Request to split ArcGIS geoprocessing forum into subtopics

[ChrisSnyder]

Hi,

I noticed that the ArcGIS "Functions" forum topics have the following breakdown as of 08/09/2010:


(apologies for the poor formatting...)
FORUM----------------------------THREADS%-------POSTS%
-------------------------------------------------------------------
CAD Data--------------------------1.00%------------0.64%
Cartography-----------------------4.44%------------4.36%
Data Models-----------------------3.08%------------2.14%
Enterprise GIS--------------------0.79%------------0.42%
Geocoding-------------------------0.36%------------0.16%
Geodatabases/ArcSDE------------27.22%----------27.94%
Geoprocessing--------------------45.27%-----------48.01%
Imagery/Raster Data-------------12.61%-----------12.11%
Interoperability and Standards--1.29%-------------0.73%
Map Automation------------------3.15%-------------3.18%
Map Templates--------------------0.79%-------------0.31%
Nautical Mapping------------------0.00%-------------0.00% (Nautical Mapping?)
----------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL------------------------------100%--------------100%

Based on this summary, it is quite easy to see that the Geoprocessing forum topic has by far the most traffic in terms of thread topics and "chatter" about those topics. I would like to formally request that esri split the existing Geoprocessing forum topic into at least three subtopics:

1. Geoprocessing (General)
2. ModelBuilder
3. Scripting (e.g. Python) - Personally I would put 'Map Automation via Python scripting' in here as well since it is so related...

Another simpler option would be to just create a new forum topic called "Scripting" 🙂

As a dedicated contributor to the poorly organized existing Geoprocessing forum, I find it hard to continue my contributions when there is an ever-increasing volume of seemingly non-relevant thread posts and an ever increasing level of disorganization within (in it's current state) an EXTREEMLY broad topic that obviously needs to be split into at least several sub-topics. in it's current incarnation, it includes nearly half of all the posts in the entire ArcGIS "Functions" category. Seems a bit out of whack to me...

Also, I have to say it: I am baffled that there is an apparently new forum topic called "Nautical Mapping" (0 posts so far), and NOT a dedicated ModelBuilder or Scripting forum. Cmon... Nautical Mapping? :confused: What the?!?!

Please esri - I am not alone in my frustrations here...

[ArcGISUser]

Just to recap a little...

The old style for GP were three forums: 
"ArcGIS Desktop - Geoprocessing ArcToolbox"
"ArcGIS Desktop - Geoprocessing Modelbuilder"
"ArcGIS Desktop - Geoprocessing Scripting (Python, JavaScript, VB)"


At the moment we have some support for three new ones:
"Geoprocessing Tools"
"Modelbuilder"
"Python Scripting"


...and then seeing who else jumps on Chris' idea for a 4th:
"Geoprocessing Workflows"

Sounds like the same thing...  So no split.

With a General GP questions category, a majority of people (mostly new users) may post model or python related questions in the general category anyway.  Lots of people ignore the different categories and add to a general category because it usually has more posts. More posts = More activity.  More activity = More people reading the threads.  And then they'd think that if more people are reading a specific forum = Most likely that someone will answer their questions. It has happened with ArcGIS Desktop-General. Cartography related questions? More people will post to ArcGIS Desktop General than the specific "Cartography" category (which can already be confusing). Map Templates? It is the same scenario. People want to post to a forum or subforum with the most activity.

Okay, so let's say we did separate it out into GP Tools, GP Python, GP Model builder, and GP General?  How "general" are we talking about here?  What kind of questions could be left to post in the GP general category without mentioning a tool, script or model?  Sounds odd�?�

I don't know... My 2 cents.

[TedCronin]

Makes Sense to me Goh_Raj, in that More posts = More activity. More activity = More people reading the threads And then they'd think that if more people are reading a specific forum = Most likely that someone will answer their questions, I even imagine that for a treat = Bart would switch sides as well.

[ArcGISUser]

I guess a bit of clarification.  It seems that slowly but surely more forum sections are being generated, and now they want SDE broken out, so that is what I mean by old style. Fix the search, institute better tagging. Less is more.

