Forum subjects overly granular?

[Emilio Kazwell]

So, I recently posted something a few days ago in the general java forum and the topic was moved into the threads and I/O forum. The topic was file locking and I totally understand that this is I/O and probably belongs there.

I understand that making your forums distinct is important so that maven folks can talk about maven without having to wade through a bunch of talk about JSF, and people with questions about IDEs should not be looking at forums full of beginner questions like "how come string is not a primitive?" but it's kinda tough to get responses in a forum that has an order of magnitude less traffic than the place I originally posted it in. I also think that simple I/O questions can be considered general java.

That's my gripe for today. Nobody goes to I/O forums so I can't get topix looked at =(

[Henry Wong]

Emilio Kazwell wrote:
That's my gripe for today. Nobody goes to I/O forums so I can't get topix looked at =(

The topic is question is viewable from both the Java In General *and* the I/O forums. It was moved in a fashion that keeps a link from the original forum. So, in a sense, you are getting views from two forums.

Henry

[Emilio Kazwell]

Thanks for pointing that out Henry but I don't *exactly* agree with your conclusion.

While I didn't notice that's the case the reason I didn't notice that it stayed on the old page is that "bumping" your thread up if it doesn't get any responses after 3-4 days(so that people still actually see it) only bumps it on the thread it was moved to it seems, not the thread it was on. There's so much going on in general java forum that a post three days deep isn't going to be seen much anyway I think.

[paul wheaton]

You make some good points, but

Nobody goes to I/O forums so I can't get topix looked at

This statement is false and you know it. All it takes to prove it's falsehood is to find one person that has looked at it and your complaint about "nobody" goes right out the window.

So here is my complaint: I wish that when people come to my low traffic forum to talk about such things as logic and the like, that they use the language of the engineer and not the language of the politician. You cannot build things on a foundation of false statements.

Thanks for pointing that out Henry but I don't *exactly* agree with your conclusion.

That makes sense. The advocate of the false statement should be mis-aligned from the party that is speaking the accurate truth.

You appear to understand why things are the way they are.

I think it is possible that due to what henry points out that your thread actually gets more eyes. Of course, we don't currently have any statistical proof to come to any conclusions at this point. But, it would seem that your history on this site racks up to 18 posts. Henry has 8714. I would put my money on Henry.

On top of that, it is my experience that using the english language like an engineer rather than a politician tends to get ten times more useful responses on this site. And for the folks that can do that - it doesn't matter what forum they post in.

[Emilio Kazwell]

"Nobody goes to I/O forums so I can't get topix looked at"

This statement is false and you know it. All it takes to prove it's falsehood is to find one person that has looked at it and your complaint about "nobody" goes right out the window.

So here is my complaint: I wish that when people come to my low traffic forum to talk about such things as logic and the like, that they use the language of the engineer and not the language of the politician. You cannot build things on a foundation of false statements.

When taken literally the referenced statement is clearly false. Its also misspelled for comic effect. I never intended anyone to take it literally. Two sentences before the referenced statement I said "it's kinda tough to get responses in a forum that has an order of magnitude less traffic than the place I originally posted it in." I hoped after writing this statement that the reader would understand if I indulged in a figure of speech in the following line as I had already written a literally accurate description of the ratio between original and new forums' respective traffic according to the "posts" field of the forums home page - one which is incompatible with the literal meaning of the referenced statement, which as I say was intended to be taken figuratively. I apologize for the mis-communication in my use of hyperbole as it seems to be distracting from what I actually wanted to talk about.

I think it is possible that due to what henry points out that your thread actually gets more eyes. Of course, we don't currently have any statistical proof to come to any conclusions at this point. But, it would seem that your history on this site racks up to 18 posts. Henry has 8714. I would put my money on Henry.

I obviously have to say that this is possible, because as you've said we don't have any statistics. More than that I'm also not totally confident that I'm right, I just think I am. What I'm trying to do is simply talk it through so I can learn (as I have from Henry's comments), and hopefully offer constructive suggestions or at least get people thinking as that's what it looks like this forum is intended for according to its description.

Its very possible that Henry will still agree with his original assessment (that I am getting more views now than I would have had my topic not been moved) after reading my response but I cannot say that for certain because I don't know if he's read it yet. Just as I was not aware of the point of his first post, I would guess (though I could obviously be wrong) that he wasn't aware of the point in my reply. Either way I don't think that the number of posts associated with people from differing perspectives is a very useful metric for determining what a thread's viewership will be like.

On top of that, it is my experience that using the english language like an engineer rather than a politician tends to get ten times more useful responses on this site. And for the folks that can do that - it doesn't matter what forum they post in.

I'm aware that people probably come to this forum often to complain about this or that and rarely stop in just to say "thanks for this resource" so let me take a moment to say this forum (and therefore the community, really) has been a really useful tool for me as a developer and I appreciate the time that everyone, especially the volunteer moderators put in. I'm not sure how my post got so far from its intended tone that it was perceived in such a way that I'm accused of talking like a politician, but I meant it in the spirit of constructive discussion.

I have another suggestion. I've seen in other forums the functionality to track and monitor "views" in addition to replies of a thread. This might both be a useful way for people to learn what types of subject lines get views (easy self education) and a mechanism by which we could gather actual statistics so that we can be better informed disagree-ers. Just a suggestion.

[paul wheaton]

You're a good egg, Emilio.

The software came with "views" and I asked for it to be removed due to a clutter factor. The last time I heard, I think the information is still tracked in the database and we once discussed a way of showing it as hover information.

While it would be good get the actual numbers and know for sure, even if the numbers prove your point, there is still a healthy need for that forum.

Let's face it: some forums have too much traffic and the content needs to be spread out a bit. Otherwise, too many threads get too few eyeballs.

Consider the opposite problem: if a forum has too much traffic, the threads that are six hours old get ten times fewer eyeballs than the threads that are an hour old. And there is such a hodge-podge of topics that a lot of eyeballs don't even bother to look through the list anymore.

Maybe the trick isn't to move the I/O stuff back into a general forum, but to combine the I/O stuff with something else.

[Emilio Kazwell]

I definitely understand the concern here and I can see how complicated a task it is to try to tune these forums to balance viewership. I was even thinking that it might be OK to simply ask the moderators to be a little less vigilant in cases where the subjects aren't so disparate and you're moving someone out of a general forum (beginner and general java). Meaning that the situation under discussion is not as quite askew as if someone is posting about JavaFX in the JDBC forum.

Then again maybe that's a lot of extra stuff to consider for moderate benefit.