Hello Stephan On 9/23/13, Stephan Eggermont <[email protected]> wrote: > Hannes wrote: >> In reply to this post by Stephan Eggermont >> On 9/23/13, Stephan Eggermont <[hidden email]> wrote: >> > Kilon wrote >> >>Here is a radical suggestion you probably don't want to hear. >> >>Close down Pharo users mailing list, redirect everyone to stackoverflow. >> >> >> > >> > Definitely not. Stackoverflow is nearly dead, and seriously unsuitable >> > for >> > small languages. >> >> There are obstacles but one cannot say that it is "seriously >> unsuitable". > > I feel fully qualified to make that statement.
http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=Stephan+Eggermont 5 questions, all three years ago? No Pharo question. Or do you use a nick name these days? And where are the closed Pharo stackoverflow questions? > Getting voted on by > majority views is not exactly what we need. Especially not in > a cargo-cult driven profession. And what is Pharo? A closed sect with people who think everybody else is clueless and does not want to operate _the_ open space about programming questions? There are other small communities on stackoverflow. For example XSL-FO, a technology which has been around for a long time, good concepts, has mature tools, is useful but still is not popular. The main thing is not about voting but about the person who asks accepting the answer. And that is often the answer which later on gets votes. The accepted answer is likely the answer which solves the programming problem asked. And the questions are well organized. The existing pool of 283 Pharo questions is a useful resource. More useful that searching through the mailing list archive. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/pharo >> >Good questions will get closed by clueless people. >> Mostly if the form does not fit. > > Nope. there has been a strong change in what is deemed to be an > acceptable question on SO in the past years. And not in the right > direction. > I know several posters here who have been bitten by that. Could you give some examples, please? >> And if there are Pharo people (maybe earned in another area) with >> enough reputation points this may be prevented > > That would be nice, but isn't the case. Stackoverflow doesn't work like > that. >> > Good answers will get downvoted because they go against majority >> > views. It depends on which tag set you operate in. I doubt that this applies to a question tagged 'Pharo'. Proper tagging is important to frame the question properly. >> Why? > > Because stackoverflow is an opinion site, dominated by popularity. Yes, popular languages and thus the questions about them get a lot of reputation points. But that is not all that important. The important thing is that you can organize programming questions in a good way and solve them nicely. And the content is under a creative common license, thus may he "harvested" for a FAQ list. > Nobody says an answer has to be right. Like I said, take a look at > questions on OODBs. We are not talking about OODBs where it is natural that divergent opinions come in but about Smalltalk programming which is a well established mature programming technology, has acceptance of being "useful" (but only for 'specialists' as the general opinion goes) and thus has a narrow focus. So the subcommunity can operate quite unhampered in stackoverflow.... :-) >> >The ranking system is heavily skewed towards popular languages. Sure, but is this a problem? There are 1000 million speakers of Chinese and I still did not learn Chinese yet. >> It is based on the number of hits which is naturally less in less >> popular languages. >> However subcommunities may function well in stackoverflow. > > No, not really. It means that members of subcommunities have less > rights and power. There is no value in subdividing our community > further. You mean by having questions on stackoverflow and the mailing list? Let me summarize: Nobody forces you to operate on stackoverflow, but I consider both, the mailing list and stackoverflow, as useful. And some cross-referencing might be useful. --Hannes P.S. It is easy to monitor what is happening on stackoverflow regarding 'Pharo' even if you do not want to participate. Just visit http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/pharo from time to time.
