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Hey everyone,
First of all I hope that this thread is placed in the right sub-forum otherwise, sorry please move it.
1) Introduction
It's been a while since TeamLiquid.net was created. Exactly 10 years and 96 days.
A lot changed in that period of time and we now have a large community of people that are passionate about Starcraft and DotA.
Coincidently (or not) it happens that we also like to talk about various other topics that don't have anything to do with games or eSports like politics, economics, education, traveling, movies, music and much more.
Although large communities like Team Liquid are composed of people coming from very different backgrounds and countries, we can often find some interests that are shared by others.
Sometimes these interests are only shared on a small post in a TL sub-forum, sometimes the response of the community is so large that a new site is created (e.g : Liquid Poker).
I think that DotA would be another example of this. In the beginning, TL.net was (eSport wise) mostly about Starcraft : BW and later on also Starcraft II, but it happens that quite a lot of staff members and community members played and liked DotA II so a new sub-forum was born.
Liquid even welcomes a new team of that very game now.
The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes, we can use these shared hobbies / activities and organize them in such a way that bigger things can be done (like the DotA team and Liquid Poker).
2) Programming community
So in the one year I've been around on TeamLiquid (which is nothing compared to pillars of the community like Jinro who are contributing since 2002), I've seen a lot of people, who like me enjoy / talk about programming and computer science.
You have programming threads (created by tofucake, currently 222 pages in 2.5 years), gaming related programs (SC2Gears, Evolution Chambre, Open Broadcaster Project), computer science theses (Map Analysis Tool) and many websites (SC2 Radio which sadly failed, SC2 Earnings).
Team Liquid even announced their new sponsor "Barracuda Networks" (link to the announcement here) who's currently looking to hire highly qualified programmers (hiring thread here).
What I'm trying to show is that there are a lot of programming projects related to Starcraft and eSport in general, built by professionals, amateurs and students.
The problem is that it takes a lot of time to build and maintain web sites and software.
Even TeamLiquid.net, from what I know is programmed and maintained only by R1CH.
There is a way to contribute to Liquipedia (Liquidpedia - How to contribute), there isn't a way to contribute to the site. The Liquipedia team even streams some of their article wiki page refactoring / maintaining sessions.
3) The proposal
I think it would be a cool idea to make a new step forward with the TL programming / computer science community.
The idea would be to create a new sub-forum or site parallel to TL.net (like Liquid Poker) about programming that would expand the capabilities offered by conventional threads.
Here under is a list of some functionality ideas I had that could be awesome :
- tutorials about / learning programming languages / frameworks
- syntax highlighting
- sharing project ideas
- listing programmers and their skills
and most importantly in my opinion :
- finding programmers that can help you build and maintain gaming / eSports related projects
- contributing to TeamLiquid.net by helping (R1CH) to code new features or site redesigns
In computer science it happens very often that students don't have a lot of practical experience especially working on large projects.
It could be a cool idea to open-source TeamLiquid.net and organize a GitHub where less experienced programmers could code on sub-branches which would then be peer reviewed by more seasoned programmers.
The opportunity to contribute on a large open-source project that you love together with other eSports / gaming passionate programmers could be awesome !
It could even be mentioned on CVs as a programming experience !
4) Conclusion
Of course there are lots of sites to learn programming, no doubt about that. You have sites like Stackoverflow, Code Academy, Code School, ...etc.
But I just think that it would be a lot more motivating and enjoyable for people if it is directly related to something you love, teamed-up with other members of the community that have two hobbies in common with you.
I fully understand that this would be a big leap forward but in the end I think that amazing things can be done from developing and organizing our community.
A way of exploiting the community to it's full potential.
Please comment and share your thoughts on this idea !
You can also give your opinion on the subject by voting on this poll :
Poll: Would you like to see a programmingYes. It should be a sub-forum. (199) 78% I don't care. (23) 9% No. Team Liquid should only be about gaming. (14) 5% Yes. It should be a parallel site. (13) 5% No. There aren't enough programmers on Team Liquid. (7) 3% 256 total votes Your vote: Would you like to see a programming (Vote): Yes. It should be a sub-forum.
(Vote): No. Team Liquid should only be about gaming.
(Vote): Yes. It should be a parallel site.
(Vote): No. There aren't enough programmers on Team Liquid.
(Vote): I don't care.
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I would say a sub-forum although i believe there would be more people interested than Liquid Poker.
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I'm not sure if the membership base would be here to make this work, that said i for one would love such a sub-forum. I would be more than willing to lend the (in the scheme of things; minuscule) knowledge I've learned over my years of programming to helping out newer programmers or to participate in projects when i have free time.
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It would be much cooler to open source team liquid and allow programmers to submit patches to the core site. This allows speeding up features the liquid team wants to bring to light, as well as allowing the submission of previously not thought of features. Then there's a better reason for a subforum besides 'programmers use this site' which is true of every gaming community site. Except maybe Maple Story.
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Cool idea  I voted for sub-forum, because I just know I won't look at the forum nearly as often if it's a different site all together. I'll try to contribute where I can. Drenched in work, however. Speaking of which, I'd best get to it :p.
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I want a math forum where we can teach you how to count.
+ Show Spoiler +5) Conclusion
Should be 4) Conclusion
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Yes, I too think that the best way to implement this idea would be by creating a sub-forum but also by adding features like syntax highlighting of source code.
It would be easier than copy / pasting code from pastebin / quadpads and stuff like this.
On December 26 2012 23:22 Yoshi- wrote:I want a math forum where we can teach you how to count. + Show Spoiler +5) Conclusion
Should be 4) Conclusion
Oups, sorry ! Fixed it.
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i'd love a subforum if tl.net had a big enough base to justify it, but i am not sure that it does.
edit: as for open source / helping out - i have no grounds to make up an informed opinion, but kinda sounds like a bad idea.
