Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
I tend to lurk on code4lib and got a little behind. I'd be interested in participating in a clone of Stack Exchange, if one existed that would fit. I'm willing commit time to help get it going. What I particularly liked about Stack Exchange was the ability to upvote answers and see the reputation of people answering and asking the questions. As others have already pointed out, some listserv questions gets asked again and again. Or, a question might have a lot of answers with various me too responses mixed in that makes seeing the full picture difficult. What I didn't like about Stack Exchange was the emphasis on only asking questions that had one true answer. This prevented me from asking pretty much any question I actually cared about. It seems to me that questions with one true answer are the type of questions that are the easiest to answer by oneself. Ideally, I'd prefer a site that accepts a broad range of questions but has excellent filtering options. So, for instance, my profile could highlight any questions about the Horizon ILS and demote anything around readers advisory. Getting enough people to seed questions and answers seems like it'd probably be the hardest part. I don't have a good answer for that challenge. Gem Stone-Logan High Plains Library District http://www.mylibrary.us/
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
After my experiences with the Digital Preservation and LIS stack exchanges I am very wary of using them as a platform. I'd agree with others comments that they have far too puritanical and stringent requirements for the kinds of discussion people wanted to have. Beyond that, the kind of activity the stackexchange folks want to see on these boards to meet their needs was a good bit beyond what our communities were going to generate. On some of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance calls there has already been some preliminary discussions of standing up some kind of digital preservation discussion forms (likely running something like http://www.osqa.net or Vanilla). In a related sphere, digital humanities answers seems to have made a good run at this approach (http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/). If anybody is particularly interested in this, feel free to ping me off the list (t...@loc.gov) and I can make sure put you in the loop on discussion of setting up a digital preservation/stewardship online QA forum. -Trevor
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
On 9 July 2013, Owens, Trevor wrote: After my experiences with the Digital Preservation and LIS stack exchanges I am very wary of using them as a platform. I'd agree with others comments that they have far too puritanical and stringent requirements for the kinds of discussion people wanted to have. Beyond that, the kind of activity the stackexchange folks want to see on these boards to meet their needs was a good bit beyond what our communities were going to generate. Well said. I was very interested in the LIS SE and asked and answered some questions, but the combination of the population not increasing and the SE environment not working the way that suits us for our LIS work ended up making me drift away. For all of our general IT questions (programming, databases, system adminstration), I'm sure we all use Stack Exchange sites regularly. It's too bad an LIS-centric version can't group all that together with our domain-specific focus, but it looks like mailing lists and blogs and such still work best. The whole SE network is fascinating. The range of subjects and how questions are asked and answered is very intriguing. I wonder what will happen to it in five years, and what will replace it. Bill -- William Denton Toronto, Canada http://www.miskatonic.org/
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
Hi, On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Matt Jones jo...@nceas.ucsb.edu wrote: Have you considered putting up a QA site outside of the SE network, where you can control the set of policies employed better? Indeed, that suggestion has been made, implicitly or explicitly, by several participants in this thread, and I think that hosting our own instance of OSQA (or the like) is probably necessary to get the cultural fit right. Assuming that there's enough interest such that somebody feels inspired to set one up and host it, under the C4L aegis or not, one question I have is whether it is better off being comprehensive (e.g., all the libraries, all the archives, all the musuems, etc.) to have as large a pool as possible, or whether having a bunch of more focused fora (e.g., the potential digital preservation one mentioned by Trevor) is the way to go. Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton Manager of Implementation Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts email: g...@esilibrary.com direct: +1 770-709-5581 cell: +1 404-984-4366 skype: gmcharlt web:http://www.esilibrary.com/ Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org http://evergreen-ils.org
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
is it better off being comprehensive (e.g., all the libraries, all the archives, all the musuems, etc.) to have as large a pool as possible, or whether having a bunch of more focused fora (e.g., the potential digital preservation one mentioned by Trevor) is the way to go. Anyone interested in this question might want to check out this thread on the distinction/reasons for thinking about doing a general libraries QA site and one focused on digital preservation/stewardship http://anjackson.github.io/zombse/062013%20Libraries%20%20Information%20Science%20Meta/static/questions/50.html (thanks to Andy Jackson for the Zombie version of the site he threw up so we can read these discussions.) My short recap on this is: I think a general Libraries discussion site is likely to be so broad that it might not work (ex. some folks in the LIS Stack Exchange wanted to talk about things like book suggestions for young readers, and best practices for weeding book shelves at public libraries.) With that said, the digital preservation focus might be more spesific than this kind of thing would need to be. So if it was digital stewardship/curation/etc it might have a section or channel focused on digital preservation, on digital access, on born digital collection development, on digitization, on training and education, etc.
