain general

@Mattiman It will always be the same, threads go into multiple categories. If it doesn't, it's probably not the right forum to post it.

UI Ideas:

Option 1: A list group (or something similar) on the left side with categories and subcategories and description (if there's some free space), the forum threads on the right side. The newest lesson and leaderboard have to be moved under them.

Option 2: vBulletin like forum board

As for categories and [subcategories]

• PHP [General PHP, Laravel 4*, Laravel 5*, Lumen*, Other Frameworks]
• Servers [General, Forge, Envoyer]
• Testing
• Front End
• Packages [Package Development, Looking For Package, How To Use Package]
• Web Development Discussions
• Advice* / Best Practices
• Laracasts [News / Updates, Video / Series Requests, Site Improvements, Rules & Guidelines]

The * means it was mentioned above!

Did I go too far or you want more ideas? :)

@Ruffles They look good, I didn't do sub categories because I'm not sure Jeffrey wanted to change it that much (from his reply about mass dropdown of items to choose). If he's willing, that's great!

The post new thread dialog can be a 2 step wizard, the first page will have "Choose the category this thread belongs" (maybe a selectable list group with custom text explaining which discussions go there) and the second page shows the title, text area and the "Are you human?" question.

@Ruffles yeah, categories and subcategories system seem to be great for this stuff. It's a common thing for forum software, and I believe Laracasts forum could use the same approach.

i wouldn't break it down into L4 and L5

It's not about them being way too different but when someone asks a question, they have to specify the version so people know how to answer.

Labels might help within that (or any other) subcategory.

I truly enjoy being part of the community we have here, but I honestly think, that the forum could use some form of moderation. Lately there have been many threads which can be solved by using the power of google for 2 minutes, watching a lesson that's already available or are basically just request in form of "I have this problem and have no idea how to solve it, and I don't really care how you do it, but I need the working code ASAP... kthxbai"

I know, that I can ignore those threads, but the amount of them often hides those, where somebody really needs another point of view or help after multihour/day struggle.

How is Jeffery going to keep managing a growing forum like this by himself?

Why is there a reluctance to allow members to offer help to moderate (meaning: keep forum organized, oiled and running smoothly)? Is it because this site is essentially a business venture and having a moderator "piss off" a customer as being bad for revenue? Moderation (as in community guides) will only help with good will while trying to manage a growing community like this as a single person might be too big of a task.

I personally see paying as a means to getting quality videos with relevant topics. The extra benefit was having Jeffery around every so often to participate in threads to post answers. I remember the old "archieved forums" when Taylor used to post, then one by one all the big names left ... I really miss those days.

Growing pains ...

Congratulations to @JefferyWay for creating an awesome resource and community! Just hang in there!

I've been willing to help since day 1 of the new forums. If moderators aren't "needed" yet, that's their decision.

Probably still a thread on here with some person asking for sex via money... :P

one possible thought is to add a separate section that is similar to stackoverflow for questions and answers that can be answered definitively. perhaps questions from the forums can be promoted or moved over to that system as needed and provide a nice reference source without duplicating questions.

@londoh regarding the "elitist" statement...

Firstly in defence of @bashy you picked a pretty poor example. Perhaps you'd be better looking at some of my posts because I'm an older guy with some cynical views - from experience.

I've seen forums deteriorate when they get overrun by what you describe as "newbies", but who are often just developers (I use the term loosely) with little to no experience of the platform they are working on, who take on work that they are not qualified to do, relying on the kind and good natured contributions of communities such as Laracasts to do the work for them.

With rose coloured spectacles sometimes the comments you see can seem harsh, but often it's for the greater good of the community.

Even if that's not the case, sometimes you just can't help someone who can't help themselves. Most problems are easily solved with a simple "Google" search.

I tire easily of all this "political correctness". Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade and tell it like it is. That's how you learn in life.

I don't think the forum is elitist, I think that on the contrary there are some begginers that think that because some people here are really devoted to helping (I mean, sometimes I feel like Laracasts community is way better than some "premium support" that I've experienced) they can ask whatever they want and use the helpful users like paid tutors or mentors.

I'm fairly new but I've seen people ask things as they were popping on their head without giving a minimum effort to solve them. I mean like "Hey I need help with routes" "I need help with nested routes" "I need help with blade", as a matter of fact the newbie user that @kevinjohn pointed that received a "rough" answer from @bashy is one of the persons I'm referring to. One day she/he opened a lot of sequential threads that to my judgement were subtextually saying "I don't want to invest time investigating and I don't really care about this guy's time so I'm going to ask everything I need to know without even trying it by myself because I'm sure someone will take the time I don't want to take".

So I think that if we value more the lazy newbies that can be tiresome and inconsiderate than users like bashy that have devoted LOTS of time helping newbies and maybe even already answered the lazy question before, there's something to rethink in my opinion.

I'm sure I've asked a couple of stupid questions and I'm really thankful to the people that helped me, but if you ask 4 or 5 daily questions of the same nature it's a different kind of situation.

@JeffreyWay Just started implementing Algolia - Search As A Service for a website of mine, pretty cool and no complicated server admin stuff!

Well if anything this thread makes me pretty self conscious and uncomfortable about my posts and my lack of ability :) which could then mean my questions will appear like a previous poster suggested in that it appears like I just want you to do it all for me. If that was true I would probably care less.

I will stick to StackOverflow, I always get the answers there, I just wanted to be a part of this community, but I really don't think it's the right place for my level of ability.

@LeeW You are always welcome in the Laravel community ;)

We help all people here even if they have no skills. But sometimes we point them to the right direction instead of showing the correct answer. If you can't think for yourself you shouldn't be programming ;) Some questions crave for more information and we often give that the users!

@LeeW I wouldn't judge the forum as a whole from a few replies. All I know is that I enjoy helping people who genuinely want advice. Don't confuse response questions with them being patronising. Personally, I think there's more of that over at SO.

The people above are on about those who just put "Hi, I want to build a website, how can I?".

Perhaps my comment came across a bit huffy there, not intended. I guess all I mean is that for me personally I don't like coming across as not having researched or tried to find a solution for what might appear the simplest issue. I always do.

But then as @bashy just mentioned and I looked at the recent posts and seen exactly the type of post you are referring to, it was a "I need x, just give me the answer".

Perhaps an idea like StackOverflow is that if you post a question it must have sufficient detail about the issue along with code examples of what you have done so far, if not then it gets deleted. Encouraging people to post the rigth amount of detail may in time lead to less duplication as the explanations of the issue are more thorough.

@LeeW Indeed, there will always be those types but I'm not sure it's something we can stop here unless it's strict like SO. I always try to encourage them to give more info in their new threads (if they ever post one).