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IMO slack is a poor medium for in depth questions and answers. It’s a chat application made for short text. A better tool would be something like an internal

IMO slack is a poor medium for in depth questions and answers. It’s a chat application made for short text. A better tool would be something like an internal stackoverflow…which would have more durability and findability.

chrsig 4y ago
Unfortunately, I've seen an internal stackoverflow fail right out the gate because of clout chasing. For example, people asking questions only to answer it themselves immediately.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  What's wrong with that? On the real StackOverflow, that's not only allowed but encouraged, and it doesn't seem to cause problems like that.
  - chrsig 4y ago
    Perhaps it's a solution that does better at a large scale than at a smaller scale. At a smaller company, it becomes much more evident that the contributions are being made more for self-promotion than for anyone's benefit. Either because you know the person making them and their personality, because the volume:quality is out of alignment, or because the person posting the question/answer wasn't actually having the problem and were just posting it for points. Also the volume of organic questions is on the lower side, and could get easily drown out by what amounts to astroturfing. So in my experience, it never really gained adoption, and withered shortly after it's introduction.
    - Nowado 4y ago
      Again, what's the issue with that? How is organization suffering from it?
    - ratww 4y ago
      Were their answers wrong, or were the questions completely unnecessary? How do you know it's "not for everyone's benefit"? I don't announce to the world when I consult the documentation. Are you measuring the reach of these answers or is it just a gut feeling? I really fail to see how this is a negative thing. If anything, it's the people not doing it that caused the whole project to fail.
      - chrsig 4y ago
        As I recall, largely unnecessary. I can't divine someone's intent, but I can surmise based on having worked with them for multiple years. Measuring reach? certainly not. It was just setup as a confluence plugin by the corpit team and left as a free-for-all with no direction. > I really fail to see how this is a negative thing It discouraged engagement. You can argue until you're blue in the face if it should have or not. If there's something to take away here, I imagine that it's not "internal stackoverflows are doomed to fail", and more "unstructured adoption of internal stackoverflows don't go as smoothly as one fantasizes" Had we made some set of individuals as having been responsible for the adoption and moderation of it, it may have gone better.
        e9 4y ago
        Even if question seems unnecessary at the time, more often than not some junior dev will find it helpful once your company grows. It’s about preserving knowledge and no question is dumb at that point.
        yesiamyourdad 4y ago
        I don't question their premise, I believe that it happens. So remove clout, it's a feature to create network incentives for people who need an incentive.
        e9 4y ago
        That's right. Most people need incentive. That's how humans operate unfortunately and you have work around that to get anything done. That's why being good manager is hard. For example, if you make a competition to give some prize for most fixed bugs, they will get fixed. Yes some won't be fixed completely and you have to redo them but I guarantee you there will be more bugs fixed than if you don't have the incentive.
  - simonw 4y ago
    Yeah that sounds like a positive pattern to me: it means people are contributing to an internal persistent knowledge base. Sounds like it should be actively encouraged.
- junon 4y ago
  Which is exactly what SO encourages one to do.
- samstave 4y ago
  S.A.Q.s Self-answered-FAQs We typically call that "Documentation!" :-)
- yesiamyourdad 4y ago
  So remove clout. SO did it because they wanted network effects from a collection of people that needed incentive to contribute.
metadat 4y ago
Agree 100%, slack is the wrong tool for the job in this case. Your proposal is a cool idea, and there are even self-hostable FOSS clones available. See: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2267/are-there-any-clones-alternatives-for-running-a-stack-exchange-style-qa-site https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2267/are-there-any-...
- dicknuckle 4y ago
  I haven't read too far into those, but if one has an integration or feature to automatically send a message to the team's Slack channel with a link to every new Local SO post, it could really light the fire on that new system. Then all the replies would be easier to capture on the SO post, AND eyes would be on the new posts, AND it wouldn't be cluttering inboxes.
  - whiskyagogo 4y ago
    I’m in the process of identifying communication gaps in my org and possible tooling and process solutions. Stack Overflow for Teams is high on my list of tools to evaluate and it feels like a Slack integration would be important so your comment finally prompted me to look into it. It turns out there’s an official integration that looks pretty comprehensive: https://stackoverflow.co/teams/integrations/slack/ https://stackoverflow.co/teams/integrations/slack/
    - dicknuckle 4y ago
      Beautiful! I'll have to bring this up with my team. We just had a management expansion and I'm part of the process for changing the way we operate.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

chrsig 4y ago

Unfortunately, I've seen an internal stackoverflow fail right out the gate because of clout chasing. For example, people asking questions only to answer it themselves immediately.

