Hey everyone

Theres been some discussion recently about the content allowed in this community so I wanted to make a quick poll to gauge what is wanted in terms of what people see here

The current description of the community is a bit ambiguous so this will determine whether everything is allowed here or if only more general programming topics are

You can just dm me with options ranked based on your preference (its ranked voting) to vote and ill share the results in a day of the overall vote tallies


1: Allow all posts relevant to the instance (main community)

This will let pretty much any post be able to be posted in here whether that be a help question, discussion, news, etc.

Allowed:

  • What is your favorite music to listen to while programming?
  • Has anyone else seen this interesting “challenge site” when googling a programming topic?
  • Intellij and docker on vm memory issues
  • [HELP][Python] How to use Selenium correctly
  • Announcing TypeScript 5.2 Beta
  • Discussion ES6 Classes. Good or Evil?

Disallowed

  • Things not relevant to the instance

2: Allow any posts and direct people in the comments to more specific communities for their future posts (people catching community)

This will also let any post be able to be posted in here like the previous option but will guide people towards the more specific communities in the future to make them then post the content in those

Allowed:

  • What is your favorite music to listen to while programming?
  • Has anyone else seen this interesting “challenge site” when googling a programming topic?
  • Intellij and docker on vm memory issues
  • [HELP][Python] How to use Selenium correctly
  • Announcing TypeScript 5.2 Beta
  • Discussion ES6 Classes. Good or Evil?

Disallowed

  • Things not relevant to the instance

3: Only allow topics that arent limited to one language, library, etc. (general topic community)

This will let posts such as: what is your favorite music to listen to while coding? or Here is some details about functional programming be able to be posted while something like a library for python will instead be posted in the python community

Allowed:

  • What is your favorite music to listen to while programming?
  • Has anyone else seen this interesting “challenge site” when googling a programming topic?

Disallowed

  • Things not relevant to the instance
  • Intellij and docker on vm memory issues
  • [HELP][Python] How to use Selenium correctly
  • Announcing TypeScript 5.2 Beta
  • Discussion ES6 Classes. Good or Evil?

4: Dont allow questions of how to do X in X language but allow actual discussions or news about the language in addition to general topics (general & discussion community)

Like above but also allows conversations about specific languages in the community as long as its not a question on how to do X in the language

Allowed:

  • What is your favorite music to listen to while programming?
  • Has anyone else seen this interesting “challenge site” when googling a programming topic?
  • Announcing TypeScript 5.2 Beta
  • Discussion ES6 Classes. Good or Evil?

Disallowed

  • Things not relevant to the instance
  • Intellij and docker on vm memory issues
  • [HELP][Python] How to use Selenium correctly

5: Only allow crossposts into the community with things like news being posted in the specific community first (crosspost community)

This will ONLY let crossposts be made. All other options also allow crossposts but this makes it so that the post will fill up the specific community while c/programming is a main post feed for people who want to see many different topics from the specific communities

Allowed

  • anything as long as its crossposted

Disallowed

  • anything not crossposted
  • things not relevant to the instance

You can find some past discussion here https://programming.dev/post/388375 to see some points for the different options

Based on whats voted some other communities may be created or adapted to fit the new niche of people

(ill reply to your dm when your vote is counted, if I havent responded in awhile I may not have gotten it or im asleep)

  • usbpc@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I would start out allowing mostly everything programming related and only creating more specific communities once the posts for a specific topic start spamming this one.

    All nice organization doesn’t help if the created communities are not used by anyone as the seem to small to be worth the bother. That’s at least how I think about it. Just leave it open for most posts until the need arises to split specific topics off.

    • Ategon@programming.devOPM
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      1 year ago

      The thing with having that as the rule is it can create some inconsistency in the eyes of someone posting. If theres communities for c and nim, and c posts start spamming the programming community so its split off. C posters will basically just be relegated to their own corner while they see occasional nim posts popping up in the main community

      Theres also the factor of if the community is built up with specific topics other conversation points wont have a chance to take hold

      We get the advantage in the instance of every community being basically on topic so if someone wants to see all of the topics (including the smaller ones) they can just browse the local posts. And that seems to be one of the most common sorts people are using here

      • usbpc@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        It’s a really hard thing to decide and I’m not sure what the right thing to do is.

        I feel like if the main goal is to make this instance as good as possible for local users making many small specific communities would be best.

        But form how I understand lemmy that would also make it more annoying for people from other instances to get all programming related topics from here if they don’t want to leave their home instance. That would also include people that run their own private instances.

        Although that my second point could be addressed if lemmy adds a “all” feed so that one could subscribe to all communities of an instance or untill that is available a automatic repost bot could be set up to collect all posts on an instance into one feed.

        But I don’t really know what the best way would be just writing down my thoughts on the subject. I’m sure whatever way you go lemmy users will find a way to enjoy this instance and community!

  • blazarious@mylem.me
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    1 year ago

    I see where you’re coming from but to me anything related to programming goes.

