Where did everything go?

[Reverend Jim]

All of the forums under Programming and Digital Media seem to have vanished.

[Dani]

We removed all forums and migrated over to a tagging system.

https://www.daniweb.com/community-center/daniweb-community-feedback/area-51/threads/499937/new-forum-categories

[Reverend Jim]

So how do I get to them now?

Ah. I select Programming, scroll waaaaaaay down to the bottom of the page and click vb.net. How, exactly, is this an improvement?

[Dani]

You can still get to the top level categories from the main navigation menu, such as all Software Development or all Web Development.

However, it was decided to no longer have a forum for every single individual language, as languages come and go, some are more popular than others but not necessarily more important, etc etc etc. Therefore, individual languages have been moved to tags.

For now, you can get to them by going to https://www.daniweb.com/tags/php for example ... or by clicking on the link at the bottom of one of the forum categories or from an article tagged with a specific language to get to all threads about that language.

A tag cloud of the most popular languages/tags will be added to the top navigation menu by the end of tonight, hopefully.

[Dani]

Ah. I select Programming, scroll waaaaaaay down to the bottom of the page and click vb.net. How, exactly, is this an improvement?

Because the link from the main category menu that you can reach from every page hasn't been added yet.

"Where did everything go?"

I'm lost here.
Good luck for everyone looking for anything.

[jwenting]

it's indeed gotten way way harder to find anything specific.
Not only do you have to scroll through all the dozens of collated pinned posts (while it may have been 2-3 per forum, if you combine 20 forums into 1 that leaves you with 40-60 of them), but there's no quick way to filter just to the content you're interested in.

It's not AS bad on stackoverflow because there's a lot more content to fit on a page, but if you're on a smallish screen especially on Daniweb you're only getting 2-3 post headers per page...

[Dani]

I hope everyone understands that this was your idea, not mine. I just wanted to clean up some of the outdated forums. It was you guys who suggested we migrate to the tagging system.

That being said, it's still very much a work in progress.

[happygeek]

The stickies/pinned posts problem will be resolved over time as we work through the forums and remove those that are no longer required for whatever reason (many are outdated, others are news/editorial that doesn't need to be stuck etc)

"I hope everyone understands that this was your idea, not mine. "
To make it an unreadable pile of mess?

"That being said, it's still very much a work in progress."
It will take a long time to clean it up.
Sorry, Dani, at present your site is shocking.

[Dani]

11 am and I pulled another allnighter to clean up the mess. I focused on simplifying the new thread page. I thought it was a priority because, since we now rely on tags to find things, there needed to be an easy way for someone to know what tags are possibilities and what the most popular tags are. I'm pretty content with the way it turned out.

I've also been playing around with shortening the post signatures. Are they a little better? I have another idea up my sleeve.

[happygeek]

misi, I think that's a tad on the harsh side. Anything constructive to offer by way of criticism?

"Anything constructive to offer by way of criticism?"

if it ain't broke, don't fix it .

[happygeek]

It was broke, that's the thing. From the viewpoint of traffic generation if nothing else...

Still nothing to add that's really constructive though, you just seem to be repeating the fact that you don't like it without offering specifics as to why or suggestions as to how it could be improved (other than going back to the way it was, which isn't going to happen).

(other than going back to the way iot was, which isn't going to happen).

That's sad.

[dtpp]

well - NEVER EVER use tagging system as main thing on the site like DaniWeb...... its completely unusable now. Tags are ok, but there are not to be placed at frontside.

[happygeek]

its completely unusable now

Disagree. In what way is it 'unusable' exactly?

"In what way is it 'unusable' exactly?"

It used to be a forum but it isn't anymore.
It became something very special.
Confusing.

[Dani]

We needed to move away from just being another regular ole forum because forums have been dying for years. We needed to innovate to keep relevant.

We've now essentially transformed from multiple forum categories housing hundreds of pre-defined forums and subforums ... into fewer than 20 forum categories + forums housing an infinite number of tags about an infinite number of topics.

Fewer pre-defined categories. More possibilities.

