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I'm not sure I get fragmenting into every little niche and creating a new site for it. Stackoverflow, ServerFault, SuperUser, MetaSO does this new StackExchang

I'm not sure I get fragmenting into every little niche and creating a new site for it. Stackoverflow, ServerFault, SuperUser, MetaSO does this new StackExchange really not fit into any of the above?

m_myers 16y ago
Web app questions definitely don't belong on SO (unless you're developing them) or SF (unless you're administering them). They might work on SU, but they've been explicitly banned for some time. And Meta is only for discussing the SO network. So no, there's really no other place in the existing network for them.
- blasdel 16y ago
  The segregation actually isn't so bad the more I think about it -- people with tons of karma from questions about mundane windows sysadmin and inane adolescent theming shouldn't be running roughshod over people trying to figure out how to do something in gmail.
  - mwsherman 16y ago
    That's right. The segmentation is about making sure that each site has a critical mass of experts, and enough of a focus that said experts won't be annoyed by off-topic questions. (Of course it's debatable where the line should be.) Joel and Jeff have said several times that "Google is the UI". So the segmentation doesn't hurt the "answer consumers", who'll come in through Google with little regard for which site is which, while benefiting the "producers", who do care.
- chc 16y ago
  They really seem like they belong on Super User to me. I would think the Stack Overflow founders of all people would see the arbitrariness of treating Web applications and desktop applications as completely different things. Web apps are more like desktop apps than desktop apps are like plugins or computer hardware, yet those categories are allowed on Super User.
  - blasdel 16y ago
    SuperUser is Jeff Atwood's hobbyist self-identity manifested as a Q&A site. The allowed categories neatly cover everything he's blogged about on CodingHorror that wouldn't fit into SO or SF first. There are a lot of Jeff Atwoods out there, so it works. You know what would make a really hilarious and likely-successful StackExchange site? One focused on http://BoingBoing.net http://BoingBoing.net -- it'd be all about how best to anagramize a subway map or break functioning consumer electronics by hot-gluing brass gears onto them, but there's clearly already an audience for Cory Doctorow's self-identity (just as there was for Jeff).
spolsky 16y ago
OK, then you should buy stock in Yahoo!Answers or Mahalo and short Stack Overflow.
- spolsky 16y ago
  That was a serious comment; I'm not being snide. Stack Overflow is the only company I know of in the Q&A space with the deliberate strategy of creating individual Q&A communities for like-minded experts. The strategy of creating one uber-site for everything with a question mark, in our opinion, leads to crappy, low quality sites like Yahoo!Answers, where the current hottest question is "Is my name as weird as i think?"
  - cmelbye 16y ago
    Wikianswers does the same thing. Users can create their own answers site for subjects that theyre familiar with. http://answers.wikia.com/ http://answers.wikia.com/
  - blasdel 16y ago
    But you are being snide. You've always done a nice job of framing yourself exclusively against your shittiest competitors. Being better than Yahoo Answers is not something you should be particularly proud of. A site born out of an existing strong community of clever people can easily sustain QA around that communities' purpose. If it's a general-purpose community, then it'll work just fine: http://ask.metafilter.com http://ask.metafilter.com is terrific and makes enough from advertising to pay 4 full-time salaries and essentially funds the rest of the site. It's success was a direct inspiration for the creation of Yahoo Answers. You're well aware of it's existence -- you had one of the Metafilter moderators (Josh Millard) as a guest on your and Jeff's podcast, but you weren't very receptive to what he had to say (Jeff was particularly obtuse). Y'all didn't understand why you needed an outlet site like http://metatalk.metafilter.com http://metatalk.metafilter.com -- and then when you implemented http://meta.stackoverflow.com http://meta.stackoverflow.com the way you did it exhibited zero comprehension (the worst of which has since been cleaned up). It's like you refuse to understand how communities really make sites like these function, because to do so would force you to acknowledge that your and Jeff's existing audiences were what made SO work. You've rejected that assertion out of hand over and over, insisting that the innovative design of your social software was primary. We'll see if you can launch successful vertical subsites for things like travel / fashion / music suggestions or parenting / romantic / job advice.

I'm not sure I get fragmenting into every little niche and creating a new site for it. Stackoverflow, ServerFault, SuperUser, MetaSO does this new StackExchange really not fit into any of the above?

m_myers 16y ago

Web app questions definitely don't belong on SO (unless you're developing them) or SF (unless you're administering them). They might work on SU, but they've been explicitly banned for some time. And Meta is only for discussing the SO network. So no, there's really no other place in the existing network for them.

blasdel 16y ago
The segregation actually isn't so bad the more I think about it -- people with tons of karma from questions about mundane windows sysadmin and inane adolescent theming shouldn't be running roughshod over people trying to figure out how to do something in gmail.
- mwsherman 16y ago
  That's right. The segmentation is about making sure that each site has a critical mass of experts, and enough of a focus that said experts won't be annoyed by off-topic questions. (Of course it's debatable where the line should be.) Joel and Jeff have said several times that "Google is the UI". So the segmentation doesn't hurt the "answer consumers", who'll come in through Google with little regard for which site is which, while benefiting the "producers", who do care.
chc 16y ago
They really seem like they belong on Super User to me. I would think the Stack Overflow founders of all people would see the arbitrariness of treating Web applications and desktop applications as completely different things. Web apps are more like desktop apps than desktop apps are like plugins or computer hardware, yet those categories are allowed on Super User.
- blasdel 16y ago
  SuperUser is Jeff Atwood's hobbyist self-identity manifested as a Q&A site. The allowed categories neatly cover everything he's blogged about on CodingHorror that wouldn't fit into SO or SF first. There are a lot of Jeff Atwoods out there, so it works. You know what would make a really hilarious and likely-successful StackExchange site? One focused on http://BoingBoing.net http://BoingBoing.net -- it'd be all about how best to anagramize a subway map or break functioning consumer electronics by hot-gluing brass gears onto them, but there's clearly already an audience for Cory Doctorow's self-identity (just as there was for Jeff).

spolsky 16y ago

OK, then you should buy stock in Yahoo!Answers or Mahalo and short Stack Overflow.

spolsky 16y ago
That was a serious comment; I'm not being snide. Stack Overflow is the only company I know of in the Q&A space with the deliberate strategy of creating individual Q&A communities for like-minded experts. The strategy of creating one uber-site for everything with a question mark, in our opinion, leads to crappy, low quality sites like Yahoo!Answers, where the current hottest question is "Is my name as weird as i think?"
- cmelbye 16y ago
  Wikianswers does the same thing. Users can create their own answers site for subjects that theyre familiar with. http://answers.wikia.com/ http://answers.wikia.com/
- blasdel 16y ago
  But you are being snide. You've always done a nice job of framing yourself exclusively against your shittiest competitors. Being better than Yahoo Answers is not something you should be particularly proud of. A site born out of an existing strong community of clever people can easily sustain QA around that communities' purpose. If it's a general-purpose community, then it'll work just fine: http://ask.metafilter.com http://ask.metafilter.com is terrific and makes enough from advertising to pay 4 full-time salaries and essentially funds the rest of the site. It's success was a direct inspiration for the creation of Yahoo Answers. You're well aware of it's existence -- you had one of the Metafilter moderators (Josh Millard) as a guest on your and Jeff's podcast, but you weren't very receptive to what he had to say (Jeff was particularly obtuse). Y'all didn't understand why you needed an outlet site like http://metatalk.metafilter.com http://metatalk.metafilter.com -- and then when you implemented http://meta.stackoverflow.com http://meta.stackoverflow.com the way you did it exhibited zero comprehension (the worst of which has since been cleaned up). It's like you refuse to understand how communities really make sites like these function, because to do so would force you to acknowledge that your and Jeff's existing audiences were what made SO work. You've rejected that assertion out of hand over and over, insisting that the innovative design of your social software was primary. We'll see if you can launch successful vertical subsites for things like travel / fashion / music suggestions or parenting / romantic / job advice.