Tech Level?

[kdwyer]

We are all good in some areas, not so good in others.
An expert programmer may (or may not) need help at a more basic level with mechanical issues, or an electro-tech guy might need more basic help with programming, etc.

Is it possible to 'rate' on a tech level some of the posts? Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced should do it. That might help someone looking for startup info from having to wade thru posts they can't grasp yet, or help in a search on an advanced or specific topic.

I dunno how much extra work it would be, but it might be worth looking into.

[Alex]

That's a pretty good idea kdwyer! I'll put it on the list of things to look into implementing. The problem that I foresee is how to search for a particular rating. It sounds like there is going to have to be some custom development work done, but unfortunately I won't be able to get to it right away given my current workload. I'm not 100% sure on if it'll be custom work, so again, I'll have to look into it. There might be a plugin that does exactly what we want:)

For the time being though, there is a new tagging feature added (I think you already found it though) that allows you to add tags to each thread for better searching. This might help quite a bit.

[kdwyer]

I think just a rudimentary filter would suffice. Dunno how you have the website coded, but it could either be incredibly simple, or crash the entire Internet permanently.

("You broke the Internet! Quick, act normal!")

[Alex]

haha! Yeah, breaking the Internet is the last thing we want to do;)

The thing is, is that this is forum software that we've purchased. It's totally flexible and modifiable though. The way that I'd like to do it is when people click the "Rate Thread" dropdown, a couple of extra dropdowns will come down with these extra options.

However, there is a new thread prefixing feature added to this new version that allows people to add a prefix to their thread title. Maybe this could be a good alternate (and already built) solution...

Something like:

for the first part:
HW => Hardware
SWP => Software and ProgrammingThen, for the second:
Basic
Intermediate
AdvancedSo, it would end up allowing everyone to prefix their threads with any of the following:
HW - Basic
HW - Intermediate
HW - Advanced
SWP - Basic
SWP - Intermediate
SWP - AdvancedThis would actually allow for more flexibility for searching too.

What do you (and everyone else) think?

[Tyberius]

Sounds good, will have to get in the habit of posting those in threads as a prefix though, would also definitely have to be a sticky for newcomers.

[Alex]

Actually Tyberius, these are admin set in the backend. I define what thread prefixes will be available for members. Then, whenever anyone posts a new thread, a dropdown will appear just to the left of the Title textbox with all of the thread prefixes available.

So, if there are any other ideas on some thread prefixes they'd like to see in the forums, by all means open up a new thread in this this forum with their ideas:)

[Alex]

Hey everyone!

I just finished creating the Thread Prefixes. So, anytime you create a new thread, you'll see a dropdown to the left of the title with all of the options to choose from. Let me know what you think:)

Oh yeah, if you ever want to know, or if anyone asks what any of the thread prefixes mean, check out the FAQ:

http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/faq.php


If you have other ideas for new thread prefixes for me to add either PM me, or put them in the Feedback and Suggestions forum:)

thanks!

[kdwyer]

Now there's progress!
Make a reasonable suggestion, see the process, reap the results.

What we need now is a Turing machine to make suggestions, thereby relieving us organics of yet another menial task. :D

[Matt]

If I may, I'd like to throw a suggestion into the ring. I was thinking that general tags might be helpful like:

[Question]
[Project]
[News]
[Announcement]
[Cool Link]

and so on, kinda like how fark.com tags their stories. I worry about trying to categorize things into software and hardware levels because that's all very subjective and things easily cross over many areas. Plus you could end up with a zillion categories in the end.

Just my 2 cents.

[Alex]

Hey Everyone!

Just to let you know, we've added a new Thread Prefix - Contest Entry.

Contest Entry is available in the Project Showcase forum (http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=101) and is for anyone that wishes to enter their project in the current TR contest (http://www.trossenrobotics.com/contest.aspx).

I've also updated the FAQ (http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/faq.php?faq=trfaq#faq_tr_thread_prefixes), so as always point anyone to that if they have questions with prefixes.

thanks!

[Matt]

Hey Everyone,

We are going to try something a little different with the prefixes. It's hard to try to define posts as hardware vs software vs what level and such. We could run into infinity with categories of those type so we thought we would try a different angle. We are going to try out prefixes of post "Types" instead and see how people like that. We will start out with a list like below and go from there.

[Question(s)]
[News/Announcement]
[Cool Link]
[Contest Submission]
[Project]
[Just for Fun]
[Discussion]

Please feel free to suggest others. We do want to keep the list to a minimum however. Having helpful prefixes to sort posts loses it's value when there are 147 categories :)


-------

Kdwyer - we still like your idea of being able to rate tech skills. We will keep this idea in queue and keep an eye out for add ons that might accomplish this. We just think that the prefix route isn't quite doing what you were originally looking for. We think something like the rating stars for posts except they could be wrenches or software icons for profiles would be a good match.

[kdwyer]

My suggestion was simply (?) to try to give users, especially newcomers, a way to weed thru the voluminous posts. It can be frustrating to think you've found an answer only to have that answer be too far above your abilities to comprehend. Face it, robotics can be incredibly complex, and trying to be expert in all aspects is an exersize in frustration. The best way to get and use advice is to have that advice fit your abilities. I know I've found a few posts to be outa my league (still wanna read 'em tho!)

I'm all for whatever works. A very basic grading of posts may help newbies find and use what they need. While I'd like to see MIT or Carnegie-Mellon post stuff here, it would probably be above most of us. Wading thru dense technical posts you don't understand isn't why most of us are here.
I have some great ideas (I think) but not every one of them is worthwhile or do-able. But I'll keep coming up with them!

[Alex]

We totally agree with your point on the need to have something to help everyone out to distinguish software and hardware levels with reading posts. Matt just brought up a really good point that we're going about solving the problem the wrong way with trying to use prefixes as a solution. Prefixes aren't really meant for this purpose. Prefixes are meant to be used for the topics that Matt listed.

My original suggestion with having a rating system just like the star rating system is now, but a separate one for hardware and software is the more intuitive solution. This will also allow everyone reading threads to rate the thread on hardware and software levels as opposed to depending on the person creating the thread to choose a prefix and choose the correct prefix.

This rating system will just require quite a bit more work and research to figure out how to do it correctly. I know how to do it, but just not the correct way yet. I'll keep plugging away at this though whenever I have some freed up times and I'll post back in this thread once I figure it all out:)

edit: btw, I just updated the FAQ to reflect the changes.