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> "What document backend to use with Drupal?" is a question whose answers are in constant flux. It is a bad match for and Authoritative Language Compendium. But

> "What document backend to use with Drupal?" is a question whose answers are in constant flux. It is a bad match for and Authoritative Language Compendium. But it's also the kinds of thing people wonder about, it's a relevant tech question, and the dialog around something like that is easily as valuable as the accepted answer since everyone is skinning a different cat. IIRC, they did something like that. It was called programmers.stackexchange.com, and I used it a couple times and it was great. Then some power-that-be decided it "wasn't working" (probably because it didn't fit the SO only-kind-of-good-question rubric) and changed the focus be a clone of SO with some minor difference in emphasis.

Joeri 8y ago
I loved the early programmers.se. Then the mod hammer came down and broke it.
- shagie 8y ago
  People weren't interested in maintaining the early programmers.se site. It was a "what to browse when there's nothing else to do." As the crud started piling up the options were either abandon it completely (that was threatened) or clean it up along with the associated rules of what makes a good subjective question. It takes a lot of work to maintain a free for all site by the community. It takes less work by the community to maintain a heavily moderated site. The culture of a site is a reflection of how much work people are willing to put into keeping it that way.
  - Lionsion 8y ago
    > As the crud started piling up You'll have to be more specific about what that "crud" is, as SO's culture seems to have a tendency to reclassify the baby as dirt and throw him out with the bathwater. > the options were either abandon it completely (that was threatened) or clean it up along with the associated rules of what makes a good subjective question. Seems like there should have been more options on the table than "abandon" or "remake in SO's image." SO has a better population to answer subjective questions than most of the alternatives it tries to push people towards. They really should have been more flexible.
    - shagie 8y ago
      There's some remnants of this era on the meta site. For example, consider the argument for https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/836/ https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions... asking "who would be the most efficacious patron saint of programmers". It was a the era of "what should I name my cat?" ( https://i.stack.imgur.com/HEZ2Z.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/HEZ2Z.png ) and Perks for new programmers ( https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/106980/ https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1069... ), Do you fart in your cube? ( https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/49548/ https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/4954... ), what is your favorite cartoon? The enforcement notice was with https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/350/the-six-subjective-question-guidelines-enforcement-notice https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions... (which also lists a lot of the water cooler days of PSE links). The history is described in https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3415 https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3415 . Also give https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/09/17/merging-season/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/09/17/merging-season/ a read. Note the: > There’s an even longer list of things that really belong on the new Programmers Stack Exchange, which appears to be degrading into fairly stupid water-cooler nonsense, and could benefit from an infusion of more meaty subjects, like these proposals:
      - Lionsion 8y ago
        > It was a the era of "what should I name my cat?" A lot of those links 404 for me, but a lot of that stuff could have been taken care of by being better at defining what was on and off topic, e.g. it's a site for subjective questions about programming, rather than programmers answering subjective questions. SO has the moderation resources to handle that.
        shagie 8y ago
        SO might have had the moderation resources. The early PSE site didn't (as described in https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/200144 https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/200144 ). The moderation actions trying to deal with that were done mostly by diamond moderator fiat and occasionally Jeff or Joel saying "no." The community that was there at the time wasn't doing any significant moderation or curation of those questions. Consider https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/44177/ https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/4417... and consider is that useful? curated? Should "Quit my last job." (entire answer) be there? or "I tried to apply good programming technique to a language such as TI-83+ BASIC."? Count how many times "read books" or some variation is in that list. It wasn't moderated or curated. Such pile on "give a pithy answer" was acceptable. And it made the site - trying for the more conceptual and architecture questions that Joel was asking for in his blog post harder to find, and they would get drowned out by the popular fun questions. That lead to https://stackoverflow.blog/2012/01/31/the-trouble-with-popularity/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2012/01/31/the-trouble-with-popul... Its not that those aren't interesting questions, its that they are the wrong fit for that format. There are better places to ask for the best programming joke than Stack Overflow and Exchange sites. And so, with the lack of moderation and curation from the fun days of Programmers.SE a different philosophy of the site was able to establish itself... and the site grew in activity. The culture of a site is a proof of work. You have to work to maintain it. If there isn't work to do it, it can change. Its probably far to late to change to the less moderated version of the site again. However, if one wants to do that, actively work to curate the site so that those questions are acceptable. MathOverflow has a fair number of fun and soft questions - but that comes at a lot of work of moderation and curation from the entire community... which they do. The community on other sites that wants those fun and soft questions has not shown as much a desire to curate them, and so others moderate them (not desiring to curate them either).

