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Why did they even bother breaking stackoverflow into various similar-yet-different websites? Originally, a question only needed to be specified by the associat
by agscala 16y ago
Why did they even bother breaking stackoverflow into various similar-yet-different websites? Originally, a question only needed to be specified by the associated tags. Now, in order to post a question the user needs to also pick the appropriate website AND the correct tags. I don't think having multiple websites actually made anything simpler; they give more room for people to bark at each other about asking in the wrong place.
All that each website does is provide a filter so that when you want to browse through it, you see questions that are generally related by a certain topic. Wouldn't this have been better created with user-defined (or pre-populated default) tag filters and having remained contained in one website?
- keltex 16y agoThe problem is that topic nazis will jump all over you (i.e. close your question as off topic) if you dare ask a question that might be server administration based rather than a programming question.
- robg 16y agoPerfect example there where "server" + "administration", or heck even "server" alone, in the text is sufficient to classify the question. Add additional terms and classification gets more and more discrete. Tags are necessary for photos. I don't see how text is the same problem at all.
- thwarted 16y agoI somewhat feel the same way about twitter's hashtags. All it does it eat up the limited space already allocated. Why are you not putting words related to the topic in your tweet already?
- bmelton 16y agoI always felt that the hashtags were a good idea, but that everybody was using them wrong. If, for example, my tweet looks like this: "I had a great time posting on Hacker News #hackernews, #great_time" then I am doing it all wrong. I thought the smarter implementation would be to do something more like: "I had a #great_time posting on #hackernews" It doesn't eat up as much space, but the inclusion of the hash allows for content grouping and all the other nonsense it provides. The first time I saw it used in the first way, I was kind of sad for the author, as I believe that the intent was for them to replace words, and the author just didn't get it... but I've seen it misused more than I haven't, so either the world at large is doing it wrong, or I am misunderstanding something.
- eru 16y agoThis works best in (mostly) isolating languages like English. If your grammar forces you to modify words, you need some workarounds. Say, define certain tags as synonyms of each other.
- robg 16y agoWhat really saddens me is the necessary information is in the text already, especially when considering co-occurrences, to keep everything as one big happy family. The text separates the topics, we just have to be careful in calculating the differential weights.
- danilocampos 16y agoIt's a fair question. Watching Stack Overflow's balkanization is a little worrisome. It raises the complexity of the product, which adds friction to the task of getting a question answered. It's easier to go to the wrong place than it is to have content re-classified.
- petercooper 16y agoI agree with your argument on a logical, rational level. I can concede, however, that "branding" is important to people in ways they rarely care to admit. Having "a site" can feel different to people than carving out an area of interest with a search query, especially on a site with a "community." Communities form around sites and brands, not search queries. That said, I still agree with you despite appreciating the nuances of bizarre human behavior ;-) Sites like MetaFilter, Reddit, and Hacker News (to a lesser extent) have managed to spread their brands into multiple topic areas (and multiple "sites" in Reddit's case) without diluting people's sense of being a Mefite or Redditor.
- andreyf 16y agoI agree with your argument on a logical, rational level. I can concede, however, that "branding" is important to people in ways they rarely care to admit Bingo. One thing I remember from Jeff & Joel's podcasts when I listened to them was how much thought they put into facilitating a sense of a community on the site. Another is being surprised how technically competent Joel is, when it comes to technical CS stuffs (explaining the difference between the halting problem and NP problems, for example). He's also certainly no newbie when it comes to building a brand with a following.
- vog 16y agoWhile I agree that we need more people with deeper CS knowledge in the business, your particular example (halting problem and NP) is somewhat strange. Any CS student should have learned this in the 3rd semester or earlier, at least in my university. I wouldn't count that as an example of great technical competence. The halting problem, logic, complexity classes, type systems, evaluation models etc are basic concepts. So I'd rather be surprised if anyone who's said to be competent could not explain those.
- khafra 16y agoI'd be surprised if the average person who's been out of school and programming for at least a decade, let alone moved mostly on to managing programmers, could still remember the difference between an NP complete problem and the halting problem at an "can explain it to your grandmother" level.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]