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Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

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Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#81

Post by kylec »

kmontrose wrote: post #75
nepenthe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this mechanism(link to a valid e-mail) is used to recover an account, is this considered a form of registration?

No, you can participate (well, post answers/questions; no rep is gained) as an unregistered user without giving us an e-mail address at all (or even giving us a bogus one, we don't check). If you do provide one, it lets you recover your cookie based account is all. The "account" is as throw away as you want it to be, basically.

I just tried a test post and it won't let me proceed without putting an email address in.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#82

Post by codinghorror »

alain94040 wrote: post #39
kunjaan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But hey, I only have about 25 years of coding and online experience. To be fair, it's not SO's fault. That was an absurd statement. Why don't you rather tell us what confuses you about the login process?

I'll give you the example of the OnStartups answers community. I am logged in on Safari, and when I go to my user page, it says my OpenID is from Yahoo. Fine. Now I open Firefox. I try to login to OnStartups, because it doesn't know who I am. I click on Yahoo, go through the authentication process. Guess what: it says it can't find that account on OnStartups (wrong answer), but finds it on StackOverflow, and asks me…

Are you this Alain? http://answers.onstartups.com/users/502/alain-raynaud if so then your account looks up to date to me, and you were able to log in through Facebook. Realize that this was a legacy SE 1.0 site we imported over, so your account may have had some very old stuff in it, and it may not be representative of SE 2.0 logins.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#83

Post by scott_s »

I looked at the existing answers, and I don't think anyone made this point: SO and its spinoffs are an example of do what you know.

People can smell when someone not from their domain tries to make something for them - and it does not smell good. In order for the SO model to work, they need experts versed in the area to be the core of the community. There are two ways to do this: try to attract such people after creating the site, or let the site organically arise because it was created by such people.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#84

Post by fleitz »

Simucal wrote: post #32
alain94040 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

StackOverflow should change absolutely nothing about their login process. It is perfect Maybe it works for you, but I'm still utterly confused about how to login. But hey, I only have about 25 years of coding and online experience. To be fair, it's not SO's fault.

I can see why a non tech-savvy user would be confused by OpenID but I it surprises me how many programmers are confused by it. On the login page they list a bunch of common providers you can login with if you already have an account with them: Google, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, etc. Click their icon, type in your credentials. If you don't have an account with one of those or don't wish to use them then it has a big regist…

OpenID makes absolutely no sense to me. Unless they have the sites in a drop down it takes about 5 minutes to read the OpenID spec, google around for where to get the openID url and paste it into the box. OpenID is a solution in search of a problem.

It may have actually been useful if it leveraged DNS SRV records so you could login as foo@bar.com and it would query SRV _openid.bar.com for the URL.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#85

Post by keiferski »

nagnatron wrote: post #80
keiferski wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UX rule #1249042: If anything on a site is ever confusing, it's always the site's fault, not the user's. So don't feel bad.

That's one of those really silly rules, isn't it?

Eh?

It's a pretty fundamental part of usability, design, and business in general. Blaming your users is never a good idea.

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#87

Post by ivoflipse »

barmstrong wrote: post #67

StackOverflow is definitely more important right now. But one thing I think they're messing up is the process for launching new StackExchange sites. They're trying this thing to qualify new sites to ensure they have critical mass, but I think it's too restrictive and hurting their growth. As an example, I "pledged" to contribute to the AI stack exchange site if it were to launch. When it launched as a trial it receiv…

So you base that Stack Exchange has failed on one out of the two failed sites, out of over forty proposals that are still there?

As has already been mentioned elsewhere, if the site lacks genuine expertise of the topic, the blind will simply follow the other blind. Putting a site that doesn't work out of it's misery is doing the users a favor in the long run

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#88

Post by nepenthe »

kmontrose wrote: post #75
nepenthe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this mechanism(link to a valid e-mail) is used to recover an account, is this considered a form of registration?

No, you can participate (well, post answers/questions; no rep is gained) as an unregistered user without giving us an e-mail address at all (or even giving us a bogus one, we don't check). If you do provide one, it lets you recover your cookie based account is all. The "account" is as throw away as you want it to be, basically.

Sorry I was not clear and it is not terribly important. I've just wondered what it actually means to be "registered." If I have recovered my cookie-based account it means the account has been verified by e-mail. I'm just wondering isn't that a form of registration without having to have used OpenID?

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#89

Post by spicyj »

codinghorror wrote: post #78
Simucal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just be careful with your account in that state. Stackoverflow only knows your account by a cookie right now. You can't log into it from another machine or if you happen to clear your cookies you won't be able to log back in. So it is in your best interest to "solidify" your membership if you care about your account.

well, as long as you provide a valid email (we don't check) you can do an account recovery to reinstate your cookie via email. The main limitation of being unregistered is that you can't ever vote on anything -- but you DO accrue other non-voting privileges through reputation like regular users.

Why don't you let unregistered users vote?

Re: Quora vs. StackExchange: Why, Joel, Why?

#90

Post by nepenthe »

kylec wrote: post #81
kmontrose wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can participate (well, post answers/questions; no rep is gained) as an unregistered user without giving us an e-mail address at all (or even giving us a bogus one, we don't check). If you do provide one, it lets you recover your cookie based account is all. The "account" is as throw away as you want it to be, basically.

I just tried a test post and it won't let me proceed without putting an email address in.

It appears to do a basic regex to validate the e-mail address but does not require a confirmation e-mail to be sent to post comments.
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