Joeri 8y ago

I loved the early programmers.se. Then the mod hammer came down and broke it.

shagie 8y ago
People weren't interested in maintaining the early programmers.se site. It was a "what to browse when there's nothing else to do." As the crud started piling up the options were either abandon it completely (that was threatened) or clean it up along with the associated rules of what makes a good subjective question. It takes a lot of work to maintain a free for all site by the community. It takes less work by the community to maintain a heavily moderated site. The culture of a site is a reflection of how much work people are willing to put into keeping it that way.
- Lionsion 8y ago
  > As the crud started piling up You'll have to be more specific about what that "crud" is, as SO's culture seems to have a tendency to reclassify the baby as dirt and throw him out with the bathwater. > the options were either abandon it completely (that was threatened) or clean it up along with the associated rules of what makes a good subjective question. Seems like there should have been more options on the table than "abandon" or "remake in SO's image." SO has a better population to answer subjective questions than most of the alternatives it tries to push people towards. They really should have been more flexible.
  - shagie 8y ago
    There's some remnants of this era on the meta site. For example, consider the argument for https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/836/ https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions... asking "who would be the most efficacious patron saint of programmers". It was a the era of "what should I name my cat?" ( https://i.stack.imgur.com/HEZ2Z.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/HEZ2Z.png ) and Perks for new programmers ( https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/106980/ https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1069... ), Do you fart in your cube? ( https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/49548/ https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/4954... ), what is your favorite cartoon? The enforcement notice was with https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/350/the-six-subjective-question-guidelines-enforcement-notice https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions... (which also lists a lot of the water cooler days of PSE links). The history is described in https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3415 https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3415 . Also give https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/09/17/merging-season/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/09/17/merging-season/ a read. Note the: > There’s an even longer list of things that really belong on the new Programmers Stack Exchange, which appears to be degrading into fairly stupid water-cooler nonsense, and could benefit from an infusion of more meaty subjects, like these proposals:
    - Lionsion 8y ago
      > It was a the era of "what should I name my cat?" A lot of those links 404 for me, but a lot of that stuff could have been taken care of by being better at defining what was on and off topic, e.g. it's a site for subjective questions about programming, rather than programmers answering subjective questions. SO has the moderation resources to handle that.
      - shagie 8y ago
        SO might have had the moderation resources. The early PSE site didn't (as described in https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/200144 https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/200144 ). The moderation actions trying to deal with that were done mostly by diamond moderator fiat and occasionally Jeff or Joel saying "no." The community that was there at the time wasn't doing any significant moderation or curation of those questions. Consider https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/44177/ https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/4417... and consider is that useful? curated? Should "Quit my last job." (entire answer) be there? or "I tried to apply good programming technique to a language such as TI-83+ BASIC."? Count how many times "read books" or some variation is in that list. It wasn't moderated or curated. Such pile on "give a pithy answer" was acceptable. And it made the site - trying for the more conceptual and architecture questions that Joel was asking for in his blog post harder to find, and they would get drowned out by the popular fun questions. That lead to https://stackoverflow.blog/2012/01/31/the-trouble-with-popularity/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2012/01/31/the-trouble-with-popul... Its not that those aren't interesting questions, its that they are the wrong fit for that format. There are better places to ask for the best programming joke than Stack Overflow and Exchange sites. And so, with the lack of moderation and curation from the fun days of Programmers.SE a different philosophy of the site was able to establish itself... and the site grew in activity. The culture of a site is a proof of work. You have to work to maintain it. If there isn't work to do it, it can change. Its probably far to late to change to the less moderated version of the site again. However, if one wants to do that, actively work to curate the site so that those questions are acceptable. MathOverflow has a fair number of fun and soft questions - but that comes at a lot of work of moderation and curation from the entire community... which they do. The community on other sites that wants those fun and soft questions has not shown as much a desire to curate them, and so others moderate them (not desiring to curate them either).