I caught up with our good friend Dafa on WhatsApp today, and we had a chat about how to improve this discussion forum.

We currently have a leaderboard system that rewards members for providing winning answers, receiving likes and being first to respond. Every January, the member with the most points wins a prize. You can read the details here: https://trongate.io/forums/leaderboard_info

It's a cool system, and Dafa is currently miles ahead of everyone else!

However, the technical forums have been a bit quiet lately. My guess is that our documentation is finally in great shape and AI tools have become very good at answering questions about Trongate. That's all good news, by the way.

Unfortunately, however, our informational forums, such as General Discussion and this forum, don't earn any leaderboard points at all.

I think that's a shame. Conversations about AI, the future of web development and the state of the industry can be just as interesting and valuable as technical discussions.

So, we're going to change things. All forums will be treated equally when awarding leaderboard points, and creating new threads will also earn points.

The annual prize stays!

I'll let you know when the new system is up and running.

Thanks for being here.

DC

Glad to see this change, Davcon!

Giving all conversations equal value is a great idea. Some of the best insights come from sharing ideas and discussing what's happening in the industry, not just answering technical questions.

Looking forward to seeing the new leaderboard in action!

Good move, Davcon.

The trouble with technical-only point systems is that they encourage quick solutions to syntax errors while ignoring broader design discussions. In practice, technical problems are rarely where projects fail. Complexity is a debt that gets paid with interest, and conversations about application structure or long-term maintenance often prevent people from building overly complex systems in the first place.

Giving equal weight to general discussion makes a lot of sense. It will be interesting to see if rewarding thread creation brings out good discussions on architecture or just inflates post counts, but it is worth testing.

This is such a great idea, DC. I've always thought the non-technical side of the forum deserves just as much love as the technical stuff. Some of the best conversations I've had here have been about where things are heading with AI and web dev in general, so it's nice to see those threads getting recognized too.

And yeah, Dafa's been absolutely running away with it — fair play to him! Might have to step up my game now that there are more ways to earn points though 😄

Looking forward to seeing the new system in action. Thanks for always looking for ways to keep this place interesting!

Thank you!

I'm pleased to say that we've also just got rid of our daily kick in the nuts. This was happening when the 'New Posts' thing on the forum homepage would reset to 0 every night at midnight - making the place look totally dead.

The truth is, the forum is far from dead. It never was dead. It's just that ghastly thing was resetting to 0 every single day and making it look like it was tumbleweeds in here.

Now, instead of it constantly resetting to 0, we have a rolling 'Posts Within The Last 24 Hours' value being displayed. That's precisely the way it should have worked in the first place!

Overall, we're in pretty good shape.

DC

I am really glad about this change. Earning points for general discussion will make me feel like I am still part of the community, even when I cannot answer the technical problems yet. Looking at the leaderboard, DaFa is so far ahead! I don't think anyone can catch him this year, but it is hard to be mad when he is always so helpful.

Tina

I'm glad the others liked it, and since D.C. is happy with it...

What interests me are the challenges people face, the exchange of knowledge, and the various GitHub repositories with ready-made modules and solved problems.

Let me tell you how I see it. It’ll sound a bit melodramatic and awkward when run through an automatic translator. I am neither the creator of this product nor have I contributed to it.

I don’t think there are any insignificant people here, because they discovered this great product and decided to dive into developing it. These are people who didn’t choose the well-trodden paths, but instead chose to blaze a trail alongside the pioneers. These are people who understand programming well enough to overcome the overhyped but cumbersome products in favor of a philosophy of simplicity that doesn’t come at the expense of functionality. These are people who have chosen freedom—even if it means making mistakes and being among a smaller group—to enjoy something that’s quick to develop, quick to use, and uses few resources.

It doesn't matter how many points you have; what matters is that you're here.

Hey DC, was great catching up with you as always. Looks like I'll have my work cut out for me on the leader board after all. Thanks to everyone posting, new and old. This community is alive and well.

Thank you.

It's a very strange situation here. Most other web development forums seem to operate on the basis that you ask a question and - if you're lucky - somebody tells you to 'go read the docs'.

Here, we actually have an over-supply of people willing to answer questions. So, when somebody asks a question, they basically get mobbed with all sorts of helpful responses. I think that's brilliant. Long may it continue!

And r-evo is right. Without community, this framework is dead. Every single person matters. Every single contribution counts - whether it's Tina asking about AI or Sasin submitting a pull request, as has just happened. It all counts.

Before this framework came along, PHP developers had a choice: embrace the bloat or get lost.

As long as this framework is alive, you'll never be a victim of rewrite culture.

Hail Team Trongate!