3 ms·
I think there's a kind of CAP theorem for that kind of forum. It's hard to combine: - open and free - well-known - respected - has knowledgeable people -
by jrootabega 4y ago
I think there's a kind of CAP theorem for that kind of forum. It's hard to combine:
- open and free
- well-known
- respected
- has knowledgeable people
- willing to understand and discuss the unique context of every post in good faith
- also able to identify when you truly DO have an XY problem (because they do exist)
- scalable
- rgoulter 4y agoI think asking questions is hard; it's rare to combine: - knows the domain well enough to ask a well formed question about what they want done, with precise terminology. - doesn't know the domain well enough to be able to find an answer. That, combined with the flipside: if you're responding to questions, and most questions aren't very good, your default is to assume that the question isn't a very good question.
- jrootabega 4y agoTrue. There will be some tradeoff between experts having to answer bad questions and deal with bad questioners, and unfairly treating good questioners as bad ones. I think people get to a point in their life or their expertise where they lose sight of the fact that there are always new people. Literally people who didn't even exist when they were first learning their craft. Children can only learn by making mistakes. You have to be generous and sacrifice for them. These kind of forums do a bad job of handling the "children" of the subject matter who would be willing to learn. And I don't necessarily mean the forums have to change, just that they may be bad places for channeling that kind of generosity and sacrifice.