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Can someone add the tag tickzoom at stackexchange? I don't have enough reputation yet to add the tag.

Why? We developers at tickzoom want to track the specific tag tickzoom so we can watch for questions and answer them timely.

What is tickzoom? TickZoom (tickzoom.com) is a software framework for traders to build their own automated trading systems. We want to encourage users to post questions about setup and configuration at serverfault and about programming issues at stackoverflow. In fact, since you encourage to ask and answer, we'll do that for common support questions.

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  • tags are added on a per-site basis. It depends on the audience as well, do you see many TickZoom questions here on ServerFault, or more on StackOverflow (which has a programming background rather than ServerFaults sysadmin one).
    – tombull89
    Feb 14, 2013 at 12:22
  • @tomebull89 Good point. We can wait till there are organic questions by users. We expect plenty of questions related to installing, setting up and configuring it after we roll out our new site which will point users here for those questions.
    – Wayne
    Feb 14, 2013 at 12:35
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    There is this question on Meta.StackOverflow here - the odd question is okay but completely outsourcing support to StackExchange sites isn't really on.
    – tombull89
    Feb 14, 2013 at 12:39
  • Oh, I've seen you've asked the same question on Meta.StackOveflow. Never mind.
    – tombull89
    Feb 14, 2013 at 12:40
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    Respectfully, Server Fault isn't really intended to be "Technical Support For The Internet" - you should not be encouraging your users to post product-specific questions on Server Fault, nor using it as your company's knowledgebase
    – voretaq7
    Feb 14, 2013 at 18:10
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    @Wayne which will point users here for those questions. No. Please don't. StackExchange isn't meant to be your technical support forum. Having a support forum on your own site is fine, and using it alongside a StackExchange presence is good, but using StackExchange just by itself isn't really on.
    – tombull89
    Feb 14, 2013 at 19:01
  • 2
    If you want your customers to be able to ask and answer questions about your product set up your own Q&A site. Don't try to hijack Stack Exchange. Feb 15, 2013 at 2:32

4 Answers 4

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See: Is it okay to use Stack Overflow as the support forum for a product or project?

If there's a category of questions about your product that happen to be on-topic for a Stack Exchange site, it's fine to direct folks here as long as you provide other support options as well. This has worked out best when folks are already asking questions related to a product on SO/SF, and the support team decides to just make it a bit more official since they're here anyway.

In this particular case, I don't think that's the case: setup and configuration questions are something you should be handling within your own documentation, via email or perhaps support forums where you can work with customers one-on-one. No one's ever asked a question on TickZoom here before today, so I have to guess there's not a whole lot of overlap between your users and the folks who generally frequent this site.

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We can wait till there are organic questions by users. We expect plenty of questions related to installing, setting up and configuring it after we roll out our new site which will point users here for those questions.

Please Don't do this. By all means monitor SF for questions that get tagged but you really should have your own support channels as a primary source.

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https://www.google.com/search?q=tickzoom+site%3Aserverfault.com

The only result is your user account and a question you asked. There's no reason to have a tag for tickzoom, besides promoting your software (which we don't do here).

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  • Well I just asked and answered a common installation question with tickzoom. Does that help? Sorry, the purpose is to use stackoverflow and stackexchange for support. But we can wait till later when there a more organic questions by users, if you like.
    – Wayne
    Feb 14, 2013 at 12:33
  • @Wayne: I just looked at your question. We get a whole bunch like that every week and our community generally flags them into touch as spam.
    – user9517
    Feb 14, 2013 at 17:02
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We're facing the same issue - and same objections. Once a program is popular enough (eg: Asterisk, nagios) it is considered appropriate for installation questions, how to questions, etc. But until a program reaches that level of popularity it is considered inappropriate. Offering another opinion here: if this brings new users, good questions, and good answers to SF, should that be ok?

I agree that some questions (like how do I copy a file) are better suited to sites targetting new users (and don't contribute much to the value of SF). But those questions get downvoted anyways.

The upside is that SF will draw in experts from different vendors provide right-on technical answers. The downside is it will draw in low-value (i.e. stupid) questions as well. I'm not saying this is clear cut either way - but certainly an argument for both views.

We want to support SF as best we can (in terms of relevant questions AND answers). On our part we'll encourage customers to use the most appropriate forums (eg: ubuntuforums.org for simple questions unique to ubuntu), and only post to SF if question are technical, apply to a broad audience, and fit with SF's mandate. We'll also make clear that "technical support" is available directly from our company.

1
  • Unfortunately this question is so down voted (which shows our communities strong dislike for this idea) that it will not be shown on the front page of mSF. The only people who are likely to see it are people who follow the links from elsewhere. I've asked Tim Post one of the community team to take a look at all of this as he has recently dealt with a similar situation on Stack Overflow.
    – user9517
    Jul 4, 2014 at 15:42

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