Welcome to the November DaniWeb Digest

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keeping the community informed…

One of the many things that we are proud of is the open attitude of community founder and site designer Dani Horowitz when it comes to the ongoing development of DaniWeb. Not only does Dani listen to community members, but also responds to their suggestions in terms of site design and development. No wonder, then, that our members enjoy the mix of features that manages to blend social networking elements into a professional and industry-focused community.

By putting everything related to a single topic into one place, DaniWeb ensures that all you need to know (be it by way of forum thread, breaking news story, code snippet, tutorial or white paper) is right there at your fingertips just when you need it most.

The good news is that you can be part of the process that helps drives DaniWeb community development ever onwards. All it takes is for you to join in the discussion, to let us know what you want and how we can deliver it to you. To become part of the debate, head over to the Community Feedback forum where you will find all the DaniWeb site announcements, comments, and most importantly the opportunity to leave interactive feedback.

Recent hot threads include a discussion about the current DaniWeb site layout and design, an ongoing debate regarding reputation altering power and the ever popular 'how to do stuff' forum information sticky. For just a few dollars a month you can donate to DaniWeb and get access to our behind-the-scenes Area 51 forum where we talk about upcoming features and other non-public issues. Donating also gives you an advert-free DaniWeb experience, more PM storage space, a bigger and animated avatar, custom user title and much more.

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If you have ever visited social news sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon or Reddit then you will probably have noticed that they all use a method of member voting to determine which stories and links are the best. The ones with the most 'up' votes rise to the top of the site story index and so get the most visibility. This kind of highly effective 'crowdsourcing' can also be found on sites such as Wikipedia where the content is contributed by readers, and the wisdom of crowds ensures that errors get edited out and over time each individual entry is factual, well written and accurate.

The good news is that we have now brought our own combination of the wisdom of crowds and crowdsourcing voting to the DaniWeb forums. Every posting now has an up and down arrow tagged alongside, and every member has the opportunity to vote any individual posting up or down depending upon whether they thought it was worthy, helpful, well written and so on. Here's how it works:

Every individual post can be either up-voted or down-voted, but each individual member can only influence an overall post quality score by either +1 or -1 depending on the way you vote. If you give a post reputation using the existing reputation system, then it will automatically get up or down voted depending upon whether that reputation was positive or negative. When you click the up or down vote arrows though, you are not affecting user reputation at all, merely commenting on the quality of the individual posting. What's more, the original poster will not know who has voted so the system is anonymous in this regard, hopefully meaning that you will feel more inclined to be honest about your opinion.

You might think that there is scope for this to be abused by someone simply down voting all posts by a member because they hold a grudge or are feeling mischievous. Well that's where the wisdom of crowds bit kicks in. If enough members vote, then over time the real quality of every post will be determined by the overall rating. The more votes, up or down, a post gets then the more accurate that rating becomes.

So, unlike the reputation system which tends to get used only when people think a post is helpful or thought-provoking on one hand, and misleading or abusive on the other, the hope is that the voting system will have a broader scope. We envisage that it will be used when you think a post is well-written or suffers from 1337 speak, when a poster has correctly used code tags or not bothered to use them at all and so on.

As the wisdom of crowds is applied, over time, we hope that when you are browsing the forum listings you will be able to skim through the vote counters displayed and quickly see which threads are essential reading and which should be avoided. Let us know how you feel about our new voting system by joining the debate in the Community Feedback forum.

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You can view your member profile by simply clicking on your user name at the top of any DaniWeb page, it's right there at the very top left. Once you arrive at the newly redesigned member profile page you can discover all sorts of information about your usage of DaniWeb, and about your contributions to the community.

Immediately you will notice how many posts you have contributed to DaniWeb in total, and a breakdown of these postings showing how many forum threads you have started, code snippets you have posted and the number of replies or comments you have made.

Ever wonder whether the rest of DaniWeb thinks that your postings are useful and well written? Thanks to the new up-down voting system we have put in place, you can now get an at-a-glance view of your overall post quality scoring. Behind this headline percentage figure there is a breakdown of how many up and votes you have received, the number of unique posts receiving those votes and the number of individual members who have voted.

You can also see how many reputation points your account has been awarded, as well as the power you hold to affect the reputation of another member both positively or negatively.

Towards the bottom of the main profile page is a breakdown of your posting habits, revealing the forums that you post to most frequently and showing the exact number of posts you have made there. Click on the 'upvoted posts' link beside the listed forums and you can quickly find all your posts which have received a positive voting score from other members in that forum. Back at the top of your profile page you will notice some category tabs, click on 'reputation' and a list of the latest reputation you have been given will be displayed including the date, user leaving it and their comments. Other category tabs include 'friends' and 'group memberships' which will help you explore the emerging social networking aspect of the DaniWeb community.

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Please welcome our newest member of the DaniWeb hall of fame, nav33n. A member of DaniWeb for two years, after more than 3600 high quality posts that have led to an Overall Post Quality Score of an impressive 96% and 295 reputation points, the time has come to find out a little more about him.

We already know that he loves hanging around and helping people in the PHP, MySQL and Community Introductions forums.

We know from his profile that Naveen is "high on life" has a crappy computer and enjoys playing chess and going for long drives. But what else is there to know about the latest recipient of the DaniWeb Featured Poster badge? Let's find out.

Where are you from originally, and where do you live now?

I am from Bangalore, India. I have been living here all my life.

How old are you?

I am 26.

What is your current occupation, ever done anything unusual in the past?

I work as a PHP developer for an MNC in Bangalore. I haven't done anything unusual in the past apart from working as a poster distributor for an event management company.

What is your favorite computer and OS?

Any computer which is good enough to keep up with me. Heh, jokes apart, my favorite computer would be my desktop loaded with Windows XP. I like Windows XP because of its stability and compatibility. Mac is pretty expensive (and I hate eye candy stuff) and I was never a huge fan of Linux.

What first brought you to DaniWeb?

It's been almost 2 1/2 years since I joined DaniWeb. But If I remember right, I was searching for examples on Google of how to write PDF docs using PHP. Some links led me here. That's where it all started.

What makes you stay here?

Everyday I come to the office, open my Firefox browser, type www.daniweb.com and hit enter. That's my daily routine. I stay here to gain and share knowledge.

What is your favorite forum and why?

My favorite forum is PHP. It's my favorite because, every time I open it, I learn something new. Its also amazing to see people coming up with different techniques to solve a problem.

What are your interests outside of IT and outside of DaniWeb?

Fighting with my dog (I love my dog), hanging out with friends and going on long drives are the things I enjoy doing. I am a 'kitchen scientist' (only on special occasions) and I love trying out new vegetarian recipes. I love music and I also make noise with my guitar when I am extremely bored.

Name the best thing about DaniWeb, and one thing you would change if it were in your power?

Best thing about DaniWeb is undoubtedly the people. There are all kinds of people. Old, young, dumb, smart, etc. and that is what makes DaniWeb such a great forum. If I had the power to change DaniWeb, I would have more tutorials.

Any fascinating facts about yourself that you would like to share with the DaniWeb community?

Well, I love traveling. I have traveled around 900 kilometers on my 100 cc motorbike for 12 hours with as little as 2 stops (it was a hell of an experience).