Ruby community website / forum

On 5/15/06, John G. [email protected] wrote:

On 5/15/06, Austin Z. [email protected] wrote:

I’m not going to speak for anyone else, but I suspect that a lot of
people are like me on this: I don’t have time. I barely have time to
read the Ruby blogs and keep up with ruby-talk in any case.
Me too.

dynamic going on over there – when someone posts a very basic
question, they don’t usually get a normal “here’s how you do it”
answer. Instead, they often get a, “here’s where you can look in the
docs for your answer” type of answer.

Great. Just what we need. Karma whores. Colour me even less interested
now.

I think that, when you have a ranking system like they have (i.e. if
their posts are up-voted, they get more xp), folks tend to want to
live up to their on-site standing. You know what I mean? It’s like,
they build (visible, via their xp points) a rep (and “title”) over
time. Folks start looking at their home node (which only the user can
edit – unlike a wiki) as a useful reference to other good nodes.

That interest level meter? It just dropped again (yeah, just over the
course of one paragraph). I can’t think of anything that is less useful
than karma whores. Okay, maybe trolls, but I’ve got no interest or time
in ranking or being ranked by others. People know my work and make their
own judgements.

Anyhow, I agree with you that another Ruby forum is not needed. But PM
is much more than a forum – it’s got extra magic sprinkled on top.

It sounds much less than a forum. It sounds like high school dodgeball
with geekitude on top.

Colour me opposed, not just not interested.

-austin

On 5/15/06, John G. [email protected] wrote:

high-knowledge members of the community, including the Japanese
question, they don’t usually get a normal “here’s how you do it”
answer. Instead, they often get a, “here’s where you can look in the
docs for your answer” type of answer.

I think that, when you have a ranking system like they have (i.e. if
their posts are up-voted, they get more xp), folks tend to want to
live up to their on-site standing. You know what I mean? It’s like,
they build (visible, via their xp points) a rep (and “title”) over
time. Folks start looking at their home node (which only the user can
edit – unlike a wiki) as a useful reference to other good nodes.

So then you can ignore answers from those without good XP? Spend a
week, or
two, tops on the mailing list and you’ll figure out quickly who the
“gurus”
are. And then there are the random bits of brilliance by someone you’ve
never heard of before. No need for special titles, or “points”, just
people
asking and answering questions because they feel they have something to
share, or learn. The last thing I’d want to see is a situation that
lends
itself to fragmenting this awesome community.

Anyhow, I agree with you that another Ruby forum is not needed. But PM

On 5/15/06, John G. [email protected] wrote:

I would like to see RubyGarden pick up a bit more, but the
principals involved have been very busy, partially with fixing the
RubyGarden Wiki.
No one said RubyGarden couldn’t be that site, but AFAICT there’s no
forum at RubyGarden.

This is a good thing. Forums are the lowest denominator of quality,
IMO&E.

Really, it’s all about folks coming forward and putting in the work to
either create a “RubyMonks” or else, as you seem to be suggesting,
adding a forum to RubyGarden with some PerlMonks-like functionality.

No, I’m not suggesting any such thing. I don’t see any reason for a
forum.

Let me be a little more clear: I will almost certainly not participate
in a web-based forum that adds little to no value to the Ruby community,
as ruby-forum has definitely demonstrated with its mirror. (I applaud
the effort behind ruby-forum and think that the mailing-list link is
interesting, but ultimately useless because of the high number of
nonsensical and lazy posts that come from it.)

I’m not going to speak for anyone else, but I suspect that a lot of
people are like me on this: I don’t have time. I barely have time to
read the Ruby blogs and keep up with ruby-talk in any case.

Without guaranteeing a high level of participation from active
high-knowledge members of the community, including the Japanese
community, a PerlMonks-alike is doomed to failure. Not that I think that
PerlMonks is even remotely worth emulating. The postings on the first
page as I look now are spectacularly uninteresting and don’t offer
anything that hasn’t been asked and answered elsewhere better. The UI is
crap (the /. UI might be better, but that’s a close call). It offers
absolutely nothing that could not be done better with a mailing list and
a wiki.

There are, IMO, far better projects to spend your time on than Yet
Another Useless Web-Forum For A Community That Doesn’t Need One. Some of
these have fortunately been proposed as Summer of Code projects, so they
may happen sooner rather than later.

BTW, I’ve noticed that the Ruby wiki there has been really hammered
with spam lately.

And this is being fixed (see above). There’s a test wiki on RubyGarden’s
site at port 3000 that’s worth looking at.

-austin

Note though, that anyone can put up a customized phpBB. But to get
people to use it, and to measure up to the mighty perlmonks, you’ll
very probably need something more than that.

phpBB is the work of the devil.

Opinion is a nice Rails alternative.

Seriously, if you want to do this, you should do it, but if you’re
just wishing it existed and hoping the entire Ruby community will
reorganize itself for your convenience, that seems pretty unlikely.

You’ve already got a healthy community here, it’s just you’re used to
the norms of a different community. Here, you use Gmail and this list
to do the exact same thing you’re used to doing on PerlMonks. That’s
really the only difference.

It’s like trying to find good Chicago pizza when you’re in Tokyo. It
just won’t happen. It’s just a different culture. That’s just how it
is.

On 5/15/06, Tanner B. [email protected] wrote:

So then you can ignore answers from those without good XP?

