32 ms·

Ask HN: Where do you go to ask questions that don't fit stackexchange.com?

28 points by yeetard 4y ago

Questions concerning technology, that aren't really "practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face" (Source: https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask) but at the same time are still way to technical or "goal oriented" in a way for places with a more colloquial attitude like reddit.com etc., and can't really be answered in a single paragraph, either because they are too open-ended and only were to be asked with the intent of gaining a more holistic understanding of a certain subject or because they're to complex? You know, stuff that you would have originally asked in a forum about that specific topic, before they (the forums) all died off for no reason.

de_nied 4y ago
Sometimes, asking a question is not possible unless you personally find someone (or someones) qualified to answer it. Rather, you'd pick up a book and/or watch some YouTube videos regarding the subject. Then you can brainstorm and bruteforce attempts at understanding the topic until you finally achieve some level of comprehension of whatever it is you're trying to learn. So most of this would boil down to RTFM, except it would be in published academic books or videos of "experts" discussing it. It would be up to you to define what an expert is. Choose carefully.
- yeetard 4y ago
  >asking a question is not possible unless you personally find someone (or someones) qualified to answer it. Ah, so we're at this old problem again (The you-need-to-know-the-right-people-problem). That didn't take long. How do I find experts that care about problem?
  - mkr-hn 4y ago
    First, spend decades building a big enough network to encompass every possible skill. Then, ask your question. It sounds like a coy dismissal, but it's true. You either spray and pray on public forums, or you build your own collection of someones who know someone.
    - yeetard 4y ago
      >Dude, just turn old In all seriousness, I can't believe that we still haven't solved this. Crazy advanced social media but no workaround for the "networking problem". No, not gonna suggest we need a "productivity social network" or another meetups.com but could our existing social medias at lest be somewhat biased towards promoting content that connect people over common interest in the real world? Why can't they? (The answer is obvious).
      - Zababa 4y ago
        > but could our existing social medias at lest be somewhat biased towards promoting content that connect people over common interest in the real world? Why can't they? Aren't they already? I've made a few very good friends through social media and it was mostly through common interests at first.
        yeetard 4y ago
        Emphasis on "in the real world".
        Zababa 4y ago
        Meet people on social media and once you like them, meet them in the real world. It worked well for me. Social media allowed me to cast a larger net and be more efficient at filtering people I liked from people I didn't like as much.
      - mkr-hn 4y ago
        Tech can help, like with CRMs and email, but I don't expect to see a total fix in my lifetime. 40+ years into the personal computer era and we still don't have anything that does the legwork. ML is the latest thing to make those promises, and I'm not betting on it doing better than I can before I'm too old for it to matter. I don't plan to wait for some digital savior to fix a human problem.
      - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  - phphphphp 4y ago
    May seem pedantic but it’s important to add some framing here: How do I find experts that care about helping a person they have no connection to with a problem for no reward? There’s lots of easy to access experts on every subject, however, you’re asking for their time for free: that’s a very different proposition. If you’re happy to pay, just tweet or post on LinkedIn asking for an expert and offer to compensate them fairly, you’ll have offers in no times. I’d argue the problem is not that the forums are gone, it’s that people aren’t looking to help for free when there’s so many other ways to put value out into the world — better run a podcast about your favourite subject than answer emails about it.
    - mkr-hn 4y ago
      (concurring, not arguing) I've certainly learned more from a curated set of podcasts than I ever did spending too much time on forums.
    - b3morales 4y ago
      You're right, but it's also not quite as dire as you make it. Experts generally speaking are vulnerable to nerd sniping. The key is to have an interesting problem to ask them about. (The definition of "interesting" is going to vary from expert to expert, though.) If you have that and you can find a place where they congregate, they will be eager to give you an answer. Not so much in order to help you, but in order to satisfy their own curiosity or demonstrate their own knowledge.
pavel_lishin 4y ago
Sadly, I usually ask in one of my Slacks or Discords. This is sad, because the question evaporates into the aether, but in those communities I know enough about the people to tell who might be able to help, and who has the time and bandwidth to discuss this with me. It's also mostly async, but synchronous enough that we can have a reasonable discussion without it taking two weeks.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Discord and Slack communities could probably be helpful and I know a few that have some smart people, but on average they tend to be “bottom heavy” full of people just getting started and questions more advance that a typical noob question can go ignored.
  - pavel_lishin 4y ago
    I would almost never join a Discord/Slack to ask some specific question; I always ask people I already know. The level of effort is pretty high! Join, learn rules, figure out where and how to ask a question, then sit there and monitor things synchronously so people don't ignore you/forget you. I really, really miss the abundance of forums. The only thing like them left these days with any sort of population is subreddits. There are still forums dedicated to niche topics, but they're rare.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      There’s been a handful of times where the answer to my question exists seemingly only on some old Usenet archive.
    - yeetard 4y ago
      The question is, why did they disappear? Did people just stop caring about things? Who in the right mind would ever want to use reddit -in general- and who would want to use it as long as there is a traditional forum for <topic>?
      - 4y ago
pseingatl 4y ago
Reddit. Metafilter. Metafilter seems to be not as popular as it once was. This means an answer won't be immediate. RTFM won't help when you want to know industry best practices, for example, or want to find someone who's been through an experience you're about to suffer. TripAdvisor. Google unfortunately won't be of much help.
- barrysteve 4y ago
  Metafilter turned incredibly political in 2014 after jessamyn left. It made the site less useful for non-Americans.
aendruk 4y ago
In a forum about that specific topic! NixOS, OpenStreetMap, and Rust all have active Discourse instances. For things that are too vaguely defined for that, I’ll bring it up at the local “Linux” user group, which in practice is just a nerd social group with an active group chat and biweekly gatherings.
dan1234 4y ago
Usually Reddit, since that seems to have replaced a lot of forums. Obviously pretty hit & miss depending how active a subreddit is…
tra3 4y ago
You're looking for Ask.Metafilter [0]. The "Popular questions" [1] section is usually full of gems: - Seeking a Paradigm Shift: What is an article or essay that you have read that caused a dramatic change in your thinking / perspective / life? [2] - How to become a person who just goes out and does things? You: a person who goes out and does things, just because. Things like hiking, going to the farmer's market, casual day trips to nearby places, checking out local events, etc. Nothing in particular really, just things outside the house. What does your thought process and mindset look like? How do you decide when to go out and what things to do? How do you keep track of what events are going on in your locale so you remember to go to them? How do you trick yourself into going places when you are feeling ho-hum about it? [3] There's a wide gamut of questions. I've asked some random things before and gotten good responses. [0]: https://ask.metafilter.com https://ask.metafilter.com [1]: https://ask.metafilter.com/home/popularfavorite12 https://ask.metafilter.com/home/popularfavorite12 [2]: https://ask.metafilter.com/354882/Seeking-a-Paradigm-Shift https://ask.metafilter.com/354882/Seeking-a-Paradigm-Shift [3]: https://ask.metafilter.com/355442/How-to-become-a-person-who-just-goes-out-and-does-things https://ask.metafilter.com/355442/How-to-become-a-person-who...
gysfjiutedgj 4y ago
researchgate.com
swah 4y ago
So this would kind of a mentoring help, right? I feel like that is one of the main advantadges of working inside a Big Co. Its hard to do the same without being part of a group. What probably works best "outside" is writing a blog post with your problem, and throwing that into HN/Reddit for discussion.