The Joomla! Forum ™

I found a stackoverflow like Question and Answer site for Joomla at http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposa ... la-answers

Unfortunately it needs more support or it won't get off the ground. I really like the StackOverflow system as it rewards people for correct questions and you can show your appreciation of someone's answer by giving them upvotes (or downvotes).

Anyway I was wondering if Joomla plans on implementing something like that for it's own forum or if anyone else is interested in that style of reward system for the forums?

I've brought this up here before, and am totally on board with it. Both the Wordpress and Drupal communities have very active, popular Stack Exchange sites, and they demonstrate the strength of those communities. I strongly believe we need the same representation for Joomla.

I would have thought that the majority of professional programmers here will already be familiar with Stack Overflow, but in case you're not, it offers the following benefits over a traditional forum:

* As 'moomoochoo' points out, the 'reputation' system encourages activity, and high-quality answers
* The wiki-like aspect ensures answers are improved over time, and don't become irrelevant
* Tagging of questions helps to organise everything
* The system is proactive in determining duplicate questions
* The sheer popularity of the system ensures a strong community can grow, and feedback is much more immediate. It's not uncommon for a question to attract really high-quality answers within minutes of being asked. In my experience, this is much, MUCH faster than traditional forums.

If you already know Stack Overflow, you'll know all this, and I'm sure you'll be in favour of a SE-based Joomla community. If so, please get behind the proposal today, and we can get it launched and running ASAP.

If not, I encourage you to check out Stack Overflow and see the benefits for yourself.

Glad to see that there are other people interested in this. It'd be awesome if it got up and running in the near future.

There's been some good progress (now up to 50 out of 60 required followers), but we still need activity. Please head on over to area51 in order to improve the level of support available to the Joomla community.

This is even more important now that the joomla forum is frequently unavailable.

Something that is often overlooked about the StackExchange network is that new questions usually get immediate responses. If you're after fast answers, then http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/34294/joomla-answers is what you want to support. One thing I like about it is that, if you happen to be on a different page of the site or you're browsing on another of the StackExchange websites, a notice will appear at the top of the page to let you know you've gotten a reply.

As jlleblanc pointed out on http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/34294/joomla-answers there are already a lot of resources for Joomla, but they are often redundant, duplicated, hard to find or just not documented well. I've spent hours searching the forums, reading posts by people with the same questions as me but never able to find the answers I've been looking for. That doesn't mean the answers aren't there, it just means they're hard to find. http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/34294/joomla-answers gives us the opportunity to put all our Joomla answers in one easy to find location. Irrelevant, duplicated or nonsense answers are discarded.

Another good thing is that when searching through a StackExchange site, the results are prioritised based on answer relevance and votes assigned. This makes finding answers quicker. Once you find a possible answer, links to questions that are closely related are displayed, just in case you didn't quite find what you were looking for.

I guess I just want to reiterate that the reward system is second to none. It makes sharing information into a game. Giving information becomes a competition meaning you get good answers fast. It also rewards GOOD questions. Poorly asked questions are not so common because they are not rewarded.

Even if you don't have any questions now, it is worth giving http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposa ... la-answers your support so that the answers you need later will be there.

I use another quite different Forum that has a "Reputation" system and the downside is, as far as I can see that a number of members are more interested in getting badges and stars than giving real help to others. There is a "Chillout" Forum that is just full of the same old "fogies" congratulating each other on another star gained. The other danger is the number of individual posts count towards some rewards which brings in dozens of quite useless remarks to each thread just to keep their numbers up. For me it spoils the whole idea of a Forum . A more reliable Forum would be very welcome, I get frustrated by the number of times a the forum is down but if it means we have to have a rep system I for one am not interested and will take no part in it!

I'm sorry to hear that mitchell.
I think it is strange to reward bad answers. On StackOverflow, you don't get answers just because you respond. In fact, if you give a bad answer or comment you are likely to lose points.

my questions over this "forum" would be (and ignoring the fact that phpbb has a thankyou/points system)
1. what would you do with the existing forum
2. as proven by your test case over at the stack site, what would happen with buddy posting. eg you know that bobbykjack knows the answer to a question. you ask it, then he answers. he effectively gets points for the right answer, then points for the chosen answer.
3. What would prevent it to becoming a yaboo answers drive by trolling exercise.
4. what happens with multi language
5. how much administration does it take
6. is the droopy example you quoted official or a fan q&a session
7. what happens when no one can be bothered to work it (or figure out how to) as can be shown by the interest on this topic and on your test account at SO.

<edit to correct speeling>

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You have some good questions there.

Buddy posting is not easy to do as there is no way to privately message someone using the system. You will see that any correspondence between bobbykjack and myself is quite public. To get around that people would need to make contact outside of the system.

