When starting a new thread from outside any particular category, such as from the main forum page or the categories page or my personal preference the latest page, the “category” field for the new post is blank and must be selected from a dropdown menu.
Currently, the list of options in that menu goes:
• Evolution Pitches
• Evolution Discussion
• 7 separate subcategories within “Development”
• 5 separate subcategories within “Server”
• Using Swift
• 14 separate subcategories within “Related Projects”
• Site Feedback
• 1 more subcategory within “Development”
I don’t know how the ordering of the list is generated, but if there is a way to change it, I feel quite strongly that “Using Swift” should be the very first option, so that new people posting on the forum see it at the top of the list.
Currently there are 30 options, “Using Swift” is 15th, and we keep seeing posts made to “Development: Compiler”—which is 3rd on the list—that should go in “Using Swift”. I think that moving “Using Swift” to the top of the list will almost entirely eliminate that problem.
My guess is the confusion there is thinking it's "Development with the Compiler", rather than "Development of the Compiler"
My understanding is this forum (and it's ancestor) is primarily focussed on the development and evolution of Swift as a language, so in that sense to me the ordering being focussed on that makes sense.
Although things like StackOverflow are probably better aligned for focussing on usage, as the language grows and stabilizes I can see it becoming a bigger part of this forum. So it's a good thing to consider going forward.
…compounded by them never seeing “Using Swift” in the list at all, because it is halfway down a gigantic menu that only shows 3 items at a time, and one of the options that is visible as soon as the list opens looks, as you says, like it might plausibly be correct.
If instead “Using Swift” were at the top, then it would be the plausibly-correct one of the 3 initially-visible choices, with the bonus of being *actually* correct. Thus, we should make it easy for people to make the right choice.
To me that puts too much focus on that single category. Another option would be to have expandable sections in the dropdown rather that just having the full list of categories.
However (and please correct me if I am wrong) if we are "Developing with the BETA compiler" then we should not (for NDA reasons) use a public forum ?
For example I am trialing SwiftUI at the moment ... should is use StackOverflow rather than this forum ?
Assuming you're talking about general Apple Developer Program restrictions, I think those were dropped a few years back. Though I'm sure Apple has plenty of restrictions on their employees
Look, something has to be at the top of the list, because, well, it’s a list.
For people who have been on the forum a while and know what they’re doing, it doesn’t matter what order the list is in. Either they’ll navigate to the subcategory they want first and create the topic there, or they’ll start typing into the category field and have it autocomplete.
The order of the list only really matters for new people, and the vast majority of the time their posts belong in “Using Swift” (with “Evolution: Discussion” a distant second).
Moreover, the *benefit* of having “Using Swift” at the top, accrues to all of us—and especially to those who browse “Development: Compiler”—because it means we don’t have to deal with misplaced threads so often.