I agree with this comment.

[ChrisSnyder]

More posts = More activity. More activity = More people reading the threads And then they'd think that if more people are reading a specific forum = Most likely that someone will answer their questions

Using this logic, ESRI should then only have a single forum, as that would surely maximize/consolidate posts...

My assertion is that if ESRI can provide MEANINGFULLY FOCUSED forum topics, it will results in more and better answers to threads. Why? It's simple: People that contribute their time to answering questions are interested (and hopefully knowledgeable) in the topics that they contribute to. I contribute time to answering topics about geoprocessing work flows, Python scripting, and sometimes spatial analyst stuff. I do not care at all about topics like: "Business Map", "ESRI Nautical Mapping Solutions", or "ArcScetch" (amazingly, each one of these has its own forum topic). If all these random topics are lumped together, contributors like my self - BTW: generally a thread contributor and not a thread creator - are left to wade through a bunch of content that is completely irrelevant to their interest and knowledge base. No one user has excellent knowledge/experience of all ESRI software/programming/functions/features/etc. However, many of us have excellent knowledge/experience in a few specific areas, and these are the topics that we care to contribute to.

As a potential contributor to a single "ESRI Forum", how would I find the topics that I am interested in contributing to? By scanning through 500 posts per day? By using a basically non-existent/enforced/functioning tagging method? Cmon...
OR
As a contributor, would I be more likely to contribute if I knew the questions posted on on a focused forum were specific to my area of knowledge and expertise? YES! This idea is only good to a point of course. There is no use in having a forum called "The Clip Tool". There is clearly not enough user apeal or "critical mass" for such a narowly focused forum.

If ESRI "got it" that some topics and concepts have a much wider audience than others (Case in point: "Python Scripting" vs. the "ESRI Nautical Solution"), they could provide a more MEANINGFULLY FOCUSED forum design. If maybe 20% of forum users might use ModelBuilder and/or Python scripting, but < 1% use the ESRI Nautical Solution it seems a no brainer if the idea was to consolidate topics in a meaningful way. The concepts/topics of "Python Scripting" and "Model Builder" clearly have a wide user base and enough critical mass to kindel a lively comunity of contributors that benifits everyone - this was clearly demonstrated in the old forum design that broke out "Model Builder" and "Python Scripting". Clearly, other topics like "MapStudio" and "Public Safety" do not have the same critical mass, and therfore it's questionable to me as to why they have their own specific forum topic.

Okay, so let's say we did separate it out into GP Tools, GP Python, GP Model builder, and GP General? How "general" are we talking about here? What kind of questions could be left to post in the GP general category without mentioning a tool, script or model? Sounds odd�?�

The idea was simply to rename the existing "Geoprocessing" forum so that instead of "Geoprocessing" we have something like:

• "Geoprocessing Tools/Workflows/General" (previously known as "Geoprocessing")


• "Python Scripting Automation"


• "Model Builder Automation"

Only two new forums are being created here.

While we're at it, maybe get rid of those forums that have <= 25 threads (which BTW is about 45% OF THEM!!!). See for yourself: http://forums.arcgis.com/forums/3-ArcGIS

[LornaMurison]

I completely agree with Chris Snyder,
If we're worried about having too many forums, we should not be looking at this rather popular one as part of the problem.
I suggest just having:
Geoprocessing - Model Builder
Geoprocessing - Scripting (python etc...)
Geoprocessing - Other

I think that a forum called "other" won't attract as many posts as one called "general", as someone else mentioned a while ago.

If the searching/keywords/tags could be fixed to make posts a lot easier to find, I would be all for it, I just don't see that happening 🙂

[TedCronin]

I think that a forum called "other" won't attract as many posts as one called "general", as someone else mentioned a while ago.

If the searching/keywords/tags could be fixed to make posts a lot easier to find, I would be all for it, I just don't see that happening 🙂

I agree. And its not happening fast enough.  Nice to have a tag cloud, and one separate forum for python does make sense. 

