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Our approach to subjective programming questions

blog.slant.co

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Re: Our approach to subjective programming questions

#11

Post by StuieK »

martinced wrote: post #10

Yes, yes and yes! Why limit topics to stuff where there's no objective answer? There are a lot of people (including people with 20K rep+ on SO) who quit SO in disgust and who would just love to share their knowledge on both objective and non-objective question. Pivot immediately. Do both objective and non-objective : ) Instant winner IMHO, going to help people there immediately!

Well you just made my day, thanks so much.

On the objective comment, the format actually does work for objective questions just fine without us changing anything. We just excel at subjective questions so thats how we are positioning ourselves.

Re: Our approach to subjective programming questions

#12

Post by itafroma »

RKoutnik wrote: post #4

As the author of the recently closed/opened/locked question about brackets [0] on Programmers.SE thanks so much for creating something like this. I'm really enjoying all the additional detail on why something is/isn't the best. Keep it up! http://programmers.stackexchange.com/q/188455/54164

Wow, they closed and locked that? That type of question is pretty much exactly what Programmers.SE was intended for.

But unless I'm not understanding Slant's mission correctly, this type of question wouldn't work there: it's for things like "What programming language should I learn next?" or, a little closer to your closed question, "Should I use curly or straight brackets to denote scope when designing a programming language?"

Re: Our approach to subjective programming questions

#13

Post by danso »

I do like the content so far, but this isn't really a Q&A...it's more of a WikiAnswers, isn't it?

The good thing about StackOverflow is that, when in doubt, you can always use a user's score/comment history to gauge their credibility (though yes, that is an argument by appeal to authority...)

With Slant, the tracing of comments/submissions is as hard as it is on Wikipedia.

And the "the answer must be in article-ish form" has its disadvantages, of course, not least of which is that some of the best answers come through repartee, as they have in StackOverflow.

Also, I'm not sold on the font. It's not great at small sizes and you may want to stick with a sans-serif.

Re: Our approach to subjective programming questions

#14

Post by Glide »

This is awesome. I browsed stackoverflow when it first started and just wondered when the first wave of overzealous "editors" would take over the site. It took a while, but those people killed spirit of the site for me.

This looks great.

IMO, a lot of the difficult things are subjective. Good luck.

Re: Our approach to subjective programming questions

#15

Post by StuieK »

danso wrote: post #13

I do like the content so far, but this isn't really a Q&A...it's more of a WikiAnswers, isn't it? The good thing about StackOverflow is that, when in doubt, you can always use a user's score/comment history to gauge their credibility (though yes, that is an argument by appeal to authority...) With Slant, the tracing of comments/submissions is as hard as it is on Wikipedia. And the "the answer must be in article-ish f…

Hi Mate,

> With Slant, the tracing of comments/submissions is as hard as it is on Wikipedia.

We are building an "authority" SO style karma system, and unlike Wikipedia you can easily see who is a contributor to a post. This is something we agree is really important, but just didn't make the cut for the Alpha product. Please also note that your edits need to be initially approved by the existing contributors, which helps keep quality high and helps you trust the content.

> I do like the content so far, but this isn't really a Q&A...it's more of a WikiAnswers, isn't it?

Well there are questions asked and answers listed.. but you're right in that it's not really Q&A. Someone the other day told me it was "Q&Os" (Question and opinions)

Re: Our approach to subjective programming questions

#16

Post by Falling3 »

Looking pretty good. A few things that I noticed:

- "Read More" and "Seem n more viewpoint(s)" go to the topic page when I expected them to just load some additional information.

- "Read More" link is still present on individual topic page even though it goes nowhere.

Re: Our approach to subjective programming questions

#17

Post by StuieK »

Falling3 wrote: post #16

Looking pretty good. A few things that I noticed: - "Read More" and "Seem n more viewpoint(s)" go to the topic page when I expected them to just load some additional information. - "Read More" link is still present on individual topic page even though it goes nowhere.

Totally agree and we have plans to fix both points :) Thanks for the feedback! Was there anything else you noticed that was confusing?

Re: Our approach to subjective programming questions

#19

Post by tobyjsullivan »

At first blush, this looks fantastic and I'm excited for it's potential. Particularly in my experimental side-projects, I'm constantly looking for some guidance from others.

Closed StackOverflow questions infuriate me to no end - not least because that's where the experts are that are eager to help!

Re: Our approach to subjective programming questions

#20

Post by StuieK »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #19

At first blush, this looks fantastic and I'm excited for it's potential. Particularly in my experimental side-projects, I'm constantly looking for some guidance from others. Closed StackOverflow questions infuriate me to no end - not least because that's where the experts are that are eager to help!

Thanks for the comment and the content you added Toby!
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