Beginner versus Advanced Articles
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There has been a big debate going on about beginner versus advanced articles. I totally understand that most of us take a pride in what we do.
But please allow me to say something. When I founded Mindcracker.com in 1999, the only goal was to share with developers what I have already done so they don't have to learn and spend so much time doing same thing that I have already done. I did not start sharing my code to prove anybody that I am a top code or I am the best author. After that, publishers just start contacting me and I wrote bunch of books and so on. Still, my goal is same. If I can share something that I have already written with some folks out there and save their time, that's all I care. I do not care what everybody else says. I do not write to prove anybody, how good I am.
One more thing, you should keep in mind. In this world, there are always some people who will not like you, no matter what. They will just hate your face. So, if you are trying to prove them something, it will not work.
In my experience, I also found, beginners are the one who need more help than anybody else. Today, even if you look at w3schools or Wikipedia or other popular websites, they have beginner contents. Advanced users usually do not need help. They already know how to figure things out.
So, let's take a look at our site statistics. Here is a list of my most viewed articles. You may notice, the tops articles are beginner articles.
I am not saying that we should not write advanced articles. All I am saying is, we should be sharing anything we feel might help others.
Cheers!
Karthikeyan AnbarasanPosted May 16, 2011, 2:06 AM
Mahesh, you placed things exactly wot others are thinking as well... Begineers are the one need more articles instead of an intermediate developer or an expert. Its always good to have articles on all kinds which help the users. But i have a question here, instead of placing the category for each article we can remove this category itself so that the readers can use that article in any level. this way we can make our authors feel happy since every one are much concerned on thr article being placed in Begineers... This is just my thought... Cheers!!!
Suthish NairPosted May 13, 2011, 12:37 PM
Thanks Mahesh for posting this blog finally. I also once criticized why a blog is treated as an Article or vice versa. The best part is you allowing everyone to share their knowledge here, and we gradually learning how to post a good article/blog. Other sites won't allow this, so we are "The One" here... :)
Mahesh ChandPosted May 13, 2011, 9:25 AM
What I think. If your readers need to have this much experience. Reader 1 - 2 years beginner 3 - 5 years - Intermediate 5+ years advanced For example, if an article is on Customizing a DataGrid and assumes that reader already knows what a DataGrid is, how to display data in it, so author does not talk about basics, then its an Advanced article.
Abhimanyu K VatsaPosted May 13, 2011, 5:29 AM
I wanna share one thing here, i'm still not good in coding. Do you know why? Reasons:- (i) I joined MindCracker in 2010 (god... why not in 1999, why i born in remote village there is even no electricity?) (ii) Most of the Technical websites has very advanced articles, posts. (iii) They (other tech websites) never provide chance to share thoughts. (iv) About 60-70% users are beginners (i'm one of them). Mahesh catches above points as pillar here. I surprised, i have an article titled 'Server.MapPath() in ASP.NET' has more than 12000 visits in 1 year, why? It's simple article. Let's calculate:- 12000/12 (months) = 1000 views in 1 month 1000/30 (days) = 33.3 views every day (socking result, isn't it?) Do you know that article has only 216 words and 2 images. Means: there are maximum reader who needs such support (basic support). Advanced articles are also useful for 40-30% of coders. Many times I seen article point issues on forum. Moving article in blog is good idea but one very big issue here, as i know. In google search i never finds the blog. why? if this is true then moving article in blog will not be good depending upon the result above. Please don't mind, this post is just my thought.
Ibrahim ErsoyPosted May 13, 2011, 5:13 AM
What type of articles can be defined as Advanced? It confuses us sometimes.Because according to us it might be a beginner article,but for a beginner it might not! How will we know the level of article we're writing? Thank you