Separate core and compatibility forums? Maybe legacy/modern OpenGL forums?

[aqnuep]

I'd be interested whether anybody would like to see core profile related topics separated from compatibility profile related topics, or told in another way: legacy OpenGL topics separated from modern OpenGL topics. Personally, I would.

I see the following benefits from separating them to two different sub-forums:

1. People who are more familiar with legacy OpenGL could more easily find topics where they can help, and the same for those more familiar with modern OpenGL.
2. It would be easier for everybody on deciding what solutions to suggest for questions, e.g. one hopefully won't suggest the use of display lists to solve a particular problem one asked about in the modern OpenGL forums.
3. I think it would be a more clean separation of topics than the existing beginner/advanced separation which tends to show no practical benefit in most cases.

I'm open for praise and blame

[thokra]

+1, if the separation is really enforced by our mods.

[menzel]

I'd like to see seperate subforums, but i don't think it would work.
We see peaple now asking OpenGL ES questions here. Questions with legacy code from persons who are just learning OpenGL and beleave that code is state-of-the-art. Beginners who don't know about profiles.
If the beginners would be aware of this whole core, shader based vs legacy, compatibility, fixed-function-pipeline stuff, more of them would state what they are using in there questions to begin with so we don't always have to ask what they program.
I don't think seperated forums would work unless someone would constantly move topics around...

[aqnuep]

I'd like to see seperate subforums, but i don't think it would work.
We see peaple now asking OpenGL ES questions here. Questions with legacy code from persons who are just learning OpenGL and beleave that code is state-of-the-art. Beginners who don't know about profiles.
If the beginners would be aware of this whole core, shader based vs legacy, compatibility, fixed-function-pipeline stuff, more of them would state what they are using in there questions to begin with so we don't always have to ask what they program.
I don't think seperated forums would work unless someone would constantly move topics around...

I agree with you that for newcomers it might be non-trivial whether they should write to one or the other forum. However, maybe I'm just too optimistic, but having in the description of the "core forum" something like "if you are unsure whether your question belongs here then it definitely doesn't" might help.

Obviously, I'm not that idealistic either, thus I believe that the outcome of this discussion probably would be that this is an idea that cannot be solved in practice. But who knows, maybe somebody figures out a better approach than mine

[ZbuffeR]

I personally don't like separate subforums in general, because it confuses less experienced people, and experienced people don't need them.

Already separations like GLSL, advanced, beginners, on Windows, etc are quite blurry.

[menzel]

You're right. Maybe tags in the forum title will help (as you can use multiple if you are unsure:
e.g. [core] Vertex Attribute problem
[compatibility][MacOS] Why can't I use geometry shaders on 10.6?

But that as well has the problem that not everyone might use it consistently.

[Aleksandar]

I think it is a good idea to have more subforums. It is easier to survey and find right topic if the forum has a three-like structure.

[Dark Photon]

I'd be interested whether anybody would like to see ... legacy OpenGL topics separated from modern OpenGL topics.
...
2. It would be easier for everybody on deciding what solutions to suggest for questions, e.g. one hopefully won't suggest the use of display lists to solve a particular problem one asked about in the modern OpenGL forums.

I can see both sides of this, but on the whole, I'd vote no. A few of my thoughts: First, I'm on the more practical side of the camp that wants to get GPU work done the fastest, and I don't much care what theoretical stamp someone has put on a piece of functionality. If it's the fastest and it's not ugly or complex, then it wins. The suggested separation, as you allude, would sometimes function merely as a muzzle to talk honestly about the real-world performance or behavior of features and extensions, deferring to a theoretical standard of "political correctness". Just like a "no democrats here" or "no republicans here" policy on a discussion board -- hardly productive, especially for a technically-focused group like us. Beyond that, IMO this forum doesn't really have enough traffic to justify spawning off other subboards.

[Janika]

I agree with Dark Photon. However I would suggest a sub forum for questions related to extensions that are not in any version yet (ARB, EXT, AMD, NV, SGI, ...etc.)

[ZbuffeR]

I think it is a good idea to have more subforums. It is easier to survey and find right topic if the forum has a three-like structure.

Only if the topics are always at the correct place. Which is far from true.
And we already see quite a few topics that are cross-posted on several sub forums, this will only make matters worse.

Tags could be a better solution but I am not even sure it is needed.