It would be fairly easy to add a Testing section to Catagorized Questions and Answers. I wonder if it might be more effective as a new catagory in the Tutorials section though. If it were added as a Q&A section, do we have enough people with testing Q/A stuff to quickly populate the new section? Remember, when you post a question to Q&A, you should be prepared to also post an answer as well. Q&A is about answers to common questions. If you have a specific question and don't know the answer, that's a Seekers of Perl Wisdom node.

Tutorials, on the other hand, would just need one or two people to write something good to get the new catagory off the ground.

I don't know what the right answer is. Let's hear some opinions, and then we can get it implemented if there's enough support for it.

I hadn't thought about Tutorials, but I can see that it would be convenient.

The testing disciplines are distinct enough to justify separate treatment of, for instance, UI tests and coverage tests. This would be easier in Tutorials than Q&A.

I'm still not certain that there will be enough interest to justify changing PM, but I could certainly contribute things on UI-testing and theory that have no real home today.

I believe the keyword nodelet was intended to allow for user categorization of nodes but the search by keyword function was never implemented. This might be a better way of aggregating content than creating new sections for every hot topic. Maybe you can convince some ambitious pmdev to create the search functions.

The keyword nodelet was probably added with that in mind, but as it stands, it isn't particularly useful for much other than as a way to anonymously add words to nodes, often insulting ones. Thankfully, it is mostly ignored so far.

For it to be less abused, it would need to be subject to moderation (make adding keywords a level power, show who added each keyword, and allow voting on keywords). However, I doubt keywords would become verywhere¹ enough that they'd become very useful.

Therefore, I think the best thing to do with the keyword nodelet is to delete it. But if someone wants to enhance keywords as described, then I'll add searching based on them and we can see if any keywords become useful. (:

- tye        

¹ Update: I replaced "ubiquitous" since "ubiquitous enough" probably bothers some pedants. I replaced it with "verywhere" which is like "everywhere" but not quite as much. Thanks to diotalevi for (accidentally, I think) coining this useful word.

I had been looking at the current keyword stuff (before my 2 weeks off anyway), with a view to making it moderated etc. I might actually do it, unless someone else gets there first ;) I agree that the current implemenation is pretty useless..

C.

I'm surprised, but after a little consideration: sure, I would be interested. I would like to know more about what QandAEditors do from day to day, though.

Also, my background is in system/functional testing and theory, not unit/CPAN testing. I am not at all familiar with the Test::* modules-- but I'm learning, slowly. That might be a factor?

This is one Q & A Editor's perspective...

Long ago, there was a flurry of Q&A work to do. There was a steady stream of posts made in the Q & A section that really belonged in SoPW. Now, QA Editors have a nifty tool to move those posts in one fell swoop. There were a lot of posts that needed cleanup, many duplicates, etc...

Nowadays, things are pretty stable. I like to check the new questions and answers from the Newest Nodes page (BTW, those still show up in Newest Nodes, right? I haven't seen any lately), cleaning up anything I see. Vote up the good ones, kill anything ridiculous...

If you're really interested, petition a god or someone who can bless you into the position, pointing them to some of your most helpful, quality-conscious, community-oriented posts and see what happens.

Russ

Looks like new sections are added by adding them to Categorized Q&A Sections.

Looks like new sections are added by adding them to Categorized Q&A Sections.

It seems like this is broken. I havent the foggiest how it works actually so im not sure how its broken. I fiddled with it on test one time, but its broken there too. And actually something that I did a while back with theorbtwo broke the test server even more (we changed the indexes and the primary key to prevent duplicates in the same nodegroup. But foolishly I didnt by the orderby or rank field in the index. Actually i havent figured out why we have both.)

Anyways, as ill say in a repy to the root of this thread, the new section is added. :-)



---
demerphq


First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-- Gandhi

Seeing as the Q&A editors want this added and you've volunteered to manage the section I have created it.

As they say: "Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it." :-)

Oh, i put you in the Q&A editors group too. :-)

Abigail

There is a CGI category under the Categorized Questions and Answers section. And there is a GUI Programming catagory there too, as well as a catagory for Regular Expressions, Object Oriented Programming, Programs and Processes, Hashes, and so on.



Dave

Yes, and there exist sections devoted those topics. I'm interested in testing in and of itself, and wonder if there's enough interest from others to justify adding a section such as the other ones found in Q&A.