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everything bounced out of Java advanced

 
Rancher
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There are nearly zero open threads in Java Advanced. Nearly all postings are locked and moved elsewhere. If there are no postings that belong there, why have the forum?

I've written three or four question and posted them to Java advanced, and have been instantly locked and moved to some other section. In most cases, the move did no good, there was no serious discussion on them after they move.

One was on finding the lowest common superclass of two instances, which is not a trivial problem.

One was about 64 bit JVMs and multiprocessor systems, and since I mentioned Tomcat, it got moved to the tomcat section. It was not a tomcat question.

Yesterday, I asked about a bizarre newInstance() problem that I'm having, and it got instantly moved to intermediate. While I will admit it is likely to be a programmer error, its not an intermediate problem.

I am convinced that moderators are locking and moving threads out of advanced much too quickly. Some are clearly trivial, but none of mine are.

I think we could use a reputation system, where posters who are known to ask hard questions, and do problem isolation, are encouraged to post advanced questions.

Otherwise, just kill the section.
 
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It looks like one of your questions (in the thread moved to the Tomcat forum) was answered.

I can answer the 2nd one but I need more information.
See:
https://coderanch.com/t/87272/Tomcat/JDK-automatically-detect-AMD-bit


I'll leave your larger question to someone else.
-Ben
 
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One was on finding the lowest common superclass of two instances, which is not a trivial problem.

No, it's not trivial but its not really advanced either. Its more intermediate. I'll admit that sometimes the complexity of a problem is elevated based on user knowledge. While one person believes their problem is extremely complex and difficult, the person with answer can deem it as trivial.

The purpose of all the moves is to try and truly diversify the levels of questions in all three forums. A larger problem was intermediate questions being asked in the beginner forum. We were afraid that would scare of java newbies and we didn't want that. So there was a clean up effort there. At the same time we wanted truly challenging advanced questions in the Advanced forum. Intermediate is everything in between.

I guess an underlining question is are your questions being answered? We don't always move things to the right place but we do our best considering what we get paid (zip, nadda, zilch).
 
Pat Farrell
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Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:

No, it's not trivial but its not really advanced either.



Well what is advanced? And if there are no advanced threads, why have the forum.

The intermediate teaser says "don't have a PhD in Java or Computer science"
While I never finished my dissertation, I am ABD for a PhD in Computer science, I did the courses, research, comprehensives, etc., and have been professionally programming Java for ten years, and professionally programing/managing/selling/designing systems for nearly 35 years.

To me, a good "advanced" question is one that takes some thinking for someone with five years of solid professional experience.

What is the definition you folks use?
 
Wanderer
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Personally I think it's probably time to just do away with the forum and rename Intermediate to "Intermediate and Advanced". We do get some posts moved out of Advanced when they really could have remained there - but more generally, I don't think we get enough advanced posts to maintain a credible Advanced forum. When advanced topics do occur they are usually (though not always) related to specific technologies that have their own forums. There really doesn't seem to be any justification for having Advanced as a separate forum with almost no open posts. It's just a wasteland.

For reference, here's a past discussion on this same topic. Since then, things haven't gotten any better, and so I've shifted in favor of consolidating Advanced with Intermediate.
 
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What Jim said.
 
author and iconoclast
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Yeah. I think the main problem is that the Java language itself is designed so that there really aren't too many advanced language questions you can really ask.
 
Trailboss
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Can we push the threads from one forum to another?
 
Jim Yingst
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Yes - we've done it in the past. I could probably do it this weekend. The only downside is that all the threads in one forum (Advanced) will get new URLs, which means that any existing links to those threads will become invalid. However they can still be located using forum search. I think that's an acceptably small price to pay - there just aren't that many discussions in Advanced anyway.
[ November 15, 2007: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]
 
Pat Farrell
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Thanks.

I agree that Java typically doesn't run into too many hardcore advanced issues, like referencing const pointers to const things in C++.

I would love to see a section on algorithms in general. We see occasional questions like shortest path questions, finding the least common ancestors, etc. But it might not generate enough posts.
 
paul wheaton
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If a forum is closed, but you try to follow a link to a thread in the closed forum, do you still get the thread?
 
Jim Yingst
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Oddly enough, yes. But not the way I was going to do it. Without getting into a lot of details, I thought about it more though, and I can have the forum send a redirect to the new location, which seems best.
 
paul wheaton
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Kinda seems like if we change our mind later, we can always go back.

It sounds fine to me.
 
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