Tutorials Subforum

[OMGCarlos]

For whatever reason, I love helping people out with code which is the reason I joined this forum. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to maintain my own website for tutorials, but I would certainly be able to post an article here and there in a subforum. Perhaps a subforum for each of the main forums (Content, Design Your Site, Code Your Site, etc)?

Then you could have a "Featured" tutorials section, just like how you have the "Highlighted Forum Discussions" section already. This would also help perpetuate ideas faster than any individual blog could, and allow those who enjoy to teach or those who can't/don't have the time to create their own blog to post helpful articles.

Maybe you could also take the "Best of the Best", maybe one a week or whatever and feature it over at the SitePoint Main (non-forum) page as an incentive. Maybe with a +1 button on article pages.

[ralph.m]

At least one member has already had a go at this in the PHP forum. Such threads can be stickied, or at least included in a list in one of the stickies. Forums can't really be a replacement for a blog, though, as their primary purpose it different.

[Stevie D]

Back in the hazy days of the past, when I first started calling in here, there was a much greater overlap between the main Sitepoint website and the Forums – articles on the website had follow-up discussions in the forums and threads on the forums referred back to articles on the website. I guess one of the reasons why that doesn't happen so much these days is that an awful lot of the tutorial ground has already been covered, so there's less scope for writing something concrete and new, whereas writing about intangibles is more fertile ground.

Maybe @HAWK could let us know whether the good folks at SPHQ would be keen to have articles and tutorials written by forum members?

[HAWK]

...articles on the website had follow-up discussions in the forums and threads on the forums referred back to articles on the website. I guess one of the reasons why that doesn't happen so much these days...

We stopped doing that because they just became spam and fluff traps unfortunately.

Maybe @HAWK could let us know whether the good folks at SPHQ would be keen to have articles and tutorials written by forum members?

Absolutely! I am very keen on community generated content and can't encourage you enough to write! Go for it. If it's something that would appeal to our wider audience (or niche audiences) then we'll talk about using it on the main site, if not then I love the idea of tutorials etc here on the forums.

So I guess I'll throw this open to everyone. If you love writing and would like to try your hand at an article or tutorial, then by all means do it.

[OMGCarlos]

I've been lurking the forums since last spring, and recently only just started posting, so I'm going to feel really stupid when I say this...

...but I thought SitePoint was just a Forum!? I only found out by accidentally clicking the SitePoint logo just now when I read what you guys posted. I had no idea you could submit tutorial ideas. The Home menu item takes you to the home of the forum, so I always just assumed it was just a forum. I guess that leads to another suggestion, maybe a menu item that takes you to the parent site.

I swear I've been on here at least a few times a week for the past year and didn't know...

So I'll submit an idea to main site. If it doesn't fit the criteria for whatever reason, then I'll try the forum.

[ralph.m]

The logo top left links to sitepoint.com, and there's a link to sitepoint.com in the footer, but indeed, if you weren't aware of the parent site, it could no doubt be made more obvious.

[StevenHu]

Are there guidelines for writing articles? Should we shoot the article theme to someone before writing?

I supposed an article ideally should fit into one of the categories in the forums, that way we would know it is pertinent to the Sitepoint audience.

[StevenHu]

Here's the section on writing guidelines:
http://www.sitepoint.com/write-for-us/