Improving tutorial section

[bajaist]

There are many great tutorials in tutorial section, but navigating them can be quite difficult. A quick search showed me that some suggestions were proposed before, but I haven't seen any change. So I'll propose them again, with some new ones: Better tutorial index, example A place to request tutorials Something like how to or guide section/prefix, for threads that are too short to qualify as tutorials Search by: Difficulty Time consumption Rating Not all of this is needed, probably just a first point would suffice. Also tutorial moderator (PurgeandFire ?) could give a better insight into need of any change. And if something is planned for Hive 2.0 I would like to hear about it. Cheerio

 

[N.Knight]

[*]Better tutorial index

+1 agreed. Isn't it ironic that so much emphasis is given to 'structure' when submitting a tutorial while the tutorial section itself is a haphazard of green lines, like a puzzle in a matrix. I would definitely prefer a more organized tutorial section.

Secondly, mostly I work offline (i have a limited internet, its expensive here) and have had felt a need to check a tutorial but for that I have to either save the complete web page or save it as a text file. Either of which are not practical because of all the pics and site scripts that are used in tutorials don't don't work offline. A save as PDF feature (like in wikipedia) would be most welcome. Note that online pdf converter apps don't support hive scripts (hidden tabs don't work )

 

[Zwiebelchen]

It would be cool if the tutorial section had user defined tags to browse them (instead of just general topics).

So for example, if I submit a tutorial about creating a simple respawn system, you could define tags like:
respawn, creeps, rpg, dota, revive, killed, etc.

 

[Kino]

It would be cool if the tutorial section had user defined tags to browse them (instead of just general topics).

This.
Also the tutorial section has a lot of "fat" that can be cut. Plenty of either repeated tutorials or bare minimum write-ups that can barely count as a tutorial.

 

[Ralle]

I like the idea of a wiki. But if we just throw it all in a wiki, we will end up with the same problem...

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I like the idea of a wiki. But if we just throw it all in a wiki, we will end up with the same problem...

The problem isn't really that the topics are not sorted. The problem is that there is no useful way of searching tutorials for a specific topic.

The board search usually yields results from outside the tutorial section aswell (especially if the tutorials are old). A robust tag-based search button for the tutorial section would be great (kind of like in the spells and model section) - the only problem would be to retrofit that tags into the submitted tutorials. Someone would have to browse all tutorials to assign those tags.

 

[gorillabull]

most of the tutorials are outright pointless, they are either written by people with 3 rep or some random 12 yr olds that created an account to download a few models.. the only tutorials ive ever found worth reading are from people who have been mods or who have had multiple contest wins. i have no idea why and how so many bad ones were approved but the tutorial section is full of unskilled people talking about how they do something (which is very very wrong)

 

[Chaosy]

most of the tutorials are outright pointless, they are either written by people with 3 rep or some random 12 yr olds that created an account to download a few models.. the only tutorials ive ever found worth reading are from people who have been mods or who have had multiple contest wins. i have no idea why and how so many bad ones were approved but the tutorial section is full of unskilled people talking about how they do something (which is very very wrong)

Not even close. I doubt that's even 5%.

There are quite a few who are written by people who have less than 300 posts and less than 50 rep (green gem), but that doesn't exactly make their skills shit. Nor does it mean why they registered.

But even so, I think the tutorial section could use a purge. Many methods used in the tutorials are outdated if nothing else.

 

[PurgeandFire]

I could make an index as a sticky in each individual tutorial forum, if that helps. I'm certainly open to suggestions. Perhaps I'd sort them by time--after all, the more recent ones tend to be better.

And yes, the tutorial section probably could use a purge. There are a lot of tutorials that were approved pre-2007 that don't comply with most of our rules. Some have useful information, but some are no longer useful (either because of outdated information, or because of missing images).

I may look into renaming titles to make their purpose more clear.

 

[Ralle]

I like the idea of indexes, but we also need to clean up the tutorials themselves. Purge, if you really have the time for this, go ahead.

 

[The Panda]

Updating the tutorials would be nice because sometimes i can't find the one I'm looking for. Also, it would be nice for the community to be able to submit tutorials and when we are done writing it up have it pending and have it reviewed just like a resource. just an idea.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Updating the tutorials would be nice because sometimes i can't find the one I'm looking for. Also, it would be nice for the community to be able to submit tutorials and when we are done writing it up have it pending and have it reviewed just like a resource. just an idea.

That's already 100% possible.

Also, it looks like a review/purge of the Tutorial section will probably be happening.

 

[The Panda]

That's already 100% possible.

Also, it looks like a review/purge of the Tutorial section will probably be happening.

Yeah, i seen that he's gonna fix it.

 

[Kino]

I think one strange thing that might work is to disable rep in the tutorial section.
It would definitely stop users from using tutorial submission as a "rep-farm" method.

 

[bajaist]

Well I'm glad to see that tutorial section will be given more attention. My only concern is whatever is being done (sorting, purging, adding tags...) there are so many tutorials to go through.

 

[Deathcom3s]

It will take some time, that is for sure. There are 6 pages of tutorials just in the General Mapping section alone. It won't be an immediate thing for sure, but something that is done over time.

 

[Asomath]

Why not appoint a temporary committee under a moderator. One strictly for the purpose of reviewing, revitalizing, and cutting the bulk of the tutorial section. Perhaps call them mini-mods and give them a different icon and some extra powers. But only allow them to change something if three mini-mods and a mod discuss the change. That'll stem the tide of tutorials!

~Asomath

 

[Chaosy]

Why not appoint a temporary committee under a moderator. One strictly for the purpose of reviewing, revitalizing, and cutting the bulk of the tutorial section. Perhaps call them mini-mods and give them a different icon and some extra powers. But only allow them to change something if three mini-mods and a mod discuss the change. That'll stem the tide of tutorials!

~Asomath

Interesting, I am not against it myself, but wasn't there mini mods before? and they were removed for whatever reason?

 

[The Panda]

Why not appoint a temporary committee under a moderator. One strictly for the purpose of reviewing, revitalizing, and cutting the bulk of the tutorial section. Perhaps call them mini-mods and give them a different icon and some extra powers. But only allow them to change something if three mini-mods and a mod discuss the change. That'll stem the tide of tutorials!

~Asomath

Seems legit to me.

 

[Asomath]

Interesting, I am not against it myself, but wasn't there mini mods before? and they were removed for whatever reason?

Haha, yeah. You caught the reference I was making. This situation just reminded me of the Map Section overload we had a few years back. We went through quite a few solutions to fix that one. Mini-mods were indeed one of them, but they ended up getting abolished a few months after their inception.

That being said, pouring some manpower into looking over this isn't a terrible idea.

~Asomath

 

[Rui]

I could be wrong, but, if I recall correctly, mini-mods weren't “abolished” so to speak. The thing is that having them required active management, which means having some patience to go through their reviews, find new people to join, etc. Apparently that is something the map moderators who succeeded me couldn't be arsed to do.

 

[Asomath]

I think it's about time this stupid system were to be removed. Mini-moderating have been proven to be a failure, and the system is completely useless. It's just polluting the resource page. There is only one feature of the mini-mod system that should be kept, and that's the "Report Resource" button as that one is quite useful.

Shortly afterwards it was ended right? But you're right. It wasn't abolished. It sort of died out. But for a temporary case, something organized might not be too bad...

~Asomath

P.S. Ah, Rui, the quality time we spent

 

[Ralle]

There's the map reviewers group which is basically the same thing as mini moderators for maps.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Aye, the mini-mods were a bit of an experiment that just didn't seem to pan out in the end.