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
Hi all, Sorry for the late entry in the conversation (server fires. server fires everywhere)... just adding two cents in the thread: one cent technical, and the other on a higher level. The technical cent: I've set up an OSQA instance on my personal server for http://www.libcatcode.org and have had mixed results with the software itself. There is really no good way of stopping spam accounts from registering. Since I moved to a new server the spam accounts have lessened, but hasn't stopped totally. There's also the issue that OSQA is pretty much not well maintained anymore. The latest version on osqa.net is from 2011. However, there seems to be some blips of recent activity on the github repo at https://github.com/OSQA/osqa/commits/master. The cent on the higher level: Libcatcode was fairly narrow in its focus (cataloging/metadata folks and library-type programmers), and it was trying to ride on the enthusiasm that the Code Year push generated. So, when the initial enthusiasm died down a few months later, the site went dormant (I also had a pretty slow server to start with, so that probably didn't help at all either). A broader focus would help with a broader audience, but this broader audience brings a whole lot of mess. This is where listservs usually win over broad sites like LIS SE, since, going back an earlier example, asking a cataloging question in AUTOCAT guaranteed that other catalogers were going to see that question, instead of posting a cataloging question on SE where there might be little to no folks with cataloging knowledge there. As you've probably seen with Libcatcode, I've been pretty flexible on what was included in the traditional QA structure. I'm not sure if that type of site management would have worked in the long run, but for the brief run we had so far, it did fine. It was the rules lawyering at the LIS SE which drove me away from that site, so I tried not to have that happen at libcatcode. I've spent all my spare change for now. Feel free to pick my brain if needed. Thanks, Becky Becky Yoose Discovery and Integrated Systems Librarian Assistant Professor Grinnell College On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 1:46 PM, Galen Charlton g...@esilibrary.com wrote: Hi, On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Matt Jones jo...@nceas.ucsb.edu wrote: Have you considered putting up a QA site outside of the SE network, where you can control the set of policies employed better? Indeed, that suggestion has been made, implicitly or explicitly, by several participants in this thread, and I think that hosting our own instance of OSQA (or the like) is probably necessary to get the cultural fit right. Assuming that there's enough interest such that somebody feels inspired to set one up and host it, under the C4L aegis or not, one question I have is whether it is better off being comprehensive (e.g., all the libraries, all the archives, all the musuems, etc.) to have as large a pool as possible, or whether having a bunch of more focused fora (e.g., the potential digital preservation one mentioned by Trevor) is the way to go. Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton Manager of Implementation Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts email: g...@esilibrary.com direct: +1 770-709-5581 cell: +1 404-984-4366 skype: gmcharlt web:http://www.esilibrary.com/ Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org http://evergreen-ils.org
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
I tried really hard to participate in and help seed the SE site, but I really didn't have any questions in the way that SE would have liked, so I never posted anything. I'm all for a library forum, though, and don't see how it wouldn't do what the SE sites do while still allowing open discussion. Couldn't we just do something simple like this SMF forum? This would be easy to set up and go, and I feel like it fulfills most of the things we were looking for in SE. http://libforum.sanselephants.com/index.php The only downside is the lack of ranking for replies, which I like about SE but again really propagates the question with one right answer type of discussion, which I don't think we have that often. On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Becky Yoose b.yo...