The Corona forums are littered more and more!

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Hi folks,

I work with Corona since a year now, released one app and I’m quite happy with it.

The workflow is great and you can develop and prototype pretty quick and easy.
 

So what’s the problem?

The one thing I don’t like is the state of the Corona forums right now. They are filled up with hundreds of questions, that…

A:…where asked 100 times before. But most people are too lazy to use the forums search function. (e.g. “Will there be a compiler for PC?” or “When does graphic 2.0 come?” or “How do I make a dragable object?”)

B:…are completly unnecessary and could be solved by looking inside the Corona doc or a quick google search. (e.g. How to use a mask? How to use touch event phases? How to use a spritesheet?")

C:…are at the wrong place. People post there problems everywhere, no matter if they fit in the topic. (e.g. “Got error xy at line 120” -> Games section; “I’m copletly new to corona but how do I make a game like Candy Cruch?” -> general questions)

D:…are too short or too long. They include only one line that says nothing or they include the code of a whole project. (e.g. “I got no reaction when I tap the button, here’s my code.”)

I know this is the internet and everybodys nearly free to do, to ask and to post what he likes (as I do). But I think it’s important for this forum to be a bit more professional. This became even worse since you can publish with Corona for free and will get worse, due to the growth of the mobile market.

I think it’s time to change some things, before it’s too late and people are scared away from the forums.

What can be done?

1. Stricter rules what has to be posted where. A post which starts with the words “I’m totally new to Corona…” should be post in the Newbie section. A question for geral help with errors should be postet in the general section.

2. The moderators should point people more to the forum, corona doc or google search.

3. People have to show that they already tried to solve theire own problems before they ask for help. That also means explaning the problem and only posting the amount of code that is neaded.

I hope this post doens’t look like I want to hate anybody or want anybody to be banned from the forums. I just want to make this forums to a better place, with simple changes that are standard in other big and professional forums.

Let everybody hear your suggestions about this topic to find an optimal solution.

Greetings Torben

#2

Pre-Warning: Having spent the last few days trying to fix a stupid Parse.com error, I’m grumpier then normal.

So with that caveat out of the way I have to agree with Torben.

I understand that we all have to start somewhere and that’s what has always made Corona very special: the community has always helped and certainly got me going two years ago when I first came here and still to the present day.

That said I think the release of a completely free version has opened the floodgates and it does seem that the number of threads asking questions that are answered in the Docs is going through the roof.

This *could* risk what makes Corona so special, as the kind people that lend their time to asnwer questions could just be deterred by the sheer volume of the same questions being asked over and over again.

I agree with Torben’s possible solutions; places like StackOverflow have stringent rules that may seem a little harsh, but they’re crucial as the size of the community grows - if you want to keep the people that provide the answers.

Think we should have a good discussion on this, by no means am I just having a go at newcomers to Corona (we were all there once), I just think we need to direct people to the related sources of information better - it’s all there, and if you’re struggling “Goggle Is Your Best Friend”.

Well posted Torben, I’ve been meaning to bring this up for some time - but as you’ve said didn’t want to be the guy who seems to just be hating on newcomers.

#3

completely agree.

#4

Entirely :wink:

#5

+1

#6

Nice start would be to have some kind of extremely noticeable notice when making a new post with guidelines on how to post code. People need to use the code tag and minimize and isolate. Also do tricks to not use assets, use newRect instead of newImage in their codes if possible for example. 

#7

I’m glad you raised this topic  I completely agree with your sentiment.  And I don’t think it’s ‘hating’ on new users at all.  We all just want to make the forums a more productive place for everyone.

Perry made a great post along these lines a week or two ago here: http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/37802-telling-us-its-broken-or-how-to-report-problems/#entry196199.  It’s pinned to the top of the Newbie section, but it only has 76 views, so it doesn’t seem to be helping much.

I think one of the problems is that there are actually two different broad categories being discussed in the forums: (1) questions or issues about Corona itself (discussing possible bugs in an API or plugin, brainstorming how best to implement something using the Corona APIs, etc.), and (2) questions or issues about basic Lua programming.  These probably aren’t the only categories, and sometimes these two blend in a single post, but I think these are the most common.  I think the main focus of the forums should be (1).  There’s a section in the forums specifically for Lua, but it’s certainly not used only for that.  And of course, it’d be hard to expect a new programmer to know which forum to use.

Some ideas to help improve the situation would be:

  • Forcing all new users, before their first post, to read a set of forum rules and guidelines.  These should include lots of links to Corona resources (like Rob’s post here: http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/32657-welcome-to-our-forums-%E2%80%94-please-read/), suggestions how to ask a question in the forums like Perry’s paste above, and at least implying that there are consequences to not using the forums appropriately (just to get people to be a bit more careful with their posts, even if the ‘consequences’ aren’t stringently enforced)
  • There need to be guidelines about how to title a post.  Too often the titles are vague or completely inappropriate
  • Those of us willing to help should be more disciplined and consistent about how we address posts that are vague, missing key details.  (This is the stackoverflow point made above)
  • The recent blog post about basic debugging was critical (http://www.coronalabs.com/blog/2013/07/09/tutorial-basic-debugging/), and new users need to be pointed to it a lot more
  • The forum search functionality probably needs to improve so that people can more easily find existing threads that solve they’re problem.  Or it should just run through Google automatically
  • Threads older than, say, 6 months or 1 year should be read-only.  There’s rarely a need to resurrect a thread that old, and often I see it done inappropriately

Looking forward to continuing this chat.