If people do develop a buddy system, I think it wouldn't matter as long as the questions were useful, well asked and well answered. It would still be beneficial for the community. If the questions/answers/comments didn't meet the above criteria they would be closed, or the posters would lose points.

In regards to the existing forum. I don't know what would happen to it.

In regards to language, the site would be in English. A new proposal would need to be made for a different language. That site would then go through the same process http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/34294/joomla-answers is currently going through to be approved. IF there isn't enough support, it wouldn't go ahead.

Administration works similarly to posting answers. People who have earned sufficient points are able to participate in administration of the system. This doesn't happen overnight. It is a gradual process. Currently, I don't quite have the right to review questions/answers, but I can make suggestions which are then checked by someone who does have that ability. This means that everyone in the community becomes actively involved in administration. It isn't dependent on a few volunteers because everyone is involved.

The following link http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/34294/joomla-answers is the proposal, so think of it as a dummy site. As it is at the moment it is not useful at all. It is a dummy site that needs support in order for it to become approved (the site would then begin in earnest). If you want to know what the real system would be like, please check out one of the StackExchange sites. http://stackoverflow.com is the one I mostly use, but if you go to Stackoverflow.com then scroll to the bottom of the page you will see that there are almost 40 different QnA sites available.

I think the system is easy to use, it will tell you (via an ajax popup) if you try to do something you can't and it will tell you why (or how). Again, if you are interested in knowing more please try one of the sites.

I agree totally with Mandville. In my experience I have found that gradually a back slapping clique of members emerge all trying to sound more technical than each other. It gets to the point where instead of trying to help answer a query in a language that the OP would understand, it takes but a few moments on this Forum to check back to the OP's previous posts to gauge a level of expertise and then answer in terms suitable for that level!). What I mean is this core of members who seem to spend all their time on the Forum and just trying to outdo each other proving how clever they are. The help side becomes secondary so, in my view, destroying the whole ethos of these Forums.
One last point to prove how useless a rewards system is. I am called a Joomla Guru on this Forum. I am no more a Guru than the man in the moon If anyone cares to look at some of my posts they will see they are all at a fairly low level of expertise. Most of the help I have been able to give is to complete newbies. Irrespective of the number of posts I make i am, in my view, a beginner as far as Joomla is concerned!!!!!
So my point is proven beyond all reasonable doubt, I think!
QED

mitchell, when you say "a back slapping clique of members emerge all trying to sound more technical than each other", are you talking about this forum, stack overflow, or all forums in general? As 'moomoochoo' has explained, the Stack Overflow (SO) architecture actually makes abuses like this less likely to happen than a 'normal' forum. Since everything is constantly moderated by the wider community, poor quality answers, or answers that are 'fishing' for reputation, are likely to be voted down.

I agree that the 'reward' system on this forum is somewhat lacking. As far as I can tell, the 'title' that is given to a user is based purely on the number of posts they've submitted. That's all it *can* be based on (well, other than age of account) since there is no rating of post quality. SO, on the other hand, does at least attempt (and, IMHO, does a pretty good job) to 'reward' people according to how useful their posts are. Take a look at the highest rated users on the site, and the answers they've provided if you want some proof of this.

Have you used SO or any other Stack Exchange site before?

No definitely not referring to this Forum. I was referring to the one I used to use with the extensive reputation system of stars and badges galore! To me this Forum is what Forum should be like. The quality of the replies seems to be the most important aspect.
Back to the SO sysytem, no I haven't used it to any great extent but one of the main concerns I have is that many people have some difficulty in using a this type of Forum and like Mandville in point 7 I wonder how many real newbies would be lost to the cause in trying to figure out how to work the proposed new Forum.
Sorry but for me it is a No No!!
However that's not to say that the continuous downtime of this Forum is getting a bit frustrating and wonder if there is any answer forthcoming to address this issue. I use another phpBB forum with at least as much daily use as this one and that rarely fails!

mitchell - it's a good point. Maybe some users will really struggle using a slightly more 'complicated' type of forum, although I might question whether those people should be building and maintaining a website in the first place! I actually find *this* forum more 'complicated' (e.g. in terms of its design, finding my way around, the many different forums and sub-forums) than a stack exchange site, but I guess it all comes down to what you're used to.

I wonder, if a stack exchange site is not appropriate as an 'upgrade' of this forum, whether it would make sense for it to host a slightly different community - e.g. joomla developers and 'experts' as opposed to general users. We'll have to wait and see - if the proposal takes off, it will live or die by whatever demand there is.

Thanks for your input.

