"Coders discussion" forum is now a private forum.
 

This post is to inform all users that starting today the Coder's discussion forum will be restricted to users that have attained the Coder user title. Under the old way of doing things anyone could join the coder's usergroup and post in forum. We felt this was leading to many 'how do I' questions that were better suited to other forums.

- How do I become a coder?

The user titles are based on the number of modifications you release and the number of installs they receive. If you contribute to the community by posting modifications you'll receive the title in time.

- I already have a coder title but can not see the forum!

Go to one of your modification threads, and click the install or uninstall link. After you do this you should be able to see the forum again (it's located under the 'Big Boards' forum).

How long for the Senior Member forum?

I am close to swearing right now and getting myself in trouble.

Suffice to saw I'm not happy about this. :(

Thank you, Brad. I'm thrilled to have a place to get away from it all for a little while and hang out with people who share my passion for playing with this software.

Thank you very much. As for the ones that have questions and such, there is already sufficient forums available for many topics including coding.

< martyrs his template hack to get in >

mwahaha!

This is great news! I should be hanging out in that forum much more now. :)

Will "non-coders" be able to view the section?

good news :)

That's the way it used to be. I think this annoucement means you won't be able to view it.

I thought that was how it was.

Personally I don't think it's a great idea. Totally understand preventing us plebes from being able to post until "we've proved our worth" but I'd have thought for people like me (dabbling here and there with our own customisations) it would have been good to be able to see what the elite are doing to help us pick up some pointers and the like.

Darat, the problem is that people don't restrict questions and comments to posts. They go to the PM system. This means that code I am discussing with another coder, that isn't designed or released for novice users, was still accessible by novices which was sort of pointless.

I am sure many of you have private forums on your boards for whatever reason. And, I'm sure you know that other people feel a bit left out because they can't get in. That's just the way these things go sometimes.

It is a GOOD idea to keep the coders happy here and give them a place to socialize. If they have a place to hang out here, then they are more likely to come here daily and answer questions and such in the other forums.

As I say I don't think it is a good idea since it unnecessarily reduces the information available for the "non-coders" to learn from so we'll have to agree to disagree.

well i would have to agree also.
Its one thing reducing the section to just coders but not giving viewing access is not a good idea. Lot of "novice" users can benefit from looking at the discussion and learn. I thouught that was also one of the main motives of the .org community. As it is a lot of people develop codes themselves for their own sites and on custom basis (i might as well say that i also fall into that) but don't go on to release them. Thats not just selfish or not wanting to contribute, thats mostly cos of time not being there to support them for everyone who installs or maybe some other logical reason. You can punish a bit by not allowing posting but not even allowing viewing is a bit too hard and pointless..
my 2 cents...

i guess i need to put out some crappy modifications to get a coder status to read and learn. what about the sections that dont add to the coder status? its pointless for them to release styles or template mods since they dont affect that status. i think this takes away from the forum and def. makes it a more elitest atmosphere.

Dumb question. Were y'all happy with vb.org before the private coders' forum was created? Nothing has changed for you.

The coders got a well deserved perk. We spend a lot of time helping others here and sharing our work. I don't think a private forum to hang out in is an inappropriate or excessive reward for our efforts.

amy no i havent been happy with .org in along time actually. i thought this was going to be getting it back on the right foot in my book but now that this happened it droped it even lower.

edit
and i've helped out many people in the past on their problems but because i dont release hacks i cant benifit. it makes me wonder about this place...

if i'm not wrong, anyone who wants to check out the private coders' forum can just go to their admincp, click a button and get access right?

not anymore sabre

oh well, sucks not to be a coder :p

joking of course, if that's truly the case you're not missing anything, one of the pricipal rules is NO general discussion. i think at the moment, it's just one of those things where people want to be able to discuss things in depth without having to worry about anyone bugging them for the code or what not.

ps: if anyone is that desperate to see the coder's forum, i'll be happy to find some sort of mini mod on my hard drive and allow them to release it.

As for "not being able to learn" now that it's private, how do you think we learnt?

Nowadays you all expect tutorials and people to jump at your every question but back in the day it was try, fail, try again, and if you really got stuck hope someone would help you :)

You learnt the hard way, you learnt by yourself without the help of piggybacking off others, and you learnt by doing...

Chris

There are the highs and lows for both sides of the discussion. This community has ample of forums for questions and comments so it's all good.

I think it's a great decision and Admin will see that for themselves by looking at the new level of activity :)

The coders will still be around to help us - have they ever not done that? I think the coders in this community are rather special, they're not just going to stop helping us lot because they now have a private forum which, in all honesty they had elsewhere anyway, least now its here at vborg, so means they'll be hanging round more too on the rest of the board.

All we need now is to make the big boards section private :p

:bunny:

How come i cant see it anymore? (im a coder i think)

As Brad posted, click an install or uninstall link on one of your mods.

What about allowing people to view it, but allowing users not in the Coders usergroup to make threads or posts?

That way we can't bother you guys, but we can still pick up on some of the ideas you guys are bouncing off each other.

Awsome, thanks!! :D

Besides, it's not like we all psot tutorials in there that we don't want to share with those that need them.
We just throw out ideas and discussions and expect to get a tech response, not "release this plix" and "omg soo cool". There's really nothing that can be learnt there - if we want help we post in the PHP forum, if we want to help we post in the Tutorials section.

I stand behind everything amykhar has said, It's nice to beable to have a forum to talk to just other programmers. There are plently of forums that will help you learn. I learned alot since I've been here, and half the forums that are here now, where never there back then. vB.org has been open for 5 years now, about time we have our little corner! :)

And when I was a lad we didn't even have shoes we had to wrap the skins of potatoes on our feet.... ;)

The fact that you may not have had a certain facility or resource available when you were learning should not be a reason to deny others access to a resource.

My point is that one of the best ways of learning is to watch others "do" and to learn how experienced people actually tackle a problem and it's a shame that some of that is now not being made available to the "non-coders".

I did as you said and still cannot see it

you must have clicked on another hack, because i clicked on one of your hacks and you have been updated immediatelly, so system works

Thank you very much, Brad.

I did !Still doesn't show

Good idea, work it ;)

Darat, let me be blunt, if the non-coders could still view it, it wouldn't be a resource either because we wouldn't use it. There would be no point.

The userpage mod is a prime example of why I need a coders forum. I released it in beta to get an idea on what I wanted to do with it based on the input from real coders. The damn thing took off and became popular. And, even though it was in beta, it mistakenly made it to the poll for hot mod. Then, it won.

The sheer number of feature requests and user errrors - you wouldn't believe how many people don't upload files or run install scripts and then scream that a mod doesn't work - killed my interest in that mod entirely.

Since people won't read install instructions and won't stay away from mods that are beyond their abilities, we need a place to play with code bits and work out issues.

The feedback we get from non-coders is useless in many cases. People click the install button two seconds after a mod is posted and tell us how wonderful it is. Excuse me, but did you even install it and run it first? I've had mods that had an installation script error get dozens of thank yous before anybody came along and said the install script doesn't work. Then, we get people who don't read what a mod is for and start asking totally off the wall questions. And, we get the people I mentioned above, who don't follow any directions - basic stuff like upload the files.

They have a point. Perhaps a middle ground would be that we (as the coder group) agree to share the responsibility of producing how-tos and tutorials from anything interesting that comes out of our conversations. I think the tutorial section is far more useful to the novice than a rambling technical conversation anyway.

My idea is that someone close this thread. :D

we are waiting for your tutuorials...

I haven't been active here very long. Give me time ;)