  • Andrew
#8

Maybe a read only FAQ area in forum that provides links to answers to question that are asked over and over. And some links need to more visible like code exchange and docs and tutorial links in a side bar or top of every page

#9

I completely agree as well.

One point I’d like to add is that we need the ability to report posts so we as a community can help the moderators. There is no way for us to point out an apparent spam post or a post that needs to be moved somewhere etc. The report post button is there but it does not work. This issue was raised few months ago but no change so far.

#10

I totally share the sentiment expressed under this thread too.

Naomi

#11

I’m pleased to hear that I’m not the only one feeling that way. There were already some quite nice suggestions what could be done.

Now it would be great to hear the suggestions and opinions of some moderators, cause they might know better in which way the changes can be achieved. Also they have to take the lead if the changes should be “official” I think.

#12

The team has been discussing this thread and are discussing options.  You have made some very valid points and offered some suggestions that might work.   We have to consider a lot of factors including capacities of the forum software that we use to try and solve this. 

@ksan you can report posts.  We get reports from members every couple of days. 

#13

One thing that may help is that when we answer a question, always try to include a link to a part of the API docs that match up. Not every question will work out, but if someone’s asking about transition.to, or rotating text, etc., there are API pages that would be helpful.

If we can get people used to heading to the API docs when they have questions it may help. To that end I created a topic in the Newbies section on using the online docs: 

http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/38158-tips-on-using-the-api-docs-to-fix-your-code/

I don’t think the problem will ever go away, but maybe we can some up with some things that will slow it down a bit.

 Jay

#14

Jay, this was a great video and I’ve pinned it in the Newbie forum.  But as noted above, we will see how many hits it gets.    Thank you for doing that.

#15

Pre-Warning: Having spent the last few days trying to fix a stupid Parse.com error, I’m grumpier then normal.

So with that caveat out of the way I have to agree with Torben.

I understand that we all have to start somewhere and that’s what has always made Corona very special: the community has always helped and certainly got me going two years ago when I first came here and still to the present day.

That said I think the release of a completely free version has opened the floodgates and it does seem that the number of threads asking questions that are answered in the Docs is going through the roof.

This *could* risk what makes Corona so special, as the kind people that lend their time to asnwer questions could just be deterred by the sheer volume of the same questions being asked over and over again.

I agree with Torben’s possible solutions; places like StackOverflow have stringent rules that may seem a little harsh, but they’re crucial as the size of the community grows - if you want to keep the people that provide the answers.

Think we should have a good discussion on this, by no means am I just having a go at newcomers to Corona (we were all there once), I just think we need to direct people to the related sources of information better - it’s all there, and if you’re struggling “Goggle Is Your Best Friend”.

Well posted Torben, I’ve been meaning to bring this up for some time - but as you’ve said didn’t want to be the guy who seems to just be hating on newcomers.

#16

completely agree.

#17

Entirely :wink:

#18

+1

#19

Nice start would be to have some kind of extremely noticeable notice when making a new post with guidelines on how to post code. People need to use the code tag and minimize and isolate. Also do tricks to not use assets, use newRect instead of newImage in their codes if possible for example. 

#20

I’m glad you raised this topic  I completely agree with your sentiment.  And I don’t think it’s ‘hating’ on new users at all.  We all just want to make the forums a more productive place for everyone.

Perry made a great post along these lines a week or two ago here: http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/37802-telling-us-its-broken-or-how-to-report-problems/#entry196199.  It’s pinned to the top of the Newbie section, but it only has 76 views, so it doesn’t seem to be helping much.

I think one of the problems is that there are actually two different broad categories being discussed in the forums: (1) questions or issues about Corona itself (discussing possible bugs in an API or plugin, brainstorming how best to implement something using the Corona APIs, etc.), and (2) questions or issues about basic Lua programming.  These probably aren’t the only categories, and sometimes these two blend in a single post, but I think these are the most common.  I think the main focus of the forums should be (1).  There’s a section in the forums specifically for Lua, but it’s certainly not used only for that.  And of course, it’d be hard to expect a new programmer to know which forum to use.

Some ideas to help improve the situation would be:

  • Forcing all new users, before their first post, to read a set of forum rules and guidelines.  These should include lots of links to Corona resources (like Rob’s post here: http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/32657-welcome-to-our-forums-%E2%80%94-please-read/), suggestions how to ask a question in the forums like Perry’s paste above, and at least implying that there are consequences to not using the forums appropriately (just to get people to be a bit more careful with their posts, even if the ‘consequences’ aren’t stringently enforced)
  • There need to be guidelines about how to title a post.  Too often the titles are vague or completely inappropriate
  • Those of us willing to help should be more disciplined and consistent about how we address posts that are vague, missing key details.  (This is the stackoverflow point made above)
  • The recent blog post about basic debugging was critical (http://www.coronalabs.com/blog/2013/07/09/tutorial-basic-debugging/), and new users need to be pointed to it a lot more
  • The forum search functionality probably needs to improve so that people can more easily find existing threads that solve they’re problem.  Or it should just run through Google automatically
  • Threads older than, say, 6 months or 1 year should be read-only.  There’s rarely a need to resurrect a thread that old, and often I see it done inappropriately

Looking forward to continuing this chat.

  • Andrew