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Stack Exchange 2.0

blog.stackexchange.com

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Re: Stack Exchange 2.0

#11

Post by tptacek »

suckafree wrote: post #7

The success of StackOverflow was built on the backs of smart programmers who don't say anything unless they have something good to say. I've been to a few of the other StackExchange sites and the communities were not the same. Mostly the blind leading the blind. StackExchange 2.0 is a weak attempt at still trying to replicate the unreplicateable (I know this is probably not a word). It will fail because few of these…

Huh? They built StackOverflow too. From zero. Are you saying there aren't other communities of with good S/N ratios, or that SX2.0 won't be able to find them?

Re: Stack Exchange 2.0

#12

Post by ajg1977 »

latch wrote: post #8

Not a fan of the SX family, but you have to give them credit for recognizing relatively early on that something wasn't working, and actually implementing the significant changes to try and make it better.

Actually it sounds more like they have completely changed their business plan.

Before: Provide communities and companies the software and hosting that enabled the creation of high-quality Q&A sites.

Now: Create a carefully cultivated garden of user-maintained Q&A sites with active communities and minimal overlap.

And that's fine of course, but it seems a little odd to judge the former was failing (after what, six months?) by using the goals of the second as a criteria for success.

Re: Stack Exchange 2.0

#13

Post by markbao »

tptacek wrote: post #3

This harks back to our corporate goal to “make the Internet a better place to get expert answers to your questions.” A ghost town, without traffic, does not get people answers, but it does draw a few people away from other sites that might do so. We do not believe that the Internet benefits from putting up placeholder sites with negligible traffic that do not attract high quality communities. And we want the Stack Ex…

Yeah, it'd be like an electron colliding with a positron. The only thing that'd be left would be gamma rays.

Re: Stack Exchange 2.0

#14

Post by nopassrecover »

If quality is so important they need to get designers to look at their sites fast. StackOverflow is fine (especially as it's for programmers) but the original clone sites (the PC and Server ones) have terrible colour schemes that are both hard to interact with and simply reflect badly on the brand. Getting a UI expert or two to work on optimising the UI for non-programmers wouldn't go astray. Getting someone like Smashing Magazine or someone involved in a design-shard of StackExchange would be a good start.

Re: Stack Exchange 2.0

#15

Post by pkaler »

So, Weblogs Inc meets knowledge exchange. What I don't quite follow is why contributors would want to propose a Stack Exchange.

For example, imagine I'm a shoe cobbler. I may want to contribute to a Stack Exchange so that it positions me as an expert and drives more traffic to my business.

That's the point of Stack Overflow careers. I'm not sure how that works for shoe cobblers.

Re: Stack Exchange 2.0

#16

Post by xelipe »

ajg1977 wrote: post #12
latch wrote: post #8

Not a fan of the SX family, but you have to give them credit for recognizing relatively early on that something wasn't working, and actually implementing the significant changes to try and make it better.

Actually it sounds more like they have completely changed their business plan. Before: Provide communities and companies the software and hosting that enabled the creation of high-quality Q&A sites. Now: Create a carefully cultivated garden of user-maintained Q&A sites with active communities and minimal overlap. And that's fine of course, but it seems a little odd to judge the former was failing (after what, six mon…

Their new business model is more complicated than their previous business model. The five steps to citizenship seems like a weird concept. People that want to host a Q&A site like these don't want to be told they aren't good enough to have a top-level domain. Imagine wanting a blog and WordPress or Tumblr thought you undeserving of a top-level domain. Stack Exchange 2.0 has more steps to have a top-level domain site than the Chinese government has for it's citizens to acquire a domain. I'm sure there is a good Rails/PHP Q&A clone webapp.

Re: Stack Exchange 2.0

#17

Post by telemachos »

zavulon wrote: post #10

I'm really tired of political bias sipping into everything I read on topics not related to politics. It's such bad business too. Why would you make a snarky comment risking pissing 50% of your readers off, when you can simply contain yourself and stay on subject instead?

I looked and looked, and my first thought was "He doesn't like Schoolhouse Rock? Schoolhouse Rock isn't political."

Then I noticed this from the start of the article, "Like the small-town mayor who suddenly finds herself running an entire state, our ambitions for Stack Overflow keep growing."

I have a hard time finding that to be anything but a casual and not very detailed analogy. Sarah Palin -> lots of ambition::the SO team -> lots of ambition. How is it snarky? (If anything, he's comparing himself and his team to Palin, so how snarky could it be.)

You're overanalyzing, I think.

Re: Stack Exchange 2.0

#19

Post by ck2 »

I see an impending problem with using a 3rd party service like stack exchange, not just for hosting but for operating the content you create. Just like there is voting to enable a site, they could just as easily take it away from you someday.

It's like the few hosted forum services out there, or an even simplier model, wp.com blogs vs. a blog on your own vps.

If it's important to you and you want control over quality, content and features, build it and host it yourself (yet another reason why I am not crazy about clouds).

Re: Stack Exchange 2.0

#20

Post by cryptnoob »

I find myself emotionally torn about this.

This is sharecropping, pure and simple. That's bad, since it's not me doing the share cropping. I suspect they can be very successful. Usenet was wonderful .. until it wasn't. A network of sites that can give us high value information instead of the adwords dreck that is polluting the web, should indeed, be a net positive to the world.

Much like an interstate highway is a net positive to society, I suspect this network of sites will be also. It doesn't always work out so well for the little towns the highway goes through, however, and I fear the carnage that might result from this as well. Creative destruction is still destruction, hence my torn emotions.

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