So mine is a pretty simple suggestion.
I am curious, why the more popular forums *pokes New To Java*, don't have stickiest with Forum Rules? It would sure be nice to be able to point someone out who is obviously doing something stupid (ex: Posting their full homework, or their final project).
I am not saying that they have to be "rules" per say, i am saying something more like "guidelines". Just something that would allow for problems to be solved faster. Here are some suggestions:
- Thread Labels - Writing HELP ITS URGENT as a thread title is not only dumb, but it kills search engine rankings, and it doesn't help people in the future who have a specific problem.
- Specific Problems - Meaning not to just post your code and hope that someone will be bored enough to do it for you. (Specifically aiming this at Homework/Final projects that get posted all time)
- Post Errors - Saying that it doesnt work like it should, does not help anyone at all. It just makes the thread longer forcing members to ask "define BROKEN"
- Usage of IDEs - I am strcitly against absolute n00bs using IDEs. Notepad for the first few weeks, then textpad, gedit, vim, emacs, whatever else. Netbeans and Eclipse take away from a lot of core concepts that people need to learn (ex: classpath)
- Use [ code] tags - Having to format someones code only because they didnt use tags, is very very annoying.
There are a few others that i can think of, but here is just an idea
It would just be nice to point someone in the right direction when they ask how to make code tags and so on.