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Suggestion for a new sub-forum at OpenFOAM's Forum |
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May 5, 2013, 07:49 |
Suggestion for a new sub-forum at OpenFOAM's Forum
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#1 |
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
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Greetings to all!
There have been already several open-source applications that have been developed specifically for OpenFOAM as GUIs or as scripts, utilities, solvers, libraries and so on. Problem is that they can easily get lost in the busy OpenFOAM sub-forums and people end up forgetting the application names and that those even existed. Very few of those applications have their own discussion forums outside of http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ or already have a dedicated sub-forum at cfd-online , but usually only because those with their own forums have at least two people working on them. The features of these applications are usually in the range of editing, meshing and pre-processing, but perhaps it would be good to keep an open perspective on the possibility of many others rising up for post-processing and programming. Then there are also those that create scripts, solvers and utilities, but don't post them at openfoamwiki.net, nor do they submit their applications to the unsupported contributions repository. There are also some (rare) cases of tutorials showing up in the forums, but it's harder to categorize them, since they can relate to any topic... So basically the suggestion is to create one or two sub-forums dedicated to the discussion of these kinds applications, as well as keeping track of their existence with sticky threads on each sub-forum (if necessary), possibly with something like this:
Bruno
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Last edited by wyldckat; May 5, 2013 at 11:25. Reason: see "edit:" |
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September 10, 2013, 02:52 |
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#2 |
Senior Member
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I just recently stumbled upon this suggestion, and even tough it is a bit old, I would like to express my support for this. The different contributions to OpenFOAM is very welcome, and giving them their own category could mane them more visible and accessible to the "general public".
However, I am not sure if several sub-categories are needed, perhaps one single "Community open-source contributions" is enough. |
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September 10, 2013, 16:34 |
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#3 |
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
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Greetings Håkon and many thanks for the feedback!From my experience on the OpenFOAM forum, I suggested the two branches:
Although, now that I think about it and based on your feedback, the following structure might be best:
Best regards, Bruno
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December 28, 2013, 08:03 |
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#4 |
Senior Member
Niels Gjoel Jacobsen
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Good afternoon,
I have just come across this thread, and I think a separate sub-forum for GUIs and swak/pyFoam would make it easier for people to find information and more importantly, fewer questions will be asked on the same topics. The rest of the community contributions such as solidMechanics, waves2Foam, etc do not need specific sub-folders, as the activity nonetheless is still relatively limited. Kind regards, Niels
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March 29, 2014, 13:20 |
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#5 |
Administrator
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Making a separate OpenFOAM subforum named "Community open-source contributions" is certainly possible. However, we have already done a few of that kind of sub-forums both in the meshing section (see the subforums on http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/openfoam-meshing/) and in the post-processing section (the Paraview and paraFoam sub-forum). Should we then also move the community related sub-forums from the meshing section into the new "Community" forum, or perhaps we should instead add the new sub-forums to the already existing forums? I am hesitant about the best structure. Irrespective of where we place these sub-forums have I interpreted you correctly that you want sub-forums for:
Adding a "Community" forum might have the good side-effect to keep those discussions away from the more pure OpenFOAM discussions. |
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March 30, 2014, 07:27 |
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#6 |
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Posts: 10,978
Blog Entries: 45
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Hi Jonas,
The latest idea was to have a "Community open-source contributions" subforum in the OpenFOAM forum, at the same level as installation, meshing, post-processing and so on. Then have 2 sub-forums in "Community open-source contributions":
So far, one example is swak4Foam and PyFoam that have a substantial amount of threads dedicated to them. And on occasion, they overlap, given that swak4Foam has abilities to use Python. On a side note: although many features of both swak4Foam and PyFoam are mainly post-processing, it would not do them justice as they cover pre-processing+meshing, running and post-processing capabilities. As for the GUIs: NETGEN, enGrid and Gmsh were not in my mind when I thought about this new sub-forum, because they already have a good communication structure (or so I think). And the "Open-source GUIs for OpenFOAM" are the ones that are mainly dedicated to OpenFOAM only and are somewhat new to the public. As for the subforum "paraFoam + ParaView": it doesn't feel right to move this subforum to the community subforum, as ParaView is the main/default post-processor for OpenFOAM. In conclusion, the proposed structure would be:
Best regards, Bruno |
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April 2, 2014, 09:03 |
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#7 |
Member
Anil Kunwar
Join Date: Jun 2013
Posts: 64
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Hi,
Also it would be comfortable for beginners like me if there is a sub-forum called general discussion on OpenFOAM. Yours Anil Kunwar |
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April 17, 2014, 04:37 |
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#8 |
Senior Member
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Hi Bruno,
I just think that the two proposed sub-forums result with a non-monolithic structure here. I would search for GUIs in the pre-processing sub-forum. swak4Foam and pyFoam are concrete developments, such as wavesToFoam and many others community-driven developments, which IMHO would deserve a sub-forum due to very vivid discussions going on distributed at several places. Maybe we should talk about new sub-forums in the respective categories:
Just my 2 cents. Edit: just another comment: currently too many threads appear in the general/root forum which makes it hard to search. This certainly goes to the moderators. Also, waves2Foam is entirely discussed in the announcement section, which effectively masks new announcements. I think sub-forums for community-driven developments, however, *within* the respective forum categories would help a lot. Holger
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Holger Marschall web: http://www.holger-marschall.info mail: holgermarschall@yahoo.de |
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April 17, 2014, 06:21 |
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#9 |
Senior Member
Niels Gjoel Jacobsen
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Hi Holger,
Just a small clarification on the waves2Foam discussions. The posts in the announcement part is only related to information on new revisions of waves2Foam, i.e. developments and/or bug-fixes. The main discussions on waves2Foam are in this thread in the running/solving-section: http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...ed-topics.html which is current running on an exhausting 770 posts, which I agree would definitely have cluttered the announcement section, as it was doing in the beginning. Kind regards, Niels
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April 17, 2014, 13:06 |
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#10 |
Senior Member
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Hi Niels,
thanks for clarification. Anyway, a lot of information can be found also in the announcement thread (which is what I initially meant). Hence, my point was, why not have a sub-forum for all the noteworthy community-driven contributions to OpenFOAM!? IMO, you'd definitely deserved one! best regards, Holger.