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*gasp* and tweak with R1CH's beautiful website forum? I am not worthy. (voted for subforum)
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I voted for sub-forum, but instead of just a programming sub-forum, why not have a tech sub? Merge the tech support forum into that group and also add things like programming, IT, hardware etc. It's hard for me to believe that it wouldn't get any use.
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On December 27 2012 00:01 turamn wrote:
I voted for sub-forum, but instead of just a programming sub-forum, why not have a tech sub? Merge the tech support forum into that group and also add things like programming, IT, hardware etc. It's hard for me to believe that it wouldn't get any use.
I dont' know but the tech support sub isn't really about programming. It's more about asking question around computer specs and hardware.
Generally for people that visit the sub it's more of a one-time question, not about learning hardware assembly or other tech related subjects.
The sub-forum I envisioned would be a lot more structured and ideally have some cool tools that would make it much easier for people to find other programmers that have the skills needed to contribute.
Maybe also add features to the TL programming IRC or other cool options.
Of course everything would depend on R1CH's opinion about this idea.
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I really like this idea and I support it.
Thanks to the OP for the nice presentation as well!
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@Mods : I know that "Website feedback" is the right sub-forum for this thread, but I wondered if it would be possible to move the thread back to "General" or maybe "Starcraft II" / "Tech Support" just so that the thread gets a little more visibility at the start. Thanks !
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If you believe in this cause (and it does seem a worthy one), get others that share your interests and passion to post here in support.
Surely if there are enough people to justify a programming sub-forum you can get a few dozen to post in here to show solidarity.
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As a new computer science programmer there is no better way to learn than hands on experience from what I've experienced do far. Creating calculators and banking projects gets old and dry. It would be much more fun contributing to small portions of programs used on TL and e-sports.
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I like this idea a lot aswell. I study computer science(3rd year), but i've never really had much motivation to program on my own and thus don't have too much practical experience. This would definitly give me the boost in motivation that I need.
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The website itself isn't suited for an open-source model. If it were, it would have done so long ago. There's a reason why most community sites don't let just anybody submit modifications - separating all of the junk from the actually beneficial changes would be far too time-consuming, and it would probably prove more of a challenge than just reading through site suggestions. There's no significant benefit for the website becoming open-source. A group of people could just host their own open-source website project if they wanted to do something similar.
A sub-forum, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely. The programming "sub-community" would have to be at least as large as the Health & Fitness sub-community - or, at least, programming would have to require a sub-forum more than health and fitness. I don't think that's necessarily the case, though. The thread is active in its own right, and it's not as if anything becomes convoluted simply because it's restrained to a single thread. It would be hard to discern what the purpose of the sub-forum would be. As I see it, there are a few purposes:
1. A general help forum
2. A "share your project" forum
3. A team-gathering forum
The first is covered by the plethora of sites that are already dedicated specifically to programming. The second can be covered by blogs. The third seems almost like advertising, in my opinion. There isn't exactly an absolute necessity for a separate sub-forum on its own (as interesting as it might seem).
I could be wrong, though. If a sub-forum would be immensely helpful to a large number of TLers, I would love to see it happen :D
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On December 27 2012 03:34 Zeke50100 wrote:
The website itself isn't suited for an open-source model. If it were, it would have done so long ago. There's a reason why most community sites don't let just anybody submit modifications - separating all of the junk from the actually beneficial changes would be far too time-consuming, and it would probably prove more of a challenge than just reading through site suggestions. There's no significant benefit for the website becoming open-source. A group of people could just host their own open-source website project if they wanted to do something similar.
A sub-forum, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely. The programming "sub-community" would have to be at least as large as the Health & Fitness sub-community - or, at least, programming would have to require a sub-forum more than health and fitness. I don't think that's necessarily the case, though. The thread is active in its own right, and it's not as if anything becomes convoluted simply because it's restrained to a single thread. It would be hard to discern what the purpose of the sub-forum would be. As I see it, there are a few purposes:
1. A general help forum
2. A "share your project" forum
3. A team-gathering forum
The first is covered by the plethora of sites that are already dedicated specifically to programming. The second can be covered by blogs. The third seems almost like advertising, in my opinion. There isn't exactly an absolute necessity for a separate sub-forum on its own (as interesting as it might seem).
I could be wrong, though. If a sub-forum would be immensely helpful to a large number of TLers, I would love to see it happen :D
Although I agree with you on the fact that it is tedious to separate "junk" code of the good parts, this could be drastically improved by organizing the community of contributing coders in a pyramidal way like the Web of trust.
Each floor reviews the code of the floor beneath and from a certain floor on you consider that you "trust" those people and they can commit changes to the master branch.
But it is true that it can be complicated to make changes to a big site so concentrating on just adding new features with a modular structure to the source code could be a much easier alternative if it comes to that.
Your right when you say that it has no benefits for TeamLiquid.net immediately, but after a while when things are organized, it could greatly help the update / patch release frequency which would also in turn motivate people to make suggestions. Also, a side effect of this would be the multiplication of solid gaming / eSports related website and software and good code in general.
Like I said in my first post, a big factor will be that people will have the opportunity to work on a large project (which many didn't do yet) about a subject that actually matters for them.
And I completely disagree that 3. is the same as advertising. If someone has an idea but doesn't posses all the skills needed to realize that very idea, in 99 out of 100 cases he will just abandon and sometimes it is just vital for an already launched website to find more qualified people.
Edit : I also feel that something like a sub-forum plus a syntax highlighting plug-in could greatly improve the current situation since a (very) long post isn't really well suited to this use.
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I would love to have a subforum where people could collaborate on new features or programs and it's always great to find people that share even more interests than you thought
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Would love it myself
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EPT