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, Sorry for the late entry in the conversation (server fires. server fires everywhere)... just adding two cents in the thread: one cent technical, and the other on a higher level. The technical cent: I've set up an OSQA instance on my personal server for http://www.libcatcode.org and have had mixed results with the software itself. There is really no good way of stopping spam accounts from registering. Since I moved to a new server the spam accounts have lessened, but hasn't stopped totally. There's also the issue that OSQA is pretty much not well maintained anymore. The latest version on osqa.net is from 2011. However, there seems to be some blips of recent activity on the github repo at https://github.com/OSQA/osqa/commits/master. The cent on the higher level: Libcatcode was fairly narrow in its focus (cataloging/metadata folks and library-type programmers), and it was trying to ride on the enthusiasm that the Code Year push generated. So, when the initial enthusiasm died down a few months later, the site went dormant (I also had a pretty slow server to start with, so that probably didn't help at all either). A broader focus would help with a broader audience, but this broader audience brings a whole lot of mess. This is where listservs usually win over broad sites like LIS SE, since, going back an earlier example, asking a cataloging question in AUTOCAT guaranteed that other catalogers were going to see that question, instead of posting a cataloging question on SE where there might be little to no folks with cataloging knowledge there. As you've probably seen with Libcatcode, I've been pretty flexible on what was included in the traditional QA structure. I'm not sure if that type of site management would have worked in the long run, but for the brief run we had so far, it did fine. It was the rules lawyering at the LIS SE which drove me away from that site, so I tried not to have that happen at libcatcode. I've spent all my spare change for now. Feel free to pick my brain if needed. Thanks, Becky Becky Yoose Discovery and Integrated Systems Librarian Assistant Professor Grinnell College On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 1:46 PM, Galen Charlton g...@esilibrary.com wrote: Hi, On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Matt Jones jo...@nceas.ucsb.edu wrote: Have you considered putting up a QA site outside of the SE network, where you can control the set of policies employed better? Indeed, that suggestion has been made, implicitly or explicitly, by several participants in this thread, and I think that hosting our own instance of OSQA (or the like) is probably necessary to get the cultural fit right. Assuming that there's enough interest such that somebody feels inspired to set one up and host it, under the C4L aegis or not, one question I have is whether it is better off being comprehensive (e.g., all the libraries, all the archives, all the musuems, etc.) to have as large a pool as possible, or whether having a bunch of more focused fora (e.g., the potential digital preservation one mentioned by Trevor) is the way to go. Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton Manager of Implementation Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts email: g...@esilibrary.com direct: +1 770-709-5581 cell: +1 404-984-4366 skype: gmcharlt web:http://www.esilibrary.com/ Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org http://evergreen-ils.org
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
++ Joe Montibello, MLIS Library Systems Manager Dartmouth College Library 603.646.9394 joseph.montibe...@dartmouth.edu On 7/8/13 9:53 AM, Shaun Ellis sha...@princeton.edu wrote: I like the idea of vote to promote as well as having a searchable archive of answers on the web. For me it comes down to it being out of sight, out of mind. It has to come to my inbox for me to pay attention, which is one of the nice features of the Code4Lib Jobs app. In that vein, StackExchange has an API, which could be used to simply forward a daily digest of questions to the mailing list. If all we need is an increase in traffic to establish the forum, that might do it. Questions could be tagged with code4lib to make them easy to aggregate. For example, we can get all the php tagged questions posted in the past day: http://api.stackexchange.com/2.1/questions?fromdate=1373155200todate=1373 241600order=descsort=activitytagged=phpsite=stackoverflow -Shaun On 7/7/13 4:46 PM, Galen Charlton wrote: The main thing that the SE model adds is the ability to build up a set (in one, search-engine-visible place) of consensus answers to questions over time via the process of commenting and up-voting. In other words, I view it as a way to maybe achieve a community-built FAQ or best practices database. Mailing lists and IRC channels provide immediacy, but there are some important library mailing lists whose archives are not (intentionally) accessible to search engines, and there are none that I'm aware of that try to maintain a community-curated set of best questions and answers. Of course, for that model to work, there has to be a sizable number people participating and actually getting answers to their questions (as opposed to caviling about asking their questions properly). Providing immediate and (hopefully) well-informed answers to questions would have to be priority for the community of users; a goal of building a knowledge base would not be achievable without a recognition that it's necessarily a secondary goal.