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Holger Marschall web: http://www.holger-marschall.info mail: holgermarschall@yahoo.de |
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April 18, 2014, 07:20 |
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#11 | |||
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
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Greetings to all!
@Holger: Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
In addition, scaling up can then be somewhat easy, in the sense that as the tools gain more and more traction, can be assigned a new subforum. At the time, the proposition didn't include waves2Foam as it didn't seem at the time to have reached critical mass, but over 770 posts does make sense to create a subforum for it as well. Same goes for the solidMechanics toolkit. The updated proposed structure:
Bruno |
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April 18, 2014, 08:08 |
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#12 |
Senior Member
Niels Gjoel Jacobsen
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
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Good afternoon,
Thank you for the kind words. Lately, I have become more in favour of a separate sub-forum for e.g. waves2Foam, because I experience that the users (to some degree understandable) do not look through 770 post to find a solution. This results in many duplicated questions. Therefore a sub-forum with e.g. an installation thread, an announcement thread, and topic like wave breaking, waveDyMFoam, coupling with external wave generator, porousWaveFoam, etc would make life easier for all parties. Kind regards, Niels
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April 21, 2014, 15:05 |
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#13 |
Senior Member
Daniel P. Combest
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Bruno,
From a HELYX-OS perspective, I think this will make posting questions; searching for existing questions/solutions; and fostering an online community much easier. Because GUIs cover pre-processing and running cases, its often difficult for new users to know exactly where to post a question. In terms of swak4Foam, waves2Foam, pyFoam, densityBasedTurbo, catalyticFoam, shipHydro, cufflink, equationReader, etc. I think it would strengthen these communities to have a sub-forum for these libraries. My question though: What sub-forums are represented as standalone sub-forums? Again, great idea and I think this is a logical next step in the forum structure to help both new and experienced users. |
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April 21, 2014, 16:26 |
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#14 | |
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
Join Date: Mar 2009
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Hi Dan,
Quote:
A sticky thread could be used in this particular main sub-forum to help guide what contributions can be found in it... something like a pre-buffer for the Extend Bazaar at openfoamwiki.net: http://openfoamwiki.net/index.php/Extend-bazaar Best regards, Bruno |
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April 27, 2014, 15:54 |
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#15 |
Senior Member
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Dear all,
Your arguments are certainly valid. However, I am still ruminative and hesitant in saying "so here we go: let's distinguish in vanilla stuff, coming from ESI-OpenCFD(R) and other, unapproved community-driven contributions" -- see the title of the proposed sub-forum. OpenFOAM is an open source software product and should IMHO develop towards a free, community-driven software platform including a free software development model (cf. this thread http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...nes-draft.html). In this light, categorizations as the proposed one does not seem of help... Of course, having sub-forums related to toolkits spread all over the current forum structure is no solution as well; additionally, the proposed structure is inconsistent as well, as it does not cover *all* third-party contributions/topics interfacing to OpenFOAM or extending its use, currently present as sub-forums (see meshing, or installing OpenFOAM on unsupported operation systems) Just my 2 cents. best regards, Holger
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Holger Marschall web: http://www.holger-marschall.info mail: holgermarschall@yahoo.de |
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April 27, 2014, 18:09 |
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#16 | |||
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
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Dear Holger,
Many thanks for the feedback! The point of view from which I've been pressing on has been from a moderator + forum contributor point of view, in the sense that: people need help and it's getting harder and harder to help the users find those who can help. To me the line between "OpenFOAM + variants" and "community contributions" is one that will unlikely to fade in the near future and the questions keep coming in every day. And given the evolution of the forums and sub-forums here on CFD-Online, it felt to me that the proposed structure to add a new sub-forum specifically for community contributions seems to be the most suitable one. In addition, the goal is to add sub-forums to it on a need basis, as the number of posts will eventually lead to such a need. Quote:
Furthermore, there is a particular detail here: OpenFOAM is by definition a programmable toolbox, but many come to the forum looking for "user only" + "no coding" solutions. Which possibly would explain why people don't see much importance on a version number and name of the program... Quote:
Quote:
Because the way I tried to understand your description, lead me to these lines of thought:
Bruno |