I suffered from the "don't you dare change that, I loved it the way it was" syndrome, after DW changed the colour scheme from that vomit yellow and purple to the iCarly look. I was going ballistic. But I was wrong. Not all changes are right, but staying the same for too long is certainly wrong. You just become irrelevant. Stop caring and they stop coming.

[edbr]

but even Microsoft had to listen to its users eventually when they introduced win8. Im sure they thought they were changing for all the right reasons.
Persomally i dont have any issues with the new approach but would be interested to see who is happy with new and who is not and will choose other sources for there time

"Stop caring and they stop coming."
True.
Following only my ego that how good I'm and changing things drastically will end with that.

[Reverend Jim]

I won't be changing (not going to use the term, upgrading) to Windows 10 anytime soon. I don't see anything that it offers that I don't get under Windows 7.

I thought I was going to hate the tag system, as I really do not enjoy using SO, but I find that the hybrid forum / tag structure is really easy to use. A minor inconvenience is that 'Watched' seems to have disappeared into a dropdown option, but that really is small potatoes. The interface needed cleaning too, and I think this is sooo much better than the old cramped, mish-mashed style. Ok Bootstrap isn't for everything and everybody, but this is a nice, effective implementation. After using this incarnation for a month, I seriously doubt that I'd want to return to the old version.

[happygeek]

What the Welsh Devil said.

I don't like change for the sake of it, and I don't like things I have got used to using becoming harder to use. That said, this change was required because DaniWeb was doomed to continue the slow death otherwise (actually, not so slow I suspect) - and once you understand the new way of doing things it's easier rather than harder.

I like it.

A lot.

[dtpp]

Why Dani just do not roll back to how it was before? Or - at least - let these two (forum-like form & tags) co-exist? Or give user an option in user CP which one they want to use? Would be fair.

Keeping a complete forum structure which was no longer fit for purpose would be a retrograde step, not just a rollback. Evolve or become extinct. It's not change for change's sake. It was warranted, possibly long overdue and it may breathe life into the waning forum medium. While some trivial superficial stuff could be put in the CP, I can't see that running 2 systems just to satisfy the personal preference of a handful of members would be reasonable or realistic. My 2p.

[dtpp]

For me its not a question of whether to evolve or die. Its rather question of being usable and, therefore, populated with more and more users. Each&Every webpage/webapp want to have as much users as possible.....its perfectly normal. Being based on tagsystem only, does the opposite - it detters people as it makes user (=newbie, but not only) experience much more harder.....

What I completely do not understand is why did subforums for specific programming languages (or any other which does not exist anymore) were deletted/merged whatsoever. In some time, it will be a complete mess here. And that would put users off from registering here. And this will lead to 'death' of this site.....

I see it that way.....

PS. Forum structure fits this site perfectly imho

Forum structure fits this site perfectly imho

It did. I lived with it for 8 years. If anybody is going to have a flap about it, I guess it'd be me and other long-serving members like me. But we've noticed a downturn in traffic over the last year or so. A number of reasons, but the old format was not that great, if you consider the nature of modern web dev for example. Years ago front end and back end rarely spoke to each other. These days, especially with the advent of duffer-friendly libraries like jQuery, we see cross-end questions which don't fit properly into any subforum. Is it JS? Is it PHP? MySQL? I used to spend ages moving posts about the place as they were in the "wrong forum". Now, with the tagging system, we can tag to our hearts' delight and be relevant in user searches. Forums - or at least subforums are too restrictive as you get more granular. With the advent of new languages, techs etc. we had constant carping about creating new forums or killing off old ones which had very few posts over a year. Now this becomes a non-issue.
Usability (for me) is better. It has also helped me to delve into topics that I'd usually not see as I'd not consider looking at certain subforums. Currently I'm enjoying JSP. I think it's great. But each to his/her own I suppose.

[dtpp]

@up: if you think subforums were too restrictive, why didnt you suggest other layout of subforums?
And I do not agree with granulatity thing. At all. The more granular you get, the more forum structure gets useful.