To have a python forum, you really could rename perhaps the Cartography forum, or others where people may accidentally post py related issues.  I agree with Jesusa in that there are some forums that are being underutilized.  Chris is right in the sense where all of these forums that have less than 25, and there are quite a few, could be joined together to streamline the page a bit more. 

Python has the potential to just have a lot of topics that may need get covered in its own category.  There are so many uses that you have given us at 10, that it would be nice to have the capability to just have access to the 1 python forum.  People can post server related issues, desktop, other modules and packages that people are using to get their job done, table/field scripting, and I got to think there will be more good stuff at 10.1  Then we get into all the different toolboxes, there is just the potential to have alot of diverse posts about python, which why I am thinking, a python category makes sense.

Oh and Jim, BDFL is a good thing 🙂 At least with python.

[ChrisSnyder]

Since I too think ModelBuilder is quite evil, it wouldn't make too sad at all to see it quietly ignored. Contrary to my conviction of it's insidious nature, ModelBuilder does have a large user following and a lot of people have created therads about it, so there would be people benefiting by having a ModelBuilder forum. If someone feels passionate about that one though, they can take up the fight...

I'll admit that my true motive here is to have a separate "Python Scripting" forum, and if so if it's a means to an end, I would be happy with:

• Geoprocessing ({'Other' | 'General' | 'Nothing' | 'Whatever'}):confused:


• Python Scripting :cool:

[ArcGISUser]

Using this logic, ESRI should then only have a single forum, as that would surely maximize/consolidate posts...

No, this was just an observation.  You can�??t deny that this isn�??t currently happening.

While we're at it, maybe get rid of those forums that have <= 25 threads (which BTW is about 45% OF THEM!!!). See for yourself: http://forums.arcgis.com/forums/3-ArcGIS

Where do you suggest they go?  What would they be lumped together as?


At one point, I did want some of the forums divided into more subforums (like the old forum structure), but by reading past discussions on similar topics, I am leaning towards not splitting them and became a big supporter of enhancing/improving the search and tagging capabilities. So way back during the first few weeks of opening up the new forums to the public, Jim mentioned why Esri designed the new forums the way they did. I had to sift through some older posts, but I agree with what Jim had said.  Sorry Jim if I am not supposed to post so many of your responses, but some of them just stick out in my mind.

Post from New Site Very Disappointing:

What we really want to do is to design and mold the organization and functionality of the forums to generate the most input, discussions, and make it easiest and most valuable to use for most users.   It's not logical nor appropriate for us to ask everyone to change just for the sake of change, when that change makes everything more difficult.  That would be ridiculous.   But as with any system that is used by many people, we have to be careful when making changes.  Every one much be checked out to make sure that changing one thing for a few doesn't make other things more difficult for most, with special emphasis on those who actually do more contributing than consuming.

>most of those people do not use search engines to find any new posts  that would fall into their field of expertise
 
I would agree.  I've never heard of users who do this.  And I've not even done this myself with the old forums.  The tool was too weak and not designed for that.  I went to the very specific forums that I happened to know were there, and that in effect became a built-in query filter.  That also assumes topics that should be in that specific forum are always there too, which we pretty much all know wasn't completely the case.  But again, I knew the forum landscape like the back of my hand.

When it comes to volunteers who provide assistance in the forums, I'm hearing from just a few so far who consider themselves experts but only in very small niche areas of the ArcGIS system. Isn't it true (and we could be wrong) that most GIS Professionals have knowledge to share and areas of interest to learn than just one extension or set of tools? With these new coarse grained categories these folks can now go to perhaps one or two forums rather than a few, or dozens, or 50, 60, etc.? From those folks we would often hear "I don't use your forums because they're too detailed.  I don't know where to ask my question. ESRI tends to want to overconfuse things, like the forums." and others along those lines.   I'm also not hearing what your experience has been with straddle topics and misposting. The coarse grained forums also then expose users to questions and opportunities to hear about and learn about things they might not have while focused on smaller areas (not the primary reason, but another benefit we've noticed.)

