6 ms·

Stackoverflow rolls out "Chat with an expert"

78 points by aSig 14y ago

Zolomon 14y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day
- est 14y ago
  The S.O. experts always responds: Your question is off-topic and will be closed.
hsmyers 14y ago
More properly, towards the bottom, it should say "You must log in to LOOK at this question"...
pbiggar 14y ago
Oh FFS! This looked like a great product that seemed a natural monetization of their platform, that I would actually use and pay for. But its a fucking april fools joke connected to an eliza bot. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470437
- wting 14y ago
  Flask started out as an April Fool's joke that eventually became a real product, there's no reason why the same can't happen with this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flask_(programming)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flask_(programming)#History
wilhelm 14y ago
Disregarding the current date, this is actually a great idea. Instant gratification for a fee. Yes, I'd pay for that. They could recruit their experts from the community itself, limited to those over a certain karma threshold, adding further incentive to participate.
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  Sounds like what Quora is/was doing with their currency system (are they still doing this?)
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  I'd definitely find it useful, and would pay for it. The trick is figuring out how to recruit/pay the "experts" who would need to be fairly high-value people but who would nevertheless have to make themselves available on a moment's notice. And it had better not be implemented as one of those stupid unsolicited pop-up chat windows.
- gav 14y ago
  The question I always have is: is a high karma a meaningful measurement of somebody's abilities?
  - wilhelm 14y ago
    No, but it is a meaningful measurement of participation.
    - frou_dh 14y ago
      ...and in a lot of cases, account age. I haven't participated in Stack Overflow for years, but there's still a steady trickle of points accumulating from my mediocre questions and answers of old.
      - matchu 14y ago
        I still visit the site regularly just to see how many new rep points I've gotten from old answers. What is my life?
  - Mahn 14y ago
    Nope. On SO at least there are lots of folks who amassed hundreds of thousands of reputation merely for being on the site early enough to be able to answer simple and common questions like "how I can remove an array member" and the like.
guiomie 14y ago
This product would make Jon Skeet millionnaire.
darkxanthos 14y ago
This would make a great feature but as an April Fool's joke it seems to fall a bit flat. On that link a couple users are being upset by it. Maybe don't April Fool's your users with terrible service?
fidz 14y ago
Could i have my own robot in my own favor without setting up high performance server?
greggman 14y ago
If it means people posting their random code and asking others to debug it disappears from stackoverflow I'm all for it. While their at it it would be nice if questions marked as duplicate were either deleted or at least had a pointer to the duplicate
- mediumdeviation 14y ago
  Uh, duplicates always have the question that they are a duplicate of linked - http://i.imgur.com/1lata16.png http://i.imgur.com/1lata16.png. In fact, if you don't see this it's probably a bug and you should report it http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/ask?tags=bug http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/ask?tags=bug
simonsarris 14y ago
How funny: Just yesterday my friend (whom I met on StackOverflow months ago) mentioned that someone in the JavaScript chat channel was asking about some canvas tutorial, one that I just so happened to write. He summoned me so that the questioner could in fact, chat with an expert. (Or at least the author.) The (none-too-interesting) transcript as proof: http://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/8574110#8574110 http://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/8574110#857... Unfortunately the question wasn't particularly interesting and concerned an old tutorial. But I love SO because it really does let you chat with experts (Skeet being the most obvious), if not always in real time.
Selfcommit 14y ago
This seems relevant, http://adviza.stackexchange.com/transcript/3H7fYEZJI0KJ http://adviza.stackexchange.com/transcript/3H7fYEZJI0KJ

78 points by aSig 14y ago

Zolomon 14y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day

est 14y ago
The S.O. experts always responds: Your question is off-topic and will be closed.

hsmyers 14y ago

More properly, towards the bottom, it should say "You must log in to LOOK at this question"...

pbiggar 14y ago

Oh FFS! This looked like a great product that seemed a natural monetization of their platform, that I would actually use and pay for. But its a fucking april fools joke connected to an eliza bot. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470437

wting 14y ago
Flask started out as an April Fool's joke that eventually became a real product, there's no reason why the same can't happen with this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flask_(programming)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flask_(programming)#History

wilhelm 14y ago

Disregarding the current date, this is actually a great idea. Instant gratification for a fee. Yes, I'd pay for that. They could recruit their experts from the community itself, limited to those over a certain karma threshold, adding further incentive to participate.

hkmurakami 14y ago
Sounds like what Quora is/was doing with their currency system (are they still doing this?)
CamperBob2 14y ago
I'd definitely find it useful, and would pay for it. The trick is figuring out how to recruit/pay the "experts" who would need to be fairly high-value people but who would nevertheless have to make themselves available on a moment's notice. And it had better not be implemented as one of those stupid unsolicited pop-up chat windows.
gav 14y ago
The question I always have is: is a high karma a meaningful measurement of somebody's abilities?
- wilhelm 14y ago
  No, but it is a meaningful measurement of participation.
  - frou_dh 14y ago
    ...and in a lot of cases, account age. I haven't participated in Stack Overflow for years, but there's still a steady trickle of points accumulating from my mediocre questions and answers of old.
    - matchu 14y ago
      I still visit the site regularly just to see how many new rep points I've gotten from old answers. What is my life?
- Mahn 14y ago
  Nope. On SO at least there are lots of folks who amassed hundreds of thousands of reputation merely for being on the site early enough to be able to answer simple and common questions like "how I can remove an array member" and the like.

guiomie 14y ago

This product would make Jon Skeet millionnaire.

darkxanthos 14y ago

This would make a great feature but as an April Fool's joke it seems to fall a bit flat. On that link a couple users are being upset by it. Maybe don't April Fool's your users with terrible service?

fidz 14y ago

Could i have my own robot in my own favor without setting up high performance server?

greggman 14y ago

If it means people posting their random code and asking others to debug it disappears from stackoverflow I'm all for it. While their at it it would be nice if questions marked as duplicate were either deleted or at least had a pointer to the duplicate

mediumdeviation 14y ago
Uh, duplicates always have the question that they are a duplicate of linked - http://i.imgur.com/1lata16.png http://i.imgur.com/1lata16.png. In fact, if you don't see this it's probably a bug and you should report it http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/ask?tags=bug http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/ask?tags=bug

simonsarris 14y ago

How funny: Just yesterday my friend (whom I met on StackOverflow months ago) mentioned that someone in the JavaScript chat channel was asking about some canvas tutorial, one that I just so happened to write. He summoned me so that the questioner could in fact, chat with an expert. (Or at least the author.) The (none-too-interesting) transcript as proof: http://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/8574110#8574110 http://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/8574110#857... Unfortunately the question wasn't particularly interesting and concerned an old tutorial. But I love SO because it really does let you chat with experts (Skeet being the most obvious), if not always in real time.

Selfcommit 14y ago

This seems relevant, http://adviza.stackexchange.com/transcript/3H7fYEZJI0KJ http://adviza.stackexchange.com/transcript/3H7fYEZJI0KJ