Having moderated a few other forums in the past (including bootstrapping a couple), I can definitely say that having few categories to start is best. It’s true that “Packages and Projects” is kind of a wildcard category right now, but that’s intentional. We can definitely add more categories as the need arises.
Also having many categories will make it harder for users who prefer the mailing list workflow, since each category has its own email address.
I expect that if you start with too many categories then many of them will not get used much in the early days. Unused categories lack the vibrance one hopes for in a community. It is better, I believe, to build the vibrance first by putting everyone in the same room until it gets too crowded.
Personally, I think projects and packages should be purely for announcements, since help with a package or project should go under help, shouldn’t it? In which case maybe just call the category Releases, or something less generic than “projects and packages”, since all of Go is about projects and packages…
Also, it’s generally good to make categories single words, since multiple words makes it harder to send posts by email, makes the tags on email notifications longer, etc. So I’d make them “help”, “community” “releases” “meta”, and “general” (I don’t think we need a forum for discussion about go itself, honestly… and a general category gives people a place to put things that might not fit anywhere else, like “what’s the hardest bug you’ve fixed?” etc.)
To help clarify our intention for the Projects and Packages category, I’ve renamed it to “Releases” and updated the description.
I do regular blog posts on Go. Right now, like @IndianGuru I am looking for a place to put these posts, and I don’t see any in your proposition.
I am not a huge fan of reddit. The tone and childish behavior of a few members is very good at destroying any good discussions.
Community?
The Technical Discussion category would probably be good for discussing Go blog posts.
To clarify, I agree with @matt that Technical Discussion is probably the best place to link to blog posts about Go because the majority of blog posts I’ve seen about Go are technical in nature. Since you, @klauspost, were asking about it, I figured you have a reason to think that Technical Discussion is not appropriate and if that’s the case, the alternative in my mind is Community.
I wanted to +1 the suggestion for a Code Review category or at least a defined place were these topics should be put. As a not-too-familiar with the language person this is a good way to receive feedback and improve very fast.
Yes, it makes sense. I guess I was looking for a place that was easy to “skip” for people uninterested in these things. I don’t want to annoy anyone, but lets see what the feedback is.
In addition to, or perhaps as an extension of, the code review idea mentioned above; I’d like to see a feedback section under projects. A place for those working on something or releasing something new to check the pulse on how valuable the project is and/or thoughts on general implementation. Sort of a “pre-Release” category.
I would think this fits well under the Getting Help category, no? You are actively seeking help in the form of code review.
Definitely code review = help, IMO. Same for pre-release.