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May 1, 2014, 05:35 |
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#17 |
Senior Member
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Dear Bruno,
completely understanding your point of view. However, I just think that the intention of helping newbies etc. within a *discussion* forum is a very ambitious task. It's neither a help desk system with tickets (which we should not start!) nor a Q&A system as the one at stackoverflow. Here it really feels like a festival of repeated questions. A Q&A system, to a great extend, would remedy problems related to what you wish to do with a discussion forum software ... and some of them would be free http://meta.stackexchange.com/questi...verflow-clones. As for the proposed changes to the forum structure: I just want to advocate a rigorous and consistent structure. I.e., better put *all* third-party stuff, which are either extending or interfacing to the official OpenFOAM(R)/FOAM distributions, to one specific sub-forum. This would include paraview (and other third parties that offer interfaces to FOAM technology), community-driven developments which are dedicated to and using FOAM technology such as swak4Foam, waves2Foam, pyFoam, densityBasedTurbo, catalyticFoam, shipHydro, cufflink, equationReader, etc. (as mentioned by Dan), and it should include virtually every topic which is not officially supported by ESI/OpenCFD(R) such as operating systems they do not support officially. It would be soon, that people require the same structure (solving, pre-/postprocessing, etc.) as one layer above. This is also why, I am not in favor of it. However, in fact this would mean a fork in discussions and, clearly, I personally do not want to see such a solution, since it cuts the community, the user/developer base on FOAM technology, into two parts: official and inofficial but community-driven. So what about hosting a professional Q&A system with link to the discussion threads here? IMHO, this would be the next consequent step. A Q&A system is created with the clear intent of knowledge capturing / storing / dissemination. This way repeating questions in different discussion threads can be redirected to the best (highest scored) answers from within the central discussion forums here. @Jonas: Could this be connected on the user database level / would you be able and willing to host such a system? best regards, Holger
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Holger Marschall web: http://www.holger-marschall.info mail: holgermarschall@yahoo.de |
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May 1, 2014, 14:58 |
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#18 |
Senior Member
Daniel P. Combest
Join Date: Mar 2009
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Hi All,
First off, great discussion. One point that like from Holger's last comment was a reference to other Q&A forums like stackoverflow. What I like at SO, is that before a post is actually posted there is an automatic search and list of other possible threads that this question has been posed. The poster can then cancel their post or say "no, this is different" and start a new topic. In addition, what if the top level forum (OpenFOAM) is does not allow posting directly? In turn, explicitly forcing those that are there to ask questions to go into sub-forums (e.g. OpenFOAM pre-processing, OpenFOAM Programming and Development,etc). This may result in them doing a search to find similar questions and lead them to as in the appropriate area. You could possibly start to get more moderators that can moderate these sub-forums if things are placed in the wrong spot. Now, I understand that my comments are beyond the original scope of this thread but i think its appropriate to pose such questions/comments if there is some planning/rearranging that is happening. Thanks again for all the comments, I'm following this thread to see what happens. Dan Last edited by chegdan; May 2, 2014 at 08:52. |
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May 3, 2014, 06:43 |
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#19 |
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Posts: 10,978
Blog Entries: 45
Rep Power: 128 |
Dear Holger and Dan,
Many thanks for the feedback! Regarding a system like stackoverflow: I have no idea if Jonas and Peter are willing to implement such a system in the cfd-online.com server, but I know that:
As for discontinuing the ability to post on the main OpenFOAM forum, there is one downside that comes to mind: what do we do with the posts that do not fit any particular profile? For example:
OK, so right now there seems to be two structure propositions for the forum as shown below, where in bold are the changes. Both propositions are still open to ideas and/or renaming/restructuring. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Proposition 1:
Proposition 2:
Best regards, Bruno |
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October 25, 2014, 11:01 |
Drafting Proposition 2 for implementation
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#20 |
Retired Super Moderator
Bruno Santos
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Greetings to all!
OK, I've gotten the word that this is to go forward. The 2nd proposition structure seems to be the more organized one, so we'll be going with it. This post is therefore a draft working towards the solution to be implemented. Please give comments on what can be updated on this list below. Notes about what each text formats refer to in this draft:
Drafting Proposition 2 for implementation:
Anything missing or broken? This draft is still open to ideas/improvements, possibly even after the structure has begun to be implemented. Best regards, Bruno Last edited by wyldckat; March 1, 2015 at 12:21. Reason: Added IHFOAM, fixed description for GridPro and Ansys software |
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