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
I just want to second what Galen and Shaun have said: I've only encountered StackExchange because I was Googling for answers to some issues (technical and non-technical) that I was having. I'm on a myriad of lists, but I feel an obligation to do due diligence before I bug y'all with my questions and searching every single one of the lists' archives that I'm on is tedious unless I know ahead of time that the answer to my question is contained in a given list. The out of sight out of mind thing is very true too. This is why forum boards don't work for me unless I'm out seeking answers. On a related note, hasn't everyone read this: India does not exist - http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ital/article/view/4308 about the very issue that some have raised here about SE. Christina Salazar Systems Librarian John Spoor Broome Library California State University, Channel Islands 805/437-3198 -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Shaun Ellis Sent: Monday, July 08, 2013 6:54 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot? I like the idea of vote to promote as well as having a searchable archive of answers on the web. For me it comes down to it being out of sight, out of mind. It has to come to my inbox for me to pay attention, which is one of the nice features of the Code4Lib Jobs app. In that vein, StackExchange has an API, which could be used to simply forward a daily digest of questions to the mailing list. If all we need is an increase in traffic to establish the forum, that might do it. Questions could be tagged with code4lib to make them easy to aggregate. For example, we can get all the php tagged questions posted in the past day: http://api.stackexchange.com/2.1/questions?fromdate=1373155200todate=1373241600order=descsort=activitytagged=phpsite=stackoverflow -Shaun On 7/7/13 4:46 PM, Galen Charlton wrote: The main thing that the SE model adds is the ability to build up a set (in one, search-engine-visible place) of consensus answers to questions over time via the process of commenting and up-voting. In other words, I view it as a way to maybe achieve a community-built FAQ or best practices database. Mailing lists and IRC channels provide immediacy, but there are some important library mailing lists whose archives are not (intentionally) accessible to search engines, and there are none that I'm aware of that try to maintain a community-curated set of best questions and answers. Of course, for that model to work, there has to be a sizable number people participating and actually getting answers to their questions (as opposed to caviling about asking their questions properly). Providing immediate and (hopefully) well-informed answers to questions would have to be priority for the community of users; a goal of building a knowledge base would not be achievable without a recognition that it's necessarily a secondary goal.
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
I agree with both Shaun and Galen's points; when you're asking a how to do X with tool Y type of question, SE is a great forum. Like Christina, I've mostly encountered SE when Googling for answers to these types of questions. However, for the reasons that Henry and Gary mentioned, I was disappointed in the Digital Preservation SE experience. At the request of one of the SE organizers, I posted a question there that I had also posted to a listserv. It was flagged for not being in the proper form, but I have no idea how I could have framed it properly for SE because it simply wasn't a question that had a single answer. I wanted discussion. Digital Preservation in particular is a developing field and I was trying to gague opinions and currently evolving best practices. Somewhat ironically given the potential value of the commenting and upvoting mechanism, SE did not prove to be a good forum for this. There may be some value to having a code4lib SE instance that answers questions of the how to do X with tool Y type and similar for the reasons that Shaun and Galen state. But unless the community standards about what makes a good SE question change radically, I don't see it being an attractive or useful forum for the more open-ended, discussion/opinion type questions that people often post to library, digital preservation and other listservs. Christie Peterson --- Christie S. Peterson Records Management Archivist Johns Hopkins University The Sheridan Libraries -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Shaun Ellis Sent: Monday, July 08, 2013 9:54 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot? I like the idea of vote to promote as well as having a searchable archive of answers on the web. For me it comes down to it being out of sight, out of mind. It has to come to my inbox for me to pay attention, which is one of the nice features of the Code4Lib Jobs app. In that vein, StackExchange has an API, which could be used to simply forward a daily digest of questions to the mailing list. If all we need is an increase in traffic to establish the forum, that might do it. Questions could be tagged with code4lib to make them easy to aggregate. For example, we can get all the php tagged questions posted in the past day: http://api.stackexchange.com/2.1/questions?fromdate=1373155200todate=1373241600order=descsort=activitytagged=phpsite=stackoverflow -Shaun On 7/7/13 4:46 PM, Galen Charlton wrote: The main thing that the SE model adds is the ability to build up a set (in one, search-engine-visible place) of consensus answers to questions over time via the process of commenting and up-voting. In other words, I view it as a way to maybe achieve a community-built FAQ or best practices database. Mailing lists and IRC channels provide immediacy, but there are some important library mailing lists whose archives are not (intentionally) accessible to search engines, and there are none that I'm aware of that try to maintain a community-curated set of best questions and answers.
