3 ms·

I've browsed around a bit. This site actually seems quite useful. If nothing else, it's a good sounding board for "What is the best web site for X"

evilduck 16y ago
Unless they change the "rules", I think it will suffer the same problem as the other Stacks: They don't handle duplicate questions very well. In succession, duplicates are annoying and detrimental, but on the other hand, the best answer in 2008 may not be the best answer in 2010 and there's no easy way to update old questions and bring attention to their need for new answers. The set of answers for broad questions at SO is gradually becoming stale and the new questions are beginning to become uselessly specific to the person who asks the question. Maybe a way to append or revise older questions as a lower-reputation user would help, and doing so would bring the question back into the community's foreground to be seen by fresh eyes. Edit: "They" meaning the website, the community and the SO engine combined, not necessarily one or the other individually.
- digitallogic 16y ago
  This site seems like it would suffer even more so. On Joel's blog, the the announcement for this site [1] asked "Want to know how ... delete your Facebook account?". How long is the accepted answer to that question going to be up to date, and will it be updated every time Facebook tweaks their site to discourage account deletion? 1: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/07/07.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/07/07.html
  - mhp 16y ago
    'will it be updated every time Facebook tweaks their site to discourage account deletion?' - that's the idea. 'How long is the accepted answer to that question going to be up to date?' - hopefully as soon as FB changes the system and someone realizes the answer is wrong.
    - blasdel 16y ago
      But their software is heavily reified against that sort of thing -- a new answer is made and then it's karma would have to surpass the existing one (which the karma-inflation problem makes easier) but it also needs to get accepted in place of the existing one, screwing over the original answerer. The already-accepted answer could also be community-wiki-edited beyond recognition. Pretending temporality doesn't exist doesn't make it go away.
    - evilduck 16y ago
      But the problem is that only the original poster can accept answers, and a newly added (and correct) answer may be pushed so far down the list of answers, it could take a needlessly long time to overcome the currently highest upvoted solution. Ideally, a user could report something as out of date, or the ranking algorithm would degrade the value of an answer as it ages (which would be a problem for ageless Q/A situations like traditional computer science questions).

evilduck 16y ago

Unless they change the "rules", I think it will suffer the same problem as the other Stacks: They don't handle duplicate questions very well. In succession, duplicates are annoying and detrimental, but on the other hand, the best answer in 2008 may not be the best answer in 2010 and there's no easy way to update old questions and bring attention to their need for new answers. The set of answers for broad questions at SO is gradually becoming stale and the new questions are beginning to become uselessly specific to the person who asks the question. Maybe a way to append or revise older questions as a lower-reputation user would help, and doing so would bring the question back into the community's foreground to be seen by fresh eyes. Edit: "They" meaning the website, the community and the SO engine combined, not necessarily one or the other individually.

digitallogic 16y ago
This site seems like it would suffer even more so. On Joel's blog, the the announcement for this site [1] asked "Want to know how ... delete your Facebook account?". How long is the accepted answer to that question going to be up to date, and will it be updated every time Facebook tweaks their site to discourage account deletion? 1: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/07/07.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/07/07.html
- mhp 16y ago
  'will it be updated every time Facebook tweaks their site to discourage account deletion?' - that's the idea. 'How long is the accepted answer to that question going to be up to date?' - hopefully as soon as FB changes the system and someone realizes the answer is wrong.
  - blasdel 16y ago
    But their software is heavily reified against that sort of thing -- a new answer is made and then it's karma would have to surpass the existing one (which the karma-inflation problem makes easier) but it also needs to get accepted in place of the existing one, screwing over the original answerer. The already-accepted answer could also be community-wiki-edited beyond recognition. Pretending temporality doesn't exist doesn't make it go away.
  - evilduck 16y ago
    But the problem is that only the original poster can accept answers, and a newly added (and correct) answer may be pushed so far down the list of answers, it could take a needlessly long time to overcome the currently highest upvoted solution. Ideally, a user could report something as out of date, or the ranking algorithm would degrade the value of an answer as it ages (which would be a problem for ageless Q/A situations like traditional computer science questions).