That said, in a significant way I'm absolutely not disagreeing with anyone in this thread.  We understand how the forums were used because we used them too, and many of us were users of ESRI stuff long before we got here to ESRI.   There are a few that have said, "if I no longer have my very specific niche forum, then if I want to browse rather than search, I need to wade through lots of topics I'm not interested in".  I get that.  I do.   But any design must be inversely analyzed too, and then implemented to fit the most common use cases.   Everyone's interested in slightly different things, and not all threads are of interest to everyone, we get that too. 

In the end it will come down to data that we pull out of the system.  If they get more users, more views, more queries, more time spent around the site, answered more, queried more, then that will confirm what we're all doing.  Else it won't and we'll need to modify things immediately and as we go in order to keep this tool valuable for everyone, especially for the contributors.

Quotes taken from Who wants the old forums back:
Jim is responding to:

Totally agree with Sean's earlier post. If your field of knowledge is in certain areas it is alot more difficult now to reply to posts and find answers too. For this one reason I have helped alot less people since the switch over.

I think many would agree with that to some point.  Even for most of us here at Esri it would be tough to argue against that from that perspective.   If we had forums clearly labeled and organized by fine-grained topics like "Topology", it might make it easier for people with Topology questions to ask them, and definitely easier for people expert with topology to answer them. 

Just a few things I can toss in to help explain why we didn't do it that way this time:

a.  With the old forums, we did have those very fine-grained topics.  But that led to there being almost 400 of them.  It's not reasonable to expect that users should sift through forums to become familiar with what's there and what's not when there are that many.  We received many complaints about this over the years.  And that's not counting how many users perhaps didn't complain because they were too overwhelmed and just didn't use them and never came back.   And the usage data is clear that many just posted into the nearest "...-General" forum they could find so that they didn't have to hunt and peck for a specific forum that may or may not be there.   You might "think" all of the topology issues are in the topology forum, but they're not.   We had to find a middle ground between users who don't know and experts who do know. 

b.  Some users with an issue that relates to the concept of Topology might not know that term yet.  Or maybe they do but don't know that the solution to their problem involves Topology.

c.  If you know your issue or question relates to topology and you want to search for it before posting, if you're good with keywords and you understand what you're looking for, the search will find it, cutting across all of the forums.   That includes the product-based "Products" forums and the more workflow-based "Functions" forums.

d.  Many issues using ArcGIS are more general and broad than specific categories can encompass.   This causes a lot of cross-posting, misposting, and users saying "I'm using ArcGIS, where does my question go?".

So, between the search tool, broad issues, users not fully understanding the nature or solution to their problem (which is why they're here asking on the forums), seems we're better off with more general categories than specific ones.   Seems to be working well so far.  Well, except for Extensions, which is why we ended up splitting those back out.

Another trade off.  What we found is that the almost 400 fine-grained specific categories in the old forums were more difficult to learn and use than necessary.  And frequent mis-posting provided an illusion that each category contained all relevant discussions when that was often enough not the case.   Not to mention topics that straddled two or more of the fine-grained categories.   

We found that users would rather rely on a good search engine (both from inside or from outside our site) to find information then by learning a complex site layout and trying to navigate to it.   The categories still have enough granularity to support groups of users with similar interests.
Perfect?  No.  But dealt a set of cards, we're playing the strongest ones based on user requests and usability testing.

I think ESRI needs to improve the search and tagging capabilities.  So far, there isn't an overwhelming majority who want a split.

[TedCronin]

I agree, Goh_Raj, that Jim is a very smart person who has a lot of good stuff on the forums to refer back to, and has a lot of reference for designing the forums, he has A LOT of experience with these forums.

Father knows best.  Less is more.

I Second the better search capability, again...

[ArcGISUser]

Keeping the GP forum as is forces (or opens up) new or current toolbox or modelbuilder users to read or glance at python related discussions.  Maybe seeing these discussions and solutions can spark some curiosity and help convert these users to using Python.  I think that would be pretty cool!  These users need to see people exclaiming how awesome python is! 😉