|
The software that runs this website is called "Stack Exchange 1.0". Stack Exchange 2.0 is coming: http://blog.stackexchange.com/post/518474918/stack-exchange-2-0 First the good news: Stack Exchange 2.0 is going to be free. Now the bad news: The current version of SQLA (using Stack Exchange 1.0 software) will probably be shut down on Tuesday, July 13, 2010... that's the date displayed on the SQLA "admin" page. This is not my idea... I'm just finding out about it now. Migrating to Stack Exchange 2.0 software is not simply a technical exercise, otherwise I wouldn't be asking what you think. If you care about SQLA then please read this long blog post and tell us what you think: http://blog.stackexchange.com/post/518474918/stack-exchange-2-0 |
|
Well, maybe I have ignored the "govern yourself accordingly" warning too often... I generally agree with the primarily critical view of SE 2.0 as taken by Breck and Justin. I certainly would follow the crowd to SQLA on SE 2.0, if that way is taken. But my silent expectation that iAnywhere might support SQLA in the longrun in a somewhat more official way (by co-moderating or even paying) won't be realistic if the site cannot be owned by someone and when perspectives just change as fast as now. @Breck: Are there any plans to contact the SE supporters (as Joel Spolsky suggests) to "find a way" to turn SQLA in a "corporate site"? Or would this just be the end of the road? |
If you don't respond to this poll then you are implicitly voting "thumbs down" on SQLA... so govern yourself accordingly! :)
From a fairly brief time watching SQLA, I see that it does 2 things that the Sybase newsgroups don't: 1) Ranks contributors with credibility/karma/whatever you want to call them points. 2) Allows answers to be ranked, so you can read the most valuable/complete answer first
I think both of those characteristics have value. Now PHPBB lets you rank users, so there's an alternative for (1) that is truly open source. I don't have an immediate alternative to cover (2), but I expect they are out there.
So, is Stack Exchange worth the pain for you?
I prefer SQLA over NNTP newgroups (and of course HTML based forums) for usability and efficiency. IMHO the concept is fine (and proven to be functional), but this place is not actually crowded and could use more publicity. The criteria allowing Stack Exchange 2.0 sites to exists (and go public) are not really clear to me, but that's another topic.
One question that wasn't answered well in Joel's blog post was if the reputation that users of SQLA 1.0 will count when they are "deciding" if they will allow the creation of a SQLA 2.0. The only example he used was reputation on StackOverflow. Almost by definition, the fact that this site exists means that the users of this community probably won't have much reputation on StackOverflow.
@Chris - Its not very clear is it, but the vibes don't feel too good if you compare the stats at http://www.stackexchange.com/directory/list?sort=1 with their critera in the blog post. At the current levels of usage (and they aren't likely to change much by July) I fear SQLA is toast on the SE platform.
@Rob: I agree with your matter-of-factly analysis of the 2 important points and would add a 3rd (emotional) point as "It runs on the cool SO software" - I'm no SO contributor so far (and as such possibly would not contribute much to vote-up SQLA to SE 2.0) but until now the close relationship seemed fancy. - Now it looks more of a bondage...
@Rob: Just 2 more points: 4) The possibility to edit (i.e. correct or improve) all entries and 5) The focus on creating more general "answers" (for a broader audience) than just answering a NNTP question. Personally, I think I put more involvement in my contributions here than in the newsgroups just as the focus seems broader - more examples, more sidenotes and the like. (And I hope it's worthwhile.)
@Volker - on the what's good list, I think the tagging system (though it could be improved) has a lot going for it (especially with the ability to re-tag questions)
@Rob: Feel free to start a SQL Anywhere site using phpbb. I've seen it in action and it's crapware when compared with the StackExchange / StackOverflow software... so good luck!
@Justin: Please post your thoughts on tagging: how it should be done, etcetera. I have my own opinions but... one of those opinions is that my opinions aren't working that well :)