Post submissions category

[prime]

I know some of this has been suggested before but.... here goes my idea on the tutorial submissions

 

I do feel it should be through the forums and this is how I feel it would be best implemented

 

have a complete tutorials category/board

 

one board of course for everyone to submit tutorials for submissions, from there the staff appointed people can either approve or deny it, or say it needs a little more work. Once it's been moved to the approved area it is locked pending upload to the main site.

 

also there should be a place for people to request tutorials, a lot of people will happily write up tutorials if they've highly requested.

[tomfmason]

I like the general concept but I see a few problems:

 

1) these tutorial submissions would be publicly available before they are approved(bad idea in general)

2) we would have duplicate content e.g. approved tutorials would be in the forums and on the main site. This could seriously hurt our google page ranking

3) you would be surprised at the amount of requests and offers we get for tutorials. A large majority of which are no good. No one likes to hear their stuff isn't good enough. I personally have no problem telling people that their material is not good enough but not all of the staff feel the same way.

4) I don't like the idea of tying much of the main site's features into the forums as we will not being using SMF forever. We are already going to have a lot of work converting the existing posts and user accounts when we make a switch.

 

I do, however, like the idea of tutorial requests. We should discuss a way of implementing that.

[prime]

1) these tutorial submissions would be publicly available before they are approved(bad idea in general)

Limit viewing of other threads to moderators or the approved team, you have a big enough fan base to support this

 

2) we would have duplicate content e.g. approved tutorials would be in the forums and on the main site. This could seriously hurt our Google page ranking

well you could have it as a members only forums, that'd would take away the Google problem

 

3) you would be surprised at the amount of requests and offers we get for tutorials. A large majority of which are no good. No one likes to hear their stuff isn't good enough. I personally have no problem telling people that their material is not good enough but not all of the staff feel the same way.

you would need to deny it, just have it on there, if someone wants to write a guide for it they can, also have this at least members only, again, no Google problem

 

4) I don't like the idea of tying much of the main site's features into the forums as we will not being using SMF forever. We are already going to have a lot of work converting the existing posts and user accounts when we make a switch.

you don't need to keep it smf, whether you use phpbb or even custom it's easy enough to carry over to whatever

[Daniel0]

1) these tutorial submissions would be publicly available before they are approved(bad idea in general)

Limit viewing of other threads to moderators or the approved team, you have a big enough fan base to support this

 

That's not possible using SMF.

[prime]

1) these tutorial submissions would be publicly available before they are approved(bad idea in general)

Limit viewing of other threads to moderators or the approved team, you have a big enough fan base to support this

 

That's not possible using SMF.

 

Ok sorry I forgot about smf in that area, I forgot I modified my own smf forum boards to support that but ok.....

 

but hows this then?

 

create a group via member groups then go to board and then modify the board, you can uncheck the board from guests which would solve the google problem.

 

another solution would be to transfer guides from submitted to pending which only the select groups can see, not regular members, and then from there it can be either accepted or denied once checked over

[Daniel0]

It'll probably be easier to just code a new section on the main site. All we need is basic CRUD functionality as well as a way of "moving" the tutorial to the table where the other ones are if it's accepted.

[prime]

It would be even simpler than that, you would hardly need separate tables just have a column called status or something where you either have accepted, denied, pending and such. Then in the different area's where you want the MYSQL results display just display the results for accepted or denied or such. Which is just a simple where clause for the SQL.

 

There'd be no need to have different tables for different things here that'd be unnecessary.

 

The reason I am recommending the forums though are the basic structure is already in place. There'd be no need for new code to be written beyond just a simple form using nl2br and basic validation to be copied and pasted into if it's accepted.

 

Otherwise you'll have to code in a form for the ordinary members to use specifically, which would be extra coding work.

[.josh]

I don't really agree with the idea of a public tutorial submission system.  Allowing the public to submit tutorials? Yes.  But having them post it publicly, and having us tell them yes or no? No.  I see a whole lot of drama happening from that. 

 

I mean, let's say JoeUser isn't really very good at PHP.  He's not even good at writing (grammar, spelling, etc..) but his heart is in the right place and he wants to help.  Now, I don't mind telling this person his submission is not good enough in an email or PM, but publicly?  He's gonna have a hard enough as it is being rejected in the first place, but if we did it publicly, he'd have that humiliation on top of everything else. 

 

People PM us asking all the time to delete posts and threads of theirs because it was a "stupid" question and they are embarrassed about it.  I can only imagine the level of requests received from something like that, and how much more intense they would be. 

 

And that's just the criers.  Let's not even get into the people who would get really pissed about being told no. 

 

Again, I support the notion of anybody being able to submit tutorials, but I do not support it being done publicly, for our sake, yes, but mostly for theirs. 

 

My 2 cents.

[prime]

the accepted denied or even pending wouldn't be publicly viewable.... so they wouldn't need to be notifed either way. the tutorial would either be used or not

[Daniel0]

the accepted denied or even pending wouldn't be publicly viewable.... so they wouldn't need to be notifed either way. the tutorial would either be used or not

 

The denial would be public in the sense that the tutorial has been posted on the public submission forum but doesn't ever show up on the main site.

 

Another alternative is having them email it to staff and then it could be reviewed. I know other large sites with more traffic than we get also do that.

[prime]

Daniel I think you misunderstand

 

once its posted, its just transfered over to the moderator only board pending for later reviewal, once its reviewed its again transfered over to a mod only board of approved or denied

 

either way the denial wont be public

[Daniel0]

So basically you want us to move topics around all the time? I don't think the mods are going to like that idea at all.

[prime]

you'd have to in one form or another anyhow. if someone submits something to you you wouldn't just have an approve or deny buttons for it to go public....

 

there are going to be times when you'll want to edit it before putting it public

[Daniel0]

Indeed, so this would require moving it several times. Including moving the ones we reject.

[prime]

well you could just delete those, would save keeping a rejected boards, it's up to you, I'm just shooting an idea, if you can come up with a better idea go for it. It's just the forums are already in place and they're actually meant for this type of thing