Missing category: ProcessWire discussion that isn't a support question

[Peter Knight]

I've been meaning to raise this for a few years, and ironically, anytime I went to highlight it, I didn't know where to post it.

Would it be worth adding a General Discussion area under Community Support for ProcessWire-related topics that aren't support questions?

The gap I keep running into is topics that are

1. clearly on-topic for PW
2. but don't fit any of the support categories
3. and aren't off-topic enough for the Pub or Dev Talk.

Here are three sample posts to illustrate the issue:

1. "How do you pitch ProcessWire to clients who only know WordPress?" - not a support question, not off-topic, not a tutorial
2. "What's your experience of the PW community compared to other CMS communities?" - clearly PW-related but doesn't belong in any support board
3. "I'm seeing more agencies adopt PW in Germany - anyone else noticing regional growth?" - on-topic community discussion with nowhere to land

I recently spoke with three PW users, and one told me they don't visit the forums at all because there's nowhere to simply chat about ProcessWire. Another wasn't aware of many of the recent Module developments because module-related content gets buried within Modules rather than somewhere more visible.

I suspect both of those things would improve with a single well-placed General Discussion board.

Just to recap, I think the boards are structured very well and cater for *most* topics. But has anyone else felt this gap or had posts they couldn't find a home for?

 

[Peter Knight]

1 hour ago, Peter Knight said:

I recently spoke with three PW users

 

Missed the third developer's input.
They said they spend 90% of their day working in Processwire, work solo with no real PW interaction apart from the forums. They often wish they could jump into the forums and share PW stuff without feeling like it needs to be support related or forced into off-topic. 
 

[BrendonKoz]

This may be my own interpretation of it, but both Pub and Dev are splits of a General Discussion, whereas Dev Talk is generic/general but leaning more towards business and professional areas of discussion, and Pub is the otherwise-named category where non-tech (more-often) conversations would go because, realistically, it needs to be named something else (other than General Discussion) to not be a catch-all for Dev Talk as well.

I can see the reason for naming them differently and for separating them out, but I'd imagine they could both be enveloped into a single General Discussion instead. Inevitably people would post technically or professionally-minded conversations in both Dev Talk and Pub, and vice-versa. I'm not entirely sure there's a massive benefit to provide a distinction of categorization here, especially if there are people who explicitly don't converse in the community forums because of the categorization.

To clarify: I'm not being critical of the naming, just analytical. As we all know: Naming things is hard!

[Peter Knight]

Yes, maybe it’s just semantics and labels but it does seem like if a topic is neither support or off topic, its not welcomed or at least has no natural home.

I agree Pub and Dev are close. But as Dev itself describes itself as 

general development and coding discussions 

and live under a category of Off Topic, it adds to the perceived issue.

But I agree that a general bucket called PW topics or whatever will add to moderation issues.

Is there a middle ground that doesn’t resort to calling itself General? In my original post, that was just an example label.

 

[BrendonKoz]

4 hours ago, Peter Knight said:

Is there a middle ground that doesn’t resort to calling itself General? In my original post, that was just an example label.

I certainly couldn't think of one, offhand, that wouldn't potentially cause similar confusion with blending of concerns. That was why I - not so clearly - suggested just doing away with the Dev Talk and Pub into a single home and calling it General. Although potentially boring, it's also somewhat convention.

Curious to hear what others think. There might be a million dollar idea out there! 🙂

[Ivan Gretsky]

IMHO the categories do not mean much nowadays. At least for an experienced forum user. I never go to categories list first but always start with recently updated topics. Most of the time I do not even know the category the post is in. And when I need to find something I search.

I go to the category list when I want to get help on modules, especially Ryan's pro modules. The other case is when I create a new post. And that is when it gets confusing. I can never decide where to put it. I can see not difference between Getting started, General support, API and templates and even Modules/Plugins as any of my questions usually relates to all of them somehow. Not to say there is not such thing as "plugin" in PW. 

It all might seem quite different for a newcomer though. And if we know for sure that affects the community friendliness we should change that. But I actually do not know how. Just maybe some overenthusiastic forum member can push the changes. Or AI will help) Anyway, anything concerning the forums mechanics should at least mention @Pete)))

P.S. I am pretty sure forum engines have some cool features nowadays, like tagging and more. And even though the forum as a communication format seem to vanish, we still can try to use more of those new features here. As we, old school nerds are still using 'em)

[Peter Knight]

For browsing, I do the same @Ivan Gretsky IE view by recently created etc. That’s 100% not an issue and especially these days where post seem to be much fewer than a few years ago. 
 

But just to be clear if @Pete or @ryan are reading, the main issue is for creation of new posts.

[Peter Knight]

Looking at this from another angle, I just noticed there are currently 150 guests on the forums (Saturday morning). Even if a percentage of are possibly bots (?), I imagine the conversion rate of casual browser to registered member could be higher with a more casual entry point. 

[Peter Knight]

WIP Possible approach below. Add a new top-level category — ProcessWire Discussion. It contains community-facing boards that were previously under General support and some new ones.

Labels and descriptions are just placeholders.

ProcessWire Discussion
A place to talk about ProcessWire beyond support — share, discuss and connect with the community.

•     General Discussion — ProcessWire chat that isn’t a support question.
•     Showcase / Case Studies — Have you done something nice with ProcessWire? Share it here.
•     Wishlist & Roadmap — Tell us what you’d like to see in ProcessWire.
•     Module Spotlight — Highlight and discuss notable modules without it being a support question.
•     Business & Freelancing — Pitching PW to clients, agency adoption, pricing and project management.
•     Community & Events — Meet-ups, conferences, PW-related events and community news.
•     Jobs — Post your requirements here if you would like to hire an experienced ProcessWire developer.