Something I struggle with as a beginner is knowing exactly where some of my questions should be, or they are so 'basic' that they don't really come under a specific category.

Would think a 'Beginner' category where people could feel confident about asking simple questions that they can't categorise would be a good idea.

My suggestions (obviously from my thus-far limited knowledge of Laravel) -- in no specific order. I use -> to indicate sub-categories..

• Laravel 101
• Install & Configure
• Authentication & Security
• View -> Blade
• Controller -> Routing, Responses, Filters
• Models -> Schemas & Migrations
• Artisan & CLI Tools
• Advanced Topics -> IoC && Service Providers && Application Structure/Architecture
• Meta -> Laravel.IO && Laravel Docs etc

Those who have used it more can probably better tweak it, esp for advanced use & concepts

I like the "All Threads" overview - makes it a lot easier to just browse recent questions and answers without having to click each category.

Like mjdugan14 mentioned, "Application Structure/Architecture" a.k.a "where do I put this" is a pretty common topic and it probably deserves some highlighting. Seems like questions like "So I'm following the repository pattern, where do I..." are asked fiftyeleven times a day in the IRC channel...

Laravel Jobs (Looking for / Offering) would also be nice.

Maybe a "Showcase" could come in handy too: "Here's a package for XY" or "I just built xyz.com with Laravel, what do you guys think"

Also, a "catch all" category like "General" could come in handy if you don't know where to put your question. E.g. "How do you handle Composer updates when you push to Fortrabbit?"

I don't think I'm a huge fan of the current category setup. Personally I would rather have less categories and just use search, etc. In other words, a simple category setup like Laravel 4.x, Jobs, Architecture, etc... I tend to prefer that over a bunch of micro categories that I really have to read over and think about on every post I make. Just my two cents.

The thought here is that if you have an issue with a certain aspect of the system, then you can click into that area and find relevant data for that aspect. The "all" option at the top just shows them all. The thought is that there tends to be a lot of "noise" in the 'get help' threads. It's fine for people who are posting to get help and for people who are helping. But, it doesn't help people who want to see if there's any relevant content already. You can click into "laravel 4 help" and see way too many issues to that have nothing to do with what you're looking for.

We'll be putting up the new design and search functionality (and more) tomorrow. The categories is one of the aspects of the system that are the least "battle tested" and i can definitely see that changing.

We're not ready to come out of beta yet, for obvious reasons, the categories being one of them.

Also, try making a new post. I think that it's pretty easy to choose how to tag it, as far as how to think about posting. You don't have to go into a category to post.

I like the idea for not choosing a category first, but i think the 'usual' behavior is the other way round.

It was a little confusing while i first selected the category, add a new post, and before saving I needed to choose the same category again... Perhaps you could pre-select the according tag if someone creates a post in a specific category.

The categories are collections of tags. If we pre-select those tags then we'd be mis-tagging posts.

What categories do you think should just be removed?

I just feel like any attempt to create a lot of categories like that will be confusing. For example, right now, where would I post a question about writing a custom Service provider? A question about how Facades work? A question about Composer? A question about overall application architecture? It seems like we'll have a lot of questions about how to categorize things.