I guess so. Though I don’t think many folks do that. My impression was
that it was a fun thing that might’ve had something to do with the
high quality of posts there.

Of course, the posts to this ML are very high quality as well.

Spend a week, or
two, tops on the mailing list and you’ll figure out quickly who the “gurus”
are. And then there are the random bits of brilliance by someone you’ve
never heard of before. No need for special titles, or “points”, just people
asking and answering questions because they feel they have something to
share, or learn.

Right.

One neat bonus you get from a place like PM is that you can take a
peek over at some given user’s (guru or not) home node, and see what
they have there. Maybe links to other very useful nodes (including
tutorials they’ve written), or external links to projects. This is
like a user’s own wiki page, except the wiki pages are editable by
everyone (personally, I wish the wiki required a username/password).

That “random bit of brilliance” you mention could be easily preserved
on a “RubyMonks”-type site, linked to from
someone_youve_never_heard_of_before’s home node perhaps (like with a
wiki). Or, if it’s code, could end up in a “snippets” section.

The last thing I’d want to see is a situation that lends
itself to fragmenting this awesome community.

Same here. OTOH, there’s so much good content that flows by via this
list. It would be nice if more of it could make it into the FAQ and
the wiki.

I’m not sure, but I think PM may have made a sort of split between the
comp.lang.perl folks and the PM folks. Though, of course, there’s a
lot of overlap between the two.

I agree with Austin that the UI at PM feels clumsy (to me anyway).

The facts seem to be:

• PM can act like a FAQ and save folks a lot of typing (i.e. repeating
  themselves).

• There’s already a Ruby faq, but it could use some more content.
  Editing it seems to require emailing its maintainer, which might be a
  pain compared to simply logging in somewhere and writing some
  markdown/textile/rdoc in a text field and hitting “submit”.

• PM can act like a password-protected wiki and save folks from having
  to keep a wiki de-spammed all the time. (Though it doesn’t really
  replace a wiki.)

• There’s already a Ruby wiki, but it takes a lot of work to keep it
  spam-free. Also, it uses UseModWiki (which is Perl-based), so that
  probably puts a damper on folks here hacking on it to improve the wiki
  software itself.

• The PM ranking thing has a neat community-building effect, and can
  also sometimes help you find stuff that others have rated highly. It
  can lead to karma-whoring I suppose, though I haven’t seen that at PM.

• ruby-talk is very useful and has a great community. And
  most-importantly, a largely non-fragmented one.

So, after looking at those, I was wrong to suggest that maybe the Ruby
community could use a PM-like site. It looks more like we could stand
to improve the wiki and the faq.

On 5/15/06, John G. [email protected] wrote:

• There’s already a Ruby faq, but it could use some more content.
  Editing it seems to require emailing its maintainer, which might be a
  pain compared to simply logging in somewhere and writing some
  markdown/textile/rdoc in a text field and hitting “submit”.

I agree with the FAQ. However:

• PM can act like a password-protected wiki and save folks from having
  to keep a wiki de-spammed all the time. (Though it doesn’t really
  replace a wiki.)

• There’s already a Ruby wiki, but it takes a lot of work to keep it
  spam-free. Also, it uses UseModWiki (which is Perl-based), so that
  probably puts a damper on folks here hacking on it to improve the wiki
  software itself.

This will be fixed in the next week or two. Jim W. has written a
new Rails-based Wiki (Ruse) that deals with this and is a password-
protected wiki. It will be going into production soon, but is already
accessible from http://rubygarden.org:3000/ if you want to play with it.

• The PM ranking thing has a neat community-building effect, and can
  also sometimes help you find stuff that others have rated highly. It
  can lead to karma-whoring I suppose, though I haven’t seen that at PM.

I have yet to see a site that uses ranking that doesn’t end up
encouraging karma-whoring at some point. As I said, I neither have the
time nor the interest in ranking or being ranked by others. That’s so
10th grade.

So, after looking at those, I was wrong to suggest that maybe the Ruby
community could use a PM-like site. It looks more like we could stand
to improve the wiki and the faq.

Wrong? No. I’d never say that. I think that there’s always room for
improvement in what the Ruby community offers. And there are some dark,
neglected corners of the Ruby web. I think we should take the best parts
of what others do, but not imitate, either.

-austin

On 5/15/06, Giles B. [email protected] wrote:

[snip] Here, you use Gmail and this list
to do the exact same thing you’re used to doing on PerlMonks. That’s
really the only difference.

Actually, to be more specific, I think it may be more like:

Perlmonks == ruby-talk (via Gmail perhaps) + Ruby FAQ + Ruby wiki

On PM, you might tell someone, “take a look at [this other PM node]
for an example of what you’re trying to do”, whereas here, I think a
possible reply might be closer to, “take a look at
(or ) for an example of what you’re trying to do”.

On 5/15/06, Austin Z. [email protected] wrote:

protected wiki. It will be going into production soon, but is already
accessible from http://rubygarden.org:3000/ if you want to play with it.

BOOM

{A shockwave just blew my hat off of my head.}

Sweet.

So, after looking at those, I was wrong to suggest

Doh. That should’ve been “I now think I was wrong to suppose”.

that maybe the Ruby

community could use a PM-like site. It looks more like we could stand
to improve the wiki and the faq.

Wrong? No. I’d never say that.

Gah. Thanks.