    If you don’t want that then point people to the right communities and delete unfitting posts. I guess that’s the only way to keep it clean. As a side effect, this may actually help other more specific communities in the long run.

    • Ategon@programming.devOPM
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      1 year ago

      yeah thats one of the possible options in the vote (option 1 is anything goes, option 2 is same but also guides people for their future posts on that topic after they posted something) if you want I can note one of those down as your vote

  • ericjmorey@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    Allow any posts and direct people in the comments to more specific communities for their future posts (people catching community)

    • Ategon@programming.devOPM
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      1 year ago

      thanks noted it down. You can delete that reply if you want if you want to keep your vote anonymous

      you can also give your second choice, third choice etc if you want if that doesnt get enough votes since its ranked voting (preferably in a dm to me to keep anonymity in the voting)

      sorry for the two deleted messages there, thought it was a dm in my notifs

      • ericjmorey@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        I don’t care much about anonymity in this scenario.

        My ranked choices would be as follows:

        Allow any posts and direct people in the comments to more specific communities for their future posts (people catching community)
        Allow all posts relevant to the instance (main community)
        Only allow crossposts into the community with things like news being posted in the specific community first (crosspost community)
        Dont allow questions of how to do X in X language but allow actual discussions or news about the language in addition to general topics (general & discussion community)
        Only allow topics that arent limited to one language, library, etc. (general topic community)
        

        Edit to add: if you set up some free third-party ranked choice survey, you might get more responses as there would be less friction to “vote”. But maybe that’s the opposite of what you want. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

    • Ategon@programming.devOPM
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      1 year ago

      thanks noted it down. note that if you want to keep it anonymous you can delete that

      You can also send your second choice, third choice, etc. in case that doesnt get enough votes as its ranked voting (preferably in a dm to me for anonymity)

  • Atiran@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I think it’s best to tend toward more permissive, so I vote for option 2.

    One thing I would suggest is this that while “help me” posts might not be appropriate, “this is how I fixed it” posts can be cool. So if someone decides to write a post or link an article about “how I fixed my remote docker debugger”, I think that’s great. But not so much “please help me fix my remote docker debugger”.

    Just my 2 cents.

    • Ategon@programming.devOPM
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      1 year ago

      alright noted it down. Yeah how I fixed X posts are nice. I tend to group that sort of thing into discussion since youre discussing a way to do something in the language

  • jack@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    A more restrictive approach seems like a massive mistake while the Lemmy community landscape is still in its infancy.

    With that in mind, Option 2 seems to offer the best flexibility for this community moving forward and best cross-pollination potential for Lemmy as a whole.

  • jadero@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I’ve already voted in a DM, so this is just general commentary.

    I like a combination of welcoming, general discussion mixed with instructive and helpful discussion of specific topics.

    To that end, I think that this specific community should welcome everyone and everything relevant to the instance, but direct people to more relevant communities as necessary. Where “as necessary” might evolve over time as this and other communities develop.

    I think the second option captures that nicely. I think the first option captures the welcoming, but at the expense of possibly burying things in details that would be more effectively handled by dedicated communities.

    Despite providing a ranking for the other options, I think they are all either weak compromises on what I’d like to see or outright unwelcoming. The only real reason for providing those rankings was to put the first option at the bottom :)

  • Mischala@lemmy.nz
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    1 year ago

    I was a big fan of /r/programming’s rules. I’m here to read about and discuss programming with like-minded persons.

    I’m not here to be tech support, and my music tastes are for music communities.

    Think I’m most keen on #1 But please require a tag on Help posts?

    • Ategon@programming.devOPM
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      1 year ago

      alright noted it down

      for help posts yeah we can require tagging. Im trying to build up a flair system for lemmy that should help eventually but I can see if I can get help posts for now started with [HELP] in the title or something similar

  • RonSijm@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I’m not familiar yet with the Lemmy API, but isn’t there a possibility to move posts around?

    For example someone posts “[HELP][Python] How to use Selenium correctly” in /c/Programming… A moderator could suggest the user to move their post to /c/Python instead

    As I mentioned in a post that presumably sparked this vote - communities are theoretically a node-tree - (/c/Python being a child of /c/Programming)

    so option #2 here would help people find the correct community for their next post, but that seems like a weird “sorting algorithm” - “this post is in the wrong spot, hopefully you’ll do better next time” - why not just move stuff around this time, instead of next time

    • Ategon@programming.devOPM
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      1 year ago

      true moving posts could be something that could be done if lemmy is set to deal with that. I can check to see how difficult that would be to put into lemmy and possibly push a patch out.