I can fully appreciate your point but let us not be too judgmental! I run a small local Computer Club and I use Joomla as an exercise in gaining confidence. I find that if one of my newbie members can follow my guide and get Joomla up and running on a localserver, they may not use that experience to follow up with building a live website immediately but it is a real boost in confidence. Many newcomers to computing are quite "frightened" of it and overcoming that fear is a big hurdle. I have a Forum on the club site that is restricted to just club members so if members make mistakes or ask what they call "silly" questions the general public can't see it. This again is a method of confidence building.
Surely the idea of user to user Forums of whatever subject is to introduce as many people as possible into the fold and make IT easily accessible to all!

It's a pity that you are not interested, because people like yourself are invaluable especially with helping newcomers to the site.

On a different note, I noticed thatDrupal and Wordpress have started up their own thriving SO like communities. I'm a little envious. It seems like their online community is much more active than our own

I see a response has been made regarding the stack idea http://people.joomla.org/groups/viewdis ... roupid=398

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It's a shame that the powers that be have decided against supporting the Stack Exchange proposal. I wonder if they've used a Stack Exchange site before (I find it difficult to believe they *haven't*). I take the point on the existing 'people' Q&A, but no-one's using it! No answers provided within the last week. On Stack Overflow, it's an unlikely event when something doesn't get answered within an hour, let alone a week. Maybe people are just unaware of the Q&A site; I know I was.

Do you know what the Q&A was implemented in, and how much admin it takes? I ask because a Stack Exchange site will be externally hosted, so admin is purely in terms of moderation and, as previously stated, there is a high proportion of community-moderation, so a SE site more-or-less runs itself.

Although the community has decided not to officially sanction it, a Joomla SE site will soon - hopefully - come into being, and it can then be judged on how well it performs. I'm sure that if it's anywhere near as effective as the drupal or wordpress SE sites, the community will be pleasantly surprised.

I would start by saying sorry that this post is off topic in replying to an off topic post. Perhaps it should be moved to the main discussion on this campaign.
While bored, i looked over the two examples you provided and along with looking at some of the other notable supportable scripts i made some intersting observations.

I must applaud you and your friend on the persistence in which you champion forking the forum away from main support channel.
You mention that you couldn't or did not know about the q&a tools on the PJO site, that is very much like your stack idea. I assume that you have also looked at the linkedin discussion/support groups?
PJO administration on the Q&A is simple, to my knowledge there has been none apart from the odd self promotion and spam post removed in the early days.

I tried to understand the stack discussions, and got lost (and no i dont need/want instructions on it- thanks) i did however come across the very interesting discussion of wordpress concerns when it was discussed moving the forums to stack.

I will enclose it edited below
all of which joomla forums and linked in do.
The other iscussion post on stack that was interesting from drupal (and i understand that the stack drupal area is not recognised by drupal team )

Therefore my personal view is that this fork (or apparently your closure suggestion) of this forum is unjustified, there are already plenty of support channels.
Pardon the anagram phrase of horse flogging the dead

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@mailm It's unfortunate that we don't see eye for eye on this.

I've looked at http://people.joomla.org/answers.html and while it is lacking in many ways I think it is definitely a step in the right direction.



I'm glad that they considered the proposal (even though I am unaware of the results of that discussion). Discussion further highlights ways in which Joomla support can be improved and ultimately at the end of the day that is what we all want.

Either way, the SOJoomla proposal seems to be gaining support and I think it is just a matter of time now before people will be able to understand the benefits of the system.

You must have missed this parargraph in the article i linked to,.
Taken as not needed, perhaps you can post in that linked topic for clarification?

yep., lots of that goes on before things are done. /eof

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Thanks mandville, I did miss that.

In regards to the Joomla QnA, I'm glad they are trying it out, but I think that they have simplified things a little too much.
At the very least I'd hope that they take a look at what StackExchange (and others) are doing right (and wrong) and then assess how they can improve on what they have.

update: We've reached the required number of users for the definition stage, so thanks everyone for your support! If you haven't yet helped out you can add your support by writing a question or two or voting on some of the questions.
Thanks!

I am very much new to Joomla. i am familiar with code igniter so I understand that Joomla follows MVC architecture. But only this much. Can anyone help me how to create a new component in Joomla 2.5?

Finally, after over a year of definition and gradual adoption by a number of users, the Joomla StackExchange site has reached commitment stage. If you're looking for top-notch support for Joomla issues, please come along and commit to the proposal:

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/34294

Hi dibron, If you haven't found out anything yet please check out
http://docs.joomla.org/Developing_a_Model-View-Controller_Component/2.5/Developing_a_Basic_Component

Also just an update that the stackexchange for Joomla has moved to the next stage.
You can check it out and support it at Joomla!

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