Shut down the Snippets Section

[jdporter]

What do the Monks think about shutting down the Snippets Section? I think it would be a step in the right direction. We currently have three sections for posting code: Cool Uses for Perl (CUFP), Code Catacombs, and Snippets Section (this down from four — remember Craft?) Each of these sections uses a different node type for posts, and how they're meant to be used reflects their underlying node types.

• CUFP nodes are "ordinary" nodes (i.e. they're just like Meditations, SoPW, PMD, Poetry, Tutorials, News, and Obfu nodes). The difference is only in the "semantics" of the nodes — how they're intended to be used. CUFP is for general code posting.


• Code nodes are relatively complex, extending the "generic" node type with fields for category, description, and (now deprecated) contact info. The critical aspect here is the ability to categorize code posts, as can be seen at the top of Code Catacombs.


• Snippet does not extend the generic posting node type, but instead extends the "universal" node type with unique fields, making compatibility with other sections of the site problematic. The fields don't even offer anything special — just two text blobs, for code and description — merely a subset of what's available with the Code node type. As an example of the incompatibility, note that a Snippet can only contain one <code> block.

Add to that the fact that people continue to post inappropriate stuff in Snippets Section despite our best documentational efforts.

Bottom line: Having the Snippets Section gives us nothing but redundancy and confusion. Anything that could go in Snippets could very reasonably go in Code or CUFP instead.

For that matter, we could afford to shut down the CUFP section as well, because:

1. There's no such thing, for practical purposes, as a post which isn't seen as a challenge by readers or used as a launching point for discussions. Therefore, CUFP is redundant with Meditations.


2. The "Perl" in "Cool Uses For Perl" is an unfortunate and unnecessary restriction on the content of the section. We could rename the section, but it would be much less disruptive simply to redirect would-be CUFP posters elsewhere, e.g. to Meditations or the Catacombs, as appropriate. (If we really wanted to keep a separate section, but with a different name, but without renaming, we could reactivate Craft, as it is an "ordinary" section as well. )

As a secondary matter — what about moving nodes from deprecated sections to active sections? It would be trivial, for example, to move Craft nodes to CUFP. If we deprecated Snippets Section, it would be possible (if not quite trivial) to move its existing posts to the Code Catacombs. This way, we wouldn't have loads of good old posts mouldering in these forgotten sections.

(Relevant past discussions: Re: Visibility of code-like sections..., One Section to rule them all., The Plethora of Code Sections)

[Erez]

Having the Snippets Section gives us nothing but redundancy and confusion. ... For that matter, we could afford to shut down the CUFP section as well

Agreed on both points.
I read the site using the Newest Nodes and the Recently Active Threads pages, so I could take or leave either of the two, but in the sense of looking at the Monastery with the eyes of someone who searches for something specific (code, comment, topic), the distinction isn't making much sense.

I see the concept of the sections as general collection of similar topics. It should be broad enough that posters will be able to understand its functionality, but specific enough to prevent it from becoming a dump. In this sense, I might say that there are too few sections, and more sub-sectioning is needed, or that there are too many. Had this been a forum, or a repository, I'd support a more fragmented, and therefore specialised, format, but seeing the site as it is, I believe it is the other way that should do.
There are many section that overlap. We have an obfuscation AND poetry, snippets, CUFP and Code Catacombs, and SoPW, Categorized Q&A and Tutorials. Some of those parallel sections are creating a confusion.

With Perl, sometimes it you can say something very significant in a few (or one) lines, but sometimes it takes several pages, the distinction should not be made according to size.
Removing CUFP will move the code posts to the catacombs and the non-code use to the meditations, where they will be more available.

[zentara]

What's the difference? It all seems to be searchable on google anyways. As long as it's posted and stored somewhere on pair network's disk, people can find it.

But, if it makes life easier for the people who run perlmonks, to have well defined node types, it dosn't matter to me. I can see a problem though, where posters are constatntly admonished for posting such-and-such to the wrong category. :-) Why not just have 1 node type, and improve the search engine?

