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stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

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mouser:
let's agree that there is great value provided by Q&A sites, about software and about lot's of things.

but for all of the reasons people have pointed out, it just doesn't seem to me a great match for DC in terms of temperament.  it's hard to see a way it could be done that wouldn't spread DC too thin in terms of divided attentions.

we already have a lot of things going on, and i think unless there is something that we think we are in a unique position to do, there's no reason we shouldn't let another community implement it and all happily encourage them.  i think there is value in staying small(ish) and focused(ish).

that's not to say it wouldn't be smart to try to think of new ways we can expose content that is already hidden deep within the bowls of DC, somewhat in the ways that the blog and newsletters do.

it would be interesting to try to think of a way a Q&A type system could be used simply as a view into our (or another) content.  i'm thinking about a Q&A site like stackoverflow/Shapado where there was NO original content allowed to be posted as a reply.. but only (commented) links to other sites (and previous questioners) and hints about how the question might be phrased better.  In this sense it would be more like a community-driven meta search engine. an advantage would be that it wouldn't fragment information.. it would simply direct people to original content on other sites.  though i guess this is fraught with it's own difficulties if the original content goes offline, etc.

Perry Mowbray:
I think, mouser, that's pretty much in the ball park I was thinking.

I'm sure we all agree that we don't want to do something in addition or instead of what we're doing now. And as App says, we should concentrate on doing what we're doing now and do it better. Q&A doesn't work for every thread, but it does for some. Maybe we can think or repackaging other types of threads in other ways? In another thread we'd talked about coding snack summaries, etc.

But is there some way to expose the current content in new ways to new people? Mind you, as nudone says, how many would be attracted to the shortened form and how many would navigate through to the original is something we don't know. But I don't see how we'd loose if we re-mashed some posts into other pages of the site (like the blog) and people bounce into there, find an answer and bounce out again?

What are the web stats for the blog page? How does it rank for the initial page loaded? i.e. I'm wondering if it's being used as a launch into the site?

Are these stats interesting: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/donationcoder.com ??


Hope so anyway. I'm using them in a book I'm working on.  8)
-40hz (April 17, 2010, 07:11 AM)
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sounds interesting...

Perry Mowbray:
About the only thing the Q&A format might work well with is the "what's the best?" section. But the biggest problem we currently have with that section is outdated information, which a change to a Q&A format will not prevent or solve. You'll just end up with the same outdated information in Q&A format rather than a regular forum format. I think periodic discussions and transferring the info to a wiki, locking the threads, and repeating the discus/lock/update wiki process periodically, might be the best way to go about fixing that. But that is best discussed on a thread of its own and not here in this one.
-app103 (April 17, 2010, 08:23 AM)
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True, but also any opinionated question as well. Lots of questions, "how do I", "what should I do" get answered by different people with different opinions. That'd also work (I think).

Is there a non-manual way to do a wiki from forum material? Otherwise you're heading toward a more CMS aren't you?

And I think if you added general non-programming, non-software related Q&A to the site, you risk turning DC into Yahoo Answers, and I really wouldn't be too happy with a bunch of questions like this popping up on DC:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060824054232AApWfr2
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080820174408AAZkbcG

And I seriously doubt that is what we want to be known for, so why go down that road?
-app103 (April 17, 2010, 08:23 AM)
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Agree: definitely not a answers type thing... but we do have non-computer threads in the living room that we don't delete  :-\

Those questions, BTW, I'd hate to see here too  :)

mouser:
Is there a non-manual way to do a wiki from forum material? Otherwise you're heading toward a more CMS aren't you?
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This is getting into a topic of deep importance for the web that i think is ripe for some big thinking, and there are some very tricky issues that don't have obvious solutions.  There is a huge degree of overlap between things like a wiki, a forum, a q&a thing, a blog, and a cms, and it's extremely hard to figure out a way to combine the features without fracturing information and ending up with duplicated content everywhere..  There is just so much overlap in functionality.  Both blogs and wikis that have lots of comments start to become like second-class forums.  Forums which try to provide articles and stable content become like second-class blogs and wikis.  I think it's possible that one way the web may move forward into the future is a much more robust and pervasive way to have different "views" into an information source.. That is -- a way to have a site like DC that can be "viewed" and interacted with, as if it was a Q&A site, a blog, a forum, or a wiki, without fracturing and duplicating content.

Perry Mowbray:
a way to have a site like DC that can be "viewed" and interacted with, as if it was a Q&A site, a blog, a forum, or a wiki, without fracturing and duplicating content.
-mouser (April 18, 2010, 05:15 AM)
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That sounds like a great idea!!  :D I'll take two...

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