Separating newbie and experienced user forums

sergey · **Posted:** Tue Sep 13, 2005 3:48 pm

I propose splitting the General Support forum in two - a forum for new users with basic questions, and a forum for experienced users for more complex questions. What do you think?

s.rottem · **Posted:** Tue Sep 13, 2005 6:08 pm

Hi sergey,

Not a terrible idea, but how does one work out which forum they belong in? I've been fiddling around with NHibernate for a couple of months now, but I have no idea of what my comparitive skill level is...

Also it's nice to have some experts floating around when you have a newbie question to ask!

Cheers,

Symon.

sergey · **Posted:** Wed Sep 14, 2005 5:25 am

Well, I see two possible criteria:

Who I think will be able to answer this? If a user such as you can answer it, or if the answer might well be in the docs, then it's a newbie question. If it takes a more experienced user, or even a developer to answer then it's an expert question.
Am I just starting to understand and use NHibernate? Or have I been using it successfully for some time now, but hit a bug, or something I didn't expect, can't understand and explain?

There will always be questions somewhere in between, but not many, I think.

My personal reason why I want this is so that I could focus on more complicated questions, while the easy ones could be answered by other users, who might even learn something new in the process :)

KPixel · **Posted:** Wed Sep 14, 2005 12:16 pm

That's a nice idea ... in theory.

sergey wrote:

My personal reason why I want this is so that I could focus on more complicated questions, while the easy ones could be answered by other users, who might even learn something new in the process :)

The problem is that:
- Most advanced users will no longer read newbies questions ;)
- Newbies will not like the fact that their questions are only answered by others newbies/intermediates (and the answers will be less precises)

Anyway, we can try and see how it works...

tinomen · **Joined:** Tue May 24, 2005 12:55 pm **Posts:** 56

I agree with KPixel.

Perhaps breaking the general forum up into sections like config, session mgmt, CRUD, ... . Breaking the forum into strong topics seems like the only thing that would actually work.

I'm not sure that would work either. Someone is bound to post in CRUD what should be in config. Plus it could be confusing for newbies that don't use the search functionality.

What actually would be nice is if a 100 trained monkeys could compile/update a FAQ daily based on the forum topics. And respond to questions that are answered in the FAQ. That would be awsome. :D

KPixel · **Posted:** Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:33 am

tinomen wrote:

What actually would be nice is if a 100 trained monkeys could compile/update a FAQ daily based on the forum topics. And respond to questions that are answered in the FAQ. That would be awsome. :D

Well, I am working on the documentation... :wink:
It will progressivly contain an answer for each common question.