[jdporter]

You're absolutely right, if sections are meant to segregate posts by topical area. For this, what we really need is a working keyword/tag system. Because in fact, sections are really designed to enable different forms of discourse. I think we need to identify what form(s) of discourse we think make sense for code postings, and build our section design(s) around that. Even from this mindset, I don't see that Snippets Section is giving us anything useful.

[zentara]

what we really need is a working keyword/tag system.

Yeah, I was thinking last night about the mechanism I use to find code and old nodes..... I rely on the node title as I save it(I often rename them to be more descriptive). So what we really need is to have node titles be more descriptive and accurate, so when the search engine shows all the results, we can find good ones quicker. How about when you post a node, there is a little checkbox array, that you are required to select at least one, and that would be automatically prefixed to the title you give. Like "Question Code Meditation Perlmonks-related". Additionally, the search engine should be able to pull out nodes that use a certain module, like "find all nodes that contain "use MIME::Lite".

[dragonchild]

I'm trying to figure out why the distinction between Code and Meditations exists. Most RFCs are posted in Meditations as are most cool things people do. As far as I'm concerned, get rid of all three and push everything towards Meditations. If that's too radical, I say get rid of everything except for Code and have each of the elements be optional.

[Erez]

I'm trying to figure out why the distinction between Code and Meditations exists

It's what you expect to find when you go to each section.
You go to Code to look for programs, i.e. code that can be downloaded and edited or executed, and to Meditations for a debate over code, or for code that is shown not as a working program, but as a demonstration of a concept, or as a RFC.

[dragonchild]

I go to CPAN to find programs that I can download. I go to Perlmonks to discuss concepts and to learn. Code is a poor CPAN.

[pKai]

• Code nodes are relatively complex, extending the "generic" node type with fields for category, description, and (now deprecated) contact info. The critical aspect here is the ability to categorize code posts, as can be seen at the top of Code Catacombs.

[OT] Those categorized links would vastly enhance the usability of that part of the monastry, if they weren't just a manifest of ancient history, as they are now, showing only posts from the dawn of the monastry (year 2000 …)

Example: 679773 is the newest node shown on Code Catacombs. It is categorized as "Miscellaneous". But when you go to Miscellaneous, the newest post shown there is from September 2002.

Similar for the other category links.

[jdporter]

Thanks, pKai; very good point. We should fix that before we start encouraging people to use the Code Catacombs section.

[goibhniu]

I make a distinction between CUFP, Meditations and Catacombs as follows:

CUFP
focused on applications: I caught mice or solved a puzzle or cured cancer


Meditations
focused on discussion: "This is what I think about Perl6 what do you guys think" or "rah rah Perl vs. Python" or "This is what I think about being an IT proffessional"


Catacombs
focused on code: cannonical solutions or cool solutions for not-necessarily-cool uses of perl



I'm not really intending to say anything aginst your vision re: CUFP; I like the idea of consolidation. I only intend to express distinctions that seem useful to me now and weren't really represented in your OP. In fact, to the extent that these disctinctions are artificial in my head, they may be blocking me from finding something I'm looking for. I'm just giving a little feedback.

As to Snippets, I haven't found it useful enough to keep or un-useful enough to can. I'd let those with stronger opions speak about its usefulness or maintainability.

[oko1]

Bottom line: Having the Snippets Section gives us nothing but redundancy and confusion.

Heh. As a recent poster in 'Snippets', I suspected that it was something like this when you pinged me about it. On the one hand, I see no compelling reason to keep it: if it hadn't been there, I'd have posted my script somewhere else - one section or another would have made sense. No muss, no fuss, no greasy aftertaste.

On the other hand, there is, as you note, a cost to shutting it down. Is there a reason to pay that cost? In other words, is there a compelling reason - other than the implied-but-not-proven redundancy and confusion - to do the work? I certainly don't find myself confused (or made redundant) by it.