      If we get that functionality in we can do another poll to determine whether it should switch to that but for now im just polling these options since I assume it wont be a thing for a bit (I tried to push another patch out to the site to make the request community more prominent but it seemed to be having issues with certain aspects of the changes so that needs to be fixed before we can get some updates out)

  • ruffsl@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    My order of thoughts/preferences:

    • I think people catching will transition well for us the best, especially once mods can migrate posts to better suited communities.
    • General discussion would nicely reduce junior help questions, and improve the SNR for real discussions.
    • Cross posting would really encourage growth of the long tale of smaller communities here, but Lemmy mods can’t (yet) manual/auto merge threads over instance cross-posts (technical missing feature?) so keeping with a conventional main community is a bit better for now in avoiding too many duplicate posts across the instance, or splintering of discussions.
    • General topic only is a bit too restrictive, and could harm post traffic, while still making it difficult to moderate consistently.
  • troy@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I know ranked voting is a good system, but the options are a bit confusing to me as they don’t seem mutually exclusive. Perhaps it is correct, but I have never seen a ranked vote like this. For example, I believe you could allow cross posting in addition to allowing topics that are not limited to one language.

    • Ategon@programming.devOPM
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      1 year ago

      yeah all of the options allow cross posting but that last one is for forcing only crossposts. I can try to rewrite them in a bit with some examples. They are mutually exclusive though even though some have a bit similar rules

      edit: updated the post with some descriptions and examples in there to show whats allowed and disallowed

      • troy@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        My ranking attempt

        “3: Only allow topics that arent limited to one language, library, etc. (general topic community)” “5: Only allow crossposts into the community with things like news being posted in the specific community first (crosspost community)” “4: Dont allow questions of how to do X in X language but allow actual discussions or news about the language in addition to general topics (general & discussion community)” “2: Allow any posts and direct people in the comments to more specific communities for their future posts (people catching community)” “1: Allow all posts relevant to the instance (main community)”

        Basically desiring that posts be in their respective communities with the main community acting as a catch-all for posts that don’t fit into any existing community or announcements like community launches.

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    My vote is 4 2 1 3 5. I DMed, just sharing my thoughts.

    (I think the “or hyper specific towards it” part of option 4 needs to be removed because the rest of the description says it allows specific topics and that is the only thing separating it from option 3.)

    I find 3 (don’t allow topics related to a single technology) to be foolish. How do you even begin to count? Take Rails, isn’t that two, Ruby and Rails? Or Spring being two? Even if there was a proper and reasonable way to count it would just be so odd.

    Option 5 I rank the lowest because there doesn’t seem to be any cross posting functionality built in currently other than just sharing the URL. It just seems like an odd restriction.

    One of the most off putting things on Reddit was always over zealous moderators. They’d get more concerned with the letter of the law than the spirit. It’s annoying putting effort into something only to ha e someone seemingly flippantly remove it. I understand the desire for less posts people don’t want to see but we’re still very small. I don’t think we should be so concerned with that yet. Better to have relaxed rules for now.

    Just an anecdote, but on Reddit there were three communities for Java. r/java, r/learnjava, and r/javahelp. On top of that, r/java ONLY allows discussion of Java, not JVM languages or the JVM. It’s just exhausting. People just feel this need to organize things super rigidly I guess, but to contributors it just feels like people wanting to have dominion over their little sections of the internet.

    I think option 4 is probably the best middle ground. It most closely reflects r/programming which is what I think most people want to be close to. I know I just complained about the idea of splitting communities too much but I think having !programming be for things directly related to programming and then a community akin to the random section of a forum for things like music people like is a pretty common sense split in my opinion. Call it like programming_chat or something.

  • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    My vote is 4 2 1 3 5. I DMed, just sharing my thoughts.

    (I think the “or hyper specific towards it” part of option 4 needs to be removed because the rest of the description says it allows specific topics and that is the only thing separating it from option 3.)

    I find 3 (don’t allow topics related to a single technology) to be foolish. How do you even begin to count? Take Rails, isn’t that two, Ruby and Rails? Or Spring being two? Even if there was a proper and reasonable way to count it would just be so odd.

    Option 5 I rank the lowest because there doesn’t seem to be any cross posting functionality built in currently other than just sharing the URL. It just seems like an odd restriction.

    One of the most off putting things on Reddit was always over zealous moderators. They’d get more concerned with the letter of the law than the spirit. It’s annoying putting effort into something only to ha e someone seemingly flippantly remove it. I understand the desire for less posts people don’t want to see but we’re still very small. I don’t think we should be so concerned with that yet. Better to have relaxed rules for now.

    Just an anecdote, but on Reddit there were three communities for Java. r/java, r/learnjava, and r/javahelp. On top of that, r/java ONLY allows discussion of Java, not JVM languages or the JVM. It’s just exhausting. People just feel this need to organize things super rigidly I guess, but to contributors it just feels like people wanting to have dominion over their little sections of the internet.

    I think option 4 is probably the best middle ground. It most closely reflects r/programming which is what I think most people want to be close to. I know I just complained about the idea of splitting communities too much but I think having !programming be for things directly related to programming and then a community akin to the random section of a forum for things like music people like is a pretty common sense split in my opinion. Call it like programming_chat or something.

    • Ategon@programming.devOPM
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      1 year ago

      Yeah that part of option 4 was mostly meant for stuff like “here is a hotkey for how to do X in X” that I would equate to help posts. I can remove it though to make it a bit more clear

      Also btw you double replied