I've noticed there's alot of basic content on this website, and users who are very new to web development. That's not a bad thing, this website is one of the best there is, but it would be nice if it were possible to have some more advanced discussions as well without having to wade through all the basic posts. One possible solution would be to have certain forums (subforums per subject) available once a certain reputation is attained. Anyway, just trying to find out if anyone feels the same way and something should be done about this? Once a site is overrun by newbies it often times causes the older, more advanced members to take a step back. This only hurts the community even more. Ofcourse, relying on reputation isn't without it's share of problems, it's just an idea. Disclaimer: This thread is just made to get some thoughts from other users on this subject. This is not intended as a flame, let that be clear. I like the community here.
The problem is that probably the vast majority of people think they are advanced users, or the ones who don't think they are advanced users are going to want to post in there to attract responses from the advanced users. I think splitting sections into newbie/advanced areas would have the same affect as just labeling all areas as advanced users only.
Thanks for responding. Yes, that's why I suggested doing it via reputation. However, that would probably lead to rep "whoring" and lead to lots of issues. Still, something needs to be done. Or am I overestimating this problem?
If you seperate advanced and newbs, the advanced users stop helping newbs. And rep is not the best way to tell a user. There are users here who get it soley from the GC section, and not actually by helping people.
there are some users here with more reputation points then posts. reputation isn't a good way to measure a person here. iTraders and post quality is a good way to measure a person.
I was a member of SearchGuild.com a few years ago. They had forums set up that way. I didn't find it very appealing. It seemed like many people were missing out on a lot if they didn't want to consider reading or helping out in noob topics. For me, bouncing between regular & noob forums seemed unnecessary. The site has been gone for a while....I think it merged or sold domain name. I like having forums separated by topic instead of who knows more.
One idea for now might be to just start the discussion you want to have, but note in the thread that you'd specifically like responses from more advanced users (for example, maybe only people who have achieved certain traffic levels in blogging - or whatever is applicable to your topic). I find that in copywriting when we want to talk about more advanced topics, the "have you ever...?" approach can help sometimes - those who have been in those shoes join in, and those who haven't either stay out of it, or they ask legitimate questions that don't really detract from the conversation.