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Who cares? "Steal what you love", right? They obviously couldn't use the English speaking site, and I doubt the real Stack Overflow has any plans to expand into
by sho 18y ago
Who cares? "Steal what you love", right? They obviously couldn't use the English speaking site, and I doubt the real Stack Overflow has any plans to expand into the Chinese market.
I wouldn't be proud doing such a thing myself, but if such a site will help our Chinese friends learn to program better, good luck to it IMO.
- mustpax 18y agoThat's a really good point about non-English content. Most popular community oriented sites out there, service one and only one language. As someone who grew up speaking Turkish, I can tell you that the quality of content in Turkish on the interwebs is quite sad compared to English. Most web sites service a global audience but there doesn't seem to be much i18n l18n going around. This creates a demand for stuff like this. There must be a way to service different languages better without having to clone websites though. Still, I wouldn't be that nonchalant about stealing work. It's one thing to be inspired by Stack Overflow and build something similar, a 1-1 copy is different.
- jhancock 18y agoi18n is a technical issue. What matters most in this case is not that StackOverflow does not have a Mandarin interface, but rather, it does not have a Mandarin community.
- mustpax 18y agoWell, which comes first, chicken or the egg? The language support or the community? Without the community there's no need to support the language. But without the language you cannot support the community. Part of the problem is that localization can be expensive (especially for non-Western languages) and there is no easy way for community driven sites to gauge potential returns of investing in a new language. But the fact that someone took the trouble of cloning the whole site probably indicates that there's interest out there.
- carbon8 18y agoThe language argument is a red herring that appeals to an outdated, pre-communications revolution worldview and tries to ignore the central issue here. Language support has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this situation. If someone produces something based on a concept already in the wild, it's OK no matter what the language situation is. But if someone outright clones a site's design, it's a dirty move no matter what the language situation is. In its worst forms it's fraudulent and deceptive, in its most innocent form it's confusing to users.
- jhancock 18y agoI do not think this new site is fraudulent or confusing to its users. I'm sure the vast majority of Chinese users will know this new site is a clone of StackOverflow. Here's your litmus test: If both sites exist and users in China overwhelmingly chose the new China based one, doesn't it prove that this new site is providing something that the original did not or could not provide?
- carbon8 18y agoSo if I clone your ShellShadow software, design everything to look as identical as possible and the market overwhelmingly chooses my clone, that's OK with you? Somehow I doubt it.
- jhancock 18y agoIts not a matter of "that's ok with me". There are many variables to success. If someone else's "Collaborative Shell Client" takes off and mine doesn't, or takes off in a market I haven't or couldn't service well, and I was on the internet first, I need to review many other variables besides just product design.
- carbon8 18y agoIf someone else's "Collaborative Shell Client" takes off and mine doesn't... There's a massive difference between a competitor and a clone.