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It's interesting to consider the difference between categorization by tagging within a single Stack Exchange site, and the shunting of questions into the variou

by redler 14y ago

It's interesting to consider the difference between categorization by tagging within a single Stack Exchange site, and the shunting of questions into the various subsites. Is the form of a menagerie of sites of greater value to the Stack Exchange network, or to users of the sites? A Venn diagram including stackoverflow, programmers, ux, dba, cs, cstheory, security, codereview, and a few others, has substantial areas of intersection. There are over 37,000 stackoverflow questions tagged "database"; surely an exhaustive search for answers to some database-related questions would include both stackoverflow and dba. (Do answers from smaller SE subsites appear lower in Google search results?) What if SE explicitly worked with a graph whose nodes are all the SE sites, their tags, their questions, and their answers? When seeking answers to questions, we don't care which site we find them on, so why not turn the SE browsing experience into one that can cross site boundaries? As far as I can tell, currently the only explicit edges among such inter-site nodes are the "this question migrated from site x" notices. The danger of the dilution of the SE network into something like Quora would be mitigated by the fact that there would be very few edges connecting bits of sites like stackoverflow and diy. Surely there's value in seeing how data at the various sites are interrelated, mining those Venn diagram overlaps. Tangentially, it's evident from the gripes here and elsewhere that there is substantial value in many of the "closed" questions. Instead of closing questions, perhaps they could be routed to some sort of alternate track, usenet alt-hierarchy-style. These questions would still be participants in the overall SE graph; let the user make an affirmative decision to opt in to the "alt" portion of the graph as part of their registered-user SE experience. Prior awareness of how one's question would be categorized with respect to all the relevant stackexchange subsites falls into the realm of "don't make me think".

codinghorror 14y ago
Perhaps, but most questions are closed not because they are off-topic, but because they are too subjective; see http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-su... Beyond that, if there are a lot of "just barely" off-topic questions being asked, that is a good reason to launch another sub-site; this is how Super User (power computer users, any OS) and Server Fault (sysadmin) sites were launched, because there were a ton of these sorts of questions being asked in the early days of Stack Overflow, but they weren't really about programming. We've also seen some subsections of the Stack Overflow community want their own sub-site, because they legitimately form a unique, strong community of their own: like DBA (database admins) and Mathematica. All those questions are technically on-topic for SO, but the community wants their own place, with their own reputation system, their own moderators, and their own take on what questions they'll allow. "The danger of the dilution of the SE network into something like Quora" This made me laugh, but Quora's problem is that they allow and even solicit pure opinion, whereas on Stack Exchange we prefer answers that can be verified in some tiny way. "Because that's what I think" is a valid reason to answer anything on Quora, which gets into unpleasant weirdnesses like judging answers based on the fame/success of the answerer, because, well, what other science can you apply to an opinion?
- redler 14y ago
  These are good points, and as the creator of SE you've undoubtedly put a lot of thought into this. I just wonder, from the perspective of an occasional answerer and moderator, whether there's some way to maximize the value of the questions living in the categorical interstices. Is a question less likely to get the exposure that will lead to a good answer when it's migrated to a smaller sub-site? And some of the "subjective" questions produce fascinating discussions and enlightening answers; arguably the community moderation of such questions and answers (closing and deletion notwithstanding) still provides valuable weighting that could influence the overall graph and increase the value of the network. Could there be a shadow network still moderated for quality? Hard problems but fun to consider.
  - codinghorror 14y ago
    It is a difficult problem. We have a model that requires some intense discipline (relative to the rest of the "whee, do whatever!" Internet) to work. That is, you gotta do your homework, and not everyone can get into Harvard. Or even their local community college for that matter. But I'd say the proof is in the pudding, that is, look at what percentage of pages SE generates that are actually useful and make the Internet better.
- jaylevitt 14y ago
  Is it possible that most closed questions are "too subjective", but that most unfairly closed questions are "off-topic"? As someone who's had a few questions shunted from SE site to SE site, being closed at every step, I think SE would do well to emphasize migration over closure. Having a question closed is a real downer, the opposite of all the SE game mechanics. And it's one of the oldest principles of UX: Don't tell me what I should have done. Just do it for me.

by redler 14y ago

codinghorror 14y ago

Perhaps, but most questions are closed not because they are off-topic, but because they are too subjective; see http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-su... Beyond that, if there are a lot of "just barely" off-topic questions being asked, that is a good reason to launch another sub-site; this is how Super User (power computer users, any OS) and Server Fault (sysadmin) sites were launched, because there were a ton of these sorts of questions being asked in the early days of Stack Overflow, but they weren't really about programming. We've also seen some subsections of the Stack Overflow community want their own sub-site, because they legitimately form a unique, strong community of their own: like DBA (database admins) and Mathematica. All those questions are technically on-topic for SO, but the community wants their own place, with their own reputation system, their own moderators, and their own take on what questions they'll allow. "The danger of the dilution of the SE network into something like Quora" This made me laugh, but Quora's problem is that they allow and even solicit pure opinion, whereas on Stack Exchange we prefer answers that can be verified in some tiny way. "Because that's what I think" is a valid reason to answer anything on Quora, which gets into unpleasant weirdnesses like judging answers based on the fame/success of the answerer, because, well, what other science can you apply to an opinion?

redler 14y ago
These are good points, and as the creator of SE you've undoubtedly put a lot of thought into this. I just wonder, from the perspective of an occasional answerer and moderator, whether there's some way to maximize the value of the questions living in the categorical interstices. Is a question less likely to get the exposure that will lead to a good answer when it's migrated to a smaller sub-site? And some of the "subjective" questions produce fascinating discussions and enlightening answers; arguably the community moderation of such questions and answers (closing and deletion notwithstanding) still provides valuable weighting that could influence the overall graph and increase the value of the network. Could there be a shadow network still moderated for quality? Hard problems but fun to consider.
- codinghorror 14y ago
  It is a difficult problem. We have a model that requires some intense discipline (relative to the rest of the "whee, do whatever!" Internet) to work. That is, you gotta do your homework, and not everyone can get into Harvard. Or even their local community college for that matter. But I'd say the proof is in the pudding, that is, look at what percentage of pages SE generates that are actually useful and make the Internet better.
jaylevitt 14y ago
Is it possible that most closed questions are "too subjective", but that most unfairly closed questions are "off-topic"? As someone who's had a few questions shunted from SE site to SE site, being closed at every step, I think SE would do well to emphasize migration over closure. Having a question closed is a real downer, the opposite of all the SE game mechanics. And it's one of the oldest principles of UX: Don't tell me what I should have done. Just do it for me.