Timeline for Is this site becoming what it's aspiring to be?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 13, 2014 at 18:27 | comment | added | Chris S Mod | People don't vote. I don't know why, and have no idea how to fix the issue. That's a problem now, and more so for your proposal. Tags, top questions, etc are still more effort, so still the same issue. Stack Overflow has better filtering abilities, but I believe it's all still manual, nothing automated or "intelligent" (if you answer a question with XYZ tags, you don't see more questions with those tag for example). This could be improved, but it's not "there" now. I doubt that there will be enough eager beavers to make up for expert losses, but would be willing to try if not for the other issues. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:38 | comment | added | JamesRyan | I agree with what you are saying but I think it also applies to the case where eager beavers have answered or voted to close every question before they get to try to answer anything. There are tags, top questions, etc. to narrow down what you are interested in, you shouldn't expect to want to answer every question. Someone else might. Total junk questions will soon get voted to oblivion. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:29 | comment | added | Chris S Mod | I've heard your ideas. So has the Moderation team. I am unconvinced by your argument. The key problem I have is that it takes energy to ignore the "noise" (questions you aren't interested in). The higher the noise level, the more energy an Answerer devotes to ignore it, and the less energy they have to put into Answers. At some point the Answerer does not feel personally rewarded by their contributions enough to justify putting the same level of energy into SF and leave. What part of that is wrong, or how specifically do you address this issue in your "allow everything" proposal? | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:18 | comment | added | JamesRyan | Yes it is only my opinion that niche experts arn't in SF but are in other SE sites because they are not made welcome. But it is only your opinion that that isn't the reason. If you are going to question assumptions then you need to look at your own too. My only agenda is to make a SF that is popular and works better. The people who have been trying to steer it in that direction haven't been able to make a difference, at what point are you/they going to listen to other people's ideas? | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:17 | comment | added | Chris S Mod | I don't think it's fair to make assumptions about what people mean. Especially when you interpret their words to fit your own agenda. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:12 | comment | added | JamesRyan | You are taking that reasoning too literally and not seeing the big picture. Other SE sites work fine with niche experts amongst a wide scope. Maybe the answer actually is to chop up SF gradually and leave the toxic culture behind. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:09 | comment | added | Chris S Mod | I didn't say that they felt unwelcome. You've avoided my question and projected your own feelings onto their decision. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:07 | comment | added | JamesRyan | I think at the moment a lot of people feel unwelcomed by SF and would rather start their own communities | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:06 | comment | added | Chris S Mod | So how would you explain the Network Engineering site being created? The site's purpose completely overlaps with Server Fault, yet the people who created the site felt 1. Underserved by SF because the SF's audience was "too wide" 2. That they could not attract networking experts to a site with such wide topicality | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:04 | comment | added | JamesRyan | @ChrisS as for vampires and the article, I am well aware of what you think the answer to problem is and it hasn't been making much of an improvement. I think that your solution actually encourages that to be the only behavior whereas my solution is to ignore those vampires and drown them out by supporting everyone else rather than pushing desirables away as collateral damage. The SE rating model does allow a natural balance if you let it do its job. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 16:00 | comment | added | JamesRyan | @ChrisS Clearly how it is happening now doesn't 'work' if it is burning people out. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 15:49 | comment | added | Chris S Mod | There is no "natural balance" - that is the problem with your line of thinking. Please take a moment to read the article linked in the the comments above, it does a good job of explaining the situation. This has happened before, and now it's happening again. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 15:45 | comment | added | Chris S Mod | @JamesRyan SF DOES work as a handful of high reppers answers questions for all of the masses. In the last 30 days half of all answers were provided by just 122 users; a quarter by just 25 users. Given the 3170 questions in that time, in the top quartile there's over 30 people asking questions for every 1 person providing answers - and this goes on every single day. Those people providing answer tend to burn out - stats show they leave after about 6 months. Super User is the only other site with this level of imbalance, which causes their own set of problems. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 15:39 | comment | added | JamesRyan | Also I am not tearing down any structure, or criticising the SE model. Other SE don't seem to have this problem. What is different on SF is that there is a vocal minority pulling it in a direction, rather than letting it find it's natural balance. I just question whether the assumptions that that vocal minority work on are correct. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 15:31 | comment | added | JamesRyan | SF can not work as a handful of high reppers answering questions for all of the masses, it needs a heirachy of answerers and that means a range of difficultly in questions. It is ok to have questions that you find too simple or boring, you don't have to answer everything. But by kicking out all those questions you take away those stepping stones of entry. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 15:29 | comment | added | Chris S Mod | @JamesRyan I don't know when I've ever suggested that there are no other opinions. But if you want a site where anything goes, why aren't you on Yahoo Answers or /r/SysAdmin? Why do you think we should change when the paradigm you advocate is already available elsewhere? It can't be that you find some additional value in the Stack Exchange model, as you vocally wish to tear down that structure. | |
| Feb 13, 2014 at 15:16 | comment | added | JamesRyan | you acknowledge that some people have a different opinion then immediately disparage it as an 'unenlightened suggestion', prime example. I would rather have 1000 'spoonlickers' with one who potentially turns into a sysadmin than a snob club. Poor questions shouldn't wear you down, you can just ignore them, ratings and search are there to highlight the wheat amongst the chaff already. | |
| Feb 10, 2014 at 21:26 | comment | added | Chris S Mod | @ntoskrnl YES!!! That is exactly the problem SF is having! | |
| Feb 10, 2014 at 20:47 | comment | added | ntoskrnl | slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires | |
| Feb 10, 2014 at 15:33 | comment | added | dyasny | the really complicated questions require in depth troubleshooting, which this forum cannot (and probably should not) provide. Or access to very high level subject matter experts (this is why spiceworks like to have company reps around, and I think we should somehow try to follow that example) | |
| Feb 9, 2014 at 23:02 | history | answered | Chris SMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |