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It seems to be working for cooking subjects, too (http://cooking.stackexchange.com http://cooking.stackexchange.com). That might just be because it's overrun wi

by ydant 16y ago

It seems to be working for cooking subjects, too (http://cooking.stackexchange.com http://cooking.stackexchange.com). That might just be because it's overrun with geeks right now. There's a pretty strong overlap between code and food hacking, so that could help explain it.

slantyyz 16y ago
Has that particular StackExchange has become a serious destination for foodies? They don't really have content that can't be found elsewhere, and my experience with other food sites (all recipes, martha, chowhound, etc.) isn't nearly as annoying as it is with SO's competition (ITToolbox, Experts Exchange). The only place that I've seen cooking.stackexchange.com mentioned is on geek sites like Hacker News, and Joel's RSS feed. They've got a long way to go before I would consider the cooking site a success outside of the nerd community.
- edanm 16y ago
  I think the site has been around for all of 2 weeks, at the most. Give it some time, it will (hopefully) grow.
justrudd 16y ago
I would consider my wife a foodie (a baker not a chef). I thought she might like the site (she enjoys answering questions about the recipes that she posts on her site). So I pointed her to it, showed her the basics, and left. Came back about 30 minutes later and she was trolling through other food blogs answering questions in comments. She tried to up vote an answer and got the yellow box (Login or register). She ended up on the OpenID page and couldn't find where to put her e-mail or password. She has a GMail account, and I told her she could click on the "Google" icon. She found the "Click here to sign up" link, but that just sent her to MyOpenID. A site she'd never heard of. And I've grilled it into her not to create accounts on sites she hasn't heard of or hasn't been recommended by someone or that she was redirected to. So the site has some novice computer user problems. In my wife's defense, she is a great photographer, baker, and has several master's degrees in science (even worked at JPL for a bit on the Mars rover that burned up in the atmosphere). But she is a complete novice when it comes to computers. And the site turned her off in about 5 minutes.
- mcantor 16y ago
  I don't normally swear in Hacker News comments, but it is such a fucking tragedy that we still have this problem, especially on StackExchange sites owned by people like Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood who should really know better.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- slantyyz 16y ago
  StackExchange as a platform is going to face an uphill battle if they don't rethink their entire strategy. The Area51 'vetting' process is an unnecessary barrier to creating new and interesting 'exchanges' (I guess it makes sense from a cost perspective), and they need to adjust the user experience for the non-geeky universe.
  - edanm 16y ago
    As they view it, it's not an unnecessary barrier. It's there for a few specific reasons: 1) Make sure there is enough interest to get the site going. 2) Build up momentum for the grand opening. Don't forget, all these Stack Exchange sites are thought up by the community, but then deployed and paid for by Stack Exchange. They don't want hundreds of "ghost towns" around the web, they want to only create a new site if they think there's a reasonable chance it will grow into a site as vibrant as Stack Overflow. That's what the whole process is about. Time will tell if it's a good process.
    - slantyyz 16y ago
      Yes, they're paying for the infrastructure. That fact is not lost on me. But think about the real costs. Assuming that they have a nice scalable multi-tenant design, a ghost town is not going to have a lot of content or users, which means only a small hit on their database. Yes, tons of ghost towns add up to significant costs, but that can be easily fixed with some simple rules around inactivity over a set period of time. Wayne Gretzky famously said "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." StackExchange is taking a 'rifle' approach. More power to them. My own personal opinion is that a 'shotgun' approach could result in more successful sites than the one they're taking. Just my 2 cents.
barkingcat 16y ago
Oh wow. That cooking stackexchange is hideous. There is no visual connection between the topic and the design - why use blue gridlines and pencil shaded widgets for a food and cooking site? It seems more of a drafting or a tailoring site. I don't need fancy backgrounds or images, but perhaps use the site colour scheme to allude to the wonderful colours, senses, flavours, tastes, and pure enjoyment that you get from cooking and eating. For example, chowhound uses small splashes of red to give their site some "flavour". There is no joy in that cooking stackexchange. It is like cooking for computers.
- username3 16y ago
  It's beta. That's how the other beta stackexchange sites look like.
  - barkingcat 16y ago
    I'm not sure that's a real excuse for a cooking site to look like that, even if it were in beta. But I accept, perhaps the people who run the site didn't have time (or money) and just applied the default templates, and tried running it to see whether it will work.
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    It's beta. That's how the other beta stackexchange sites look like. That's part of the problem. If you look at the StackExchange FAQ, this is what they say about the Beta phase: Beta. Perhaps the most important phase. This is the actual, live site set up on a "probationary" basis to see if people will use it. If you can't customize the user experience in a manner appropriate to the subject matter, you're being set up to fail. That's why I personally have a strong dislike for the Area51 'vetting' process.
    - edanm 16y ago
      The idea isn't to customize it now. It's to customize it together, as a community, during the beta phase. Remember that the site is about a week old, most MVPs don't look nearly as good on their first week, nor have nearly as much traffic driving them right away.

by ydant 16y ago

slantyyz 16y ago

Has that particular StackExchange has become a serious destination for foodies? They don't really have content that can't be found elsewhere, and my experience with other food sites (all recipes, martha, chowhound, etc.) isn't nearly as annoying as it is with SO's competition (ITToolbox, Experts Exchange). The only place that I've seen cooking.stackexchange.com mentioned is on geek sites like Hacker News, and Joel's RSS feed. They've got a long way to go before I would consider the cooking site a success outside of the nerd community.

edanm 16y ago
I think the site has been around for all of 2 weeks, at the most. Give it some time, it will (hopefully) grow.

justrudd 16y ago

I would consider my wife a foodie (a baker not a chef). I thought she might like the site (she enjoys answering questions about the recipes that she posts on her site). So I pointed her to it, showed her the basics, and left. Came back about 30 minutes later and she was trolling through other food blogs answering questions in comments. She tried to up vote an answer and got the yellow box (Login or register). She ended up on the OpenID page and couldn't find where to put her e-mail or password. She has a GMail account, and I told her she could click on the "Google" icon. She found the "Click here to sign up" link, but that just sent her to MyOpenID. A site she'd never heard of. And I've grilled it into her not to create accounts on sites she hasn't heard of or hasn't been recommended by someone or that she was redirected to. So the site has some novice computer user problems. In my wife's defense, she is a great photographer, baker, and has several master's degrees in science (even worked at JPL for a bit on the Mars rover that burned up in the atmosphere). But she is a complete novice when it comes to computers. And the site turned her off in about 5 minutes.

mcantor 16y ago
I don't normally swear in Hacker News comments, but it is such a fucking tragedy that we still have this problem, especially on StackExchange sites owned by people like Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood who should really know better.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
slantyyz 16y ago
StackExchange as a platform is going to face an uphill battle if they don't rethink their entire strategy. The Area51 'vetting' process is an unnecessary barrier to creating new and interesting 'exchanges' (I guess it makes sense from a cost perspective), and they need to adjust the user experience for the non-geeky universe.
- edanm 16y ago
  As they view it, it's not an unnecessary barrier. It's there for a few specific reasons: 1) Make sure there is enough interest to get the site going. 2) Build up momentum for the grand opening. Don't forget, all these Stack Exchange sites are thought up by the community, but then deployed and paid for by Stack Exchange. They don't want hundreds of "ghost towns" around the web, they want to only create a new site if they think there's a reasonable chance it will grow into a site as vibrant as Stack Overflow. That's what the whole process is about. Time will tell if it's a good process.
  - slantyyz 16y ago
    Yes, they're paying for the infrastructure. That fact is not lost on me. But think about the real costs. Assuming that they have a nice scalable multi-tenant design, a ghost town is not going to have a lot of content or users, which means only a small hit on their database. Yes, tons of ghost towns add up to significant costs, but that can be easily fixed with some simple rules around inactivity over a set period of time. Wayne Gretzky famously said "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." StackExchange is taking a 'rifle' approach. More power to them. My own personal opinion is that a 'shotgun' approach could result in more successful sites than the one they're taking. Just my 2 cents.

barkingcat 16y ago

Oh wow. That cooking stackexchange is hideous. There is no visual connection between the topic and the design - why use blue gridlines and pencil shaded widgets for a food and cooking site? It seems more of a drafting or a tailoring site. I don't need fancy backgrounds or images, but perhaps use the site colour scheme to allude to the wonderful colours, senses, flavours, tastes, and pure enjoyment that you get from cooking and eating. For example, chowhound uses small splashes of red to give their site some "flavour". There is no joy in that cooking stackexchange. It is like cooking for computers.

username3 16y ago
It's beta. That's how the other beta stackexchange sites look like.
- barkingcat 16y ago
  I'm not sure that's a real excuse for a cooking site to look like that, even if it were in beta. But I accept, perhaps the people who run the site didn't have time (or money) and just applied the default templates, and tried running it to see whether it will work.
- slantyyz 16y ago
  It's beta. That's how the other beta stackexchange sites look like. That's part of the problem. If you look at the StackExchange FAQ, this is what they say about the Beta phase: Beta. Perhaps the most important phase. This is the actual, live site set up on a "probationary" basis to see if people will use it. If you can't customize the user experience in a manner appropriate to the subject matter, you're being set up to fail. That's why I personally have a strong dislike for the Area51 'vetting' process.
  - edanm 16y ago
    The idea isn't to customize it now. It's to customize it together, as a community, during the beta phase. Remember that the site is about a week old, most MVPs don't look nearly as good on their first week, nor have nearly as much traffic driving them right away.