josephcsible 4y ago
What's wrong with that? On the real StackOverflow, that's not only allowed but encouraged, and it doesn't seem to cause problems like that.
- chrsig 4y ago
  Perhaps it's a solution that does better at a large scale than at a smaller scale. At a smaller company, it becomes much more evident that the contributions are being made more for self-promotion than for anyone's benefit. Either because you know the person making them and their personality, because the volume:quality is out of alignment, or because the person posting the question/answer wasn't actually having the problem and were just posting it for points. Also the volume of organic questions is on the lower side, and could get easily drown out by what amounts to astroturfing. So in my experience, it never really gained adoption, and withered shortly after it's introduction.
  - Nowado 4y ago
    Again, what's the issue with that? How is organization suffering from it?
  - ratww 4y ago
    Were their answers wrong, or were the questions completely unnecessary? How do you know it's "not for everyone's benefit"? I don't announce to the world when I consult the documentation. Are you measuring the reach of these answers or is it just a gut feeling? I really fail to see how this is a negative thing. If anything, it's the people not doing it that caused the whole project to fail.
    - chrsig 4y ago
      As I recall, largely unnecessary. I can't divine someone's intent, but I can surmise based on having worked with them for multiple years. Measuring reach? certainly not. It was just setup as a confluence plugin by the corpit team and left as a free-for-all with no direction. > I really fail to see how this is a negative thing It discouraged engagement. You can argue until you're blue in the face if it should have or not. If there's something to take away here, I imagine that it's not "internal stackoverflows are doomed to fail", and more "unstructured adoption of internal stackoverflows don't go as smoothly as one fantasizes" Had we made some set of individuals as having been responsible for the adoption and moderation of it, it may have gone better.
      - e9 4y ago
        Even if question seems unnecessary at the time, more often than not some junior dev will find it helpful once your company grows. It’s about preserving knowledge and no question is dumb at that point.
        yesiamyourdad 4y ago
        I don't question their premise, I believe that it happens. So remove clout, it's a feature to create network incentives for people who need an incentive.
        e9 4y ago
        That's right. Most people need incentive. That's how humans operate unfortunately and you have work around that to get anything done. That's why being good manager is hard. For example, if you make a competition to give some prize for most fixed bugs, they will get fixed. Yes some won't be fixed completely and you have to redo them but I guarantee you there will be more bugs fixed than if you don't have the incentive.
- simonw 4y ago
  Yeah that sounds like a positive pattern to me: it means people are contributing to an internal persistent knowledge base. Sounds like it should be actively encouraged.
junon 4y ago
Which is exactly what SO encourages one to do.
samstave 4y ago
S.A.Q.s Self-answered-FAQs We typically call that "Documentation!" :-)
yesiamyourdad 4y ago
So remove clout. SO did it because they wanted network effects from a collection of people that needed incentive to contribute.

metadat 4y ago

Agree 100%, slack is the wrong tool for the job in this case. Your proposal is a cool idea, and there are even self-hostable FOSS clones available. See: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2267/are-there-any-clones-alternatives-for-running-a-stack-exchange-style-qa-site https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2267/are-there-any-...

dicknuckle 4y ago
I haven't read too far into those, but if one has an integration or feature to automatically send a message to the team's Slack channel with a link to every new Local SO post, it could really light the fire on that new system. Then all the replies would be easier to capture on the SO post, AND eyes would be on the new posts, AND it wouldn't be cluttering inboxes.
- whiskyagogo 4y ago
  I’m in the process of identifying communication gaps in my org and possible tooling and process solutions. Stack Overflow for Teams is high on my list of tools to evaluate and it feels like a Slack integration would be important so your comment finally prompted me to look into it. It turns out there’s an official integration that looks pretty comprehensive: https://stackoverflow.co/teams/integrations/slack/ https://stackoverflow.co/teams/integrations/slack/
  - dicknuckle 4y ago
    Beautiful! I'll have to bring this up with my team. We just had a management expansion and I'm part of the process for changing the way we operate.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]