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
On Jul 8, 2013, at 3:50 PM, Christie Peterson wrote:
I agree with both Shaun and Galen's points; when you're asking a how to do X
with tool Y type of question, SE is a great forum. Like Christina, I've
mostly encountered SE when Googling for answers to these types of questions.
However, for the reasons that Henry and Gary mentioned, I was disappointed in
the Digital Preservation SE experience. At the request of one of the SE
organizers, I posted a question there that I had also posted to a listserv.
It was flagged for not being in the proper form, but I have no idea how I
could have framed it properly for SE because it simply wasn't a question that
had a single answer. I wanted discussion. Digital Preservation in particular
is a developing field and I was trying to gague opinions and currently
evolving best practices. Somewhat ironically given the potential value of the
commenting and upvoting mechanism, SE did not prove to be a good forum for
this.
There may be some value to having a code4lib SE instance that answers
questions of the how to do X with tool Y type and similar for the reasons
that Shaun and Galen state. But unless the community standards about what
makes a good SE question change radically, I don't see it being an
attractive or useful forum for the more open-ended, discussion/opinion type
questions that people often post to library, digital preservation and other
listservs.
I actually just responded to this issue the other day on the Open Data SE site:
http://meta.opendata.stackexchange.com/q/126/263
Back when Cooking SE started (~2.5 years ago), multiple possible answers was
considered a valid question. They didn't tend to like polls ('what's the best
...') but questions about possibilities of how to deal with problems were
acceptable. I'd link to some of them, but there have since been a few people
who go around and vote to close every question they don't like, even if they're
gotten a dozen or more upvotes.
Here's one instead that's not even a question that's ranked in the top 10
'questions' on the cooking site:
http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/784/67
Personally, I'm of the opinion that there are *very* few problems that only
have a single solution, or a 'best' solution. What they really tend to reward
people for is coming up with a plausible, moderately detailed answer quick
enough. I've seen a number get marked as the 'best answer' within 30 min of
the question being asked where the answer from my point of view was just plain
wrong.
I do see a use for the sort of things that might've once been considered
'community wiki' ... what books can I recommend to a 3rd grader who is
interested in science fiction? (I've cheated before and worded them like
'where can I find a list of books to recommend ...')
It *might* be possible to get enough like-minded people involved to ensure that
if anyone attempts to close reasonable questions we can get them re-opened
quickly ... but I'd like to recommend changing the scope up front to museums,
libraries archives. I don't know that the more practical 'library' and the
abstract/academic 'library science' communities really mesh all that well.
And I should probably go get some sleep as I write e-mail that's even more
incoherent than typical when I've only gotten ~8hrs sleep over the last 3 days.
-Joe
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
On 7/6/2013 12:16 PM, Galen Charlton wrote: To give a concrete example, one question that would deserve an answer is why would a cataloger use a StackExchange (or a clone thereof) rather than AUTOCAT? I'm not sure I see a reason. One of the big problems, IMHO, with the StackExchange model is their strict adherence to the model with which a question is presented. It seemed to me that so many were trying to use the LIS StackExchange space in a more open way than it was intended. It looked, after a while, like so many people were being penalized for failing to state their question in a specific way ... like when Jeopardy! contestants are penalized for failing to put their answer in the form of a question. The mailing list is more open and accepting in its functionality, and those who are asking questions aren't penalized for asking their question in a non-preferred way (except, perhaps, that they don't get their answer soon enough). Those who have subscribed to the list, of course, have to put up with more back-and-forth but listservs have been around for decades and people have developed coping mechanisms for this. -- Henry
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
On 7/7/13 5:21 AM, Henry Mensch wrote: On 7/6/2013 12:16 PM, Galen Charlton wrote: To give a concrete example, one question that would deserve an answer is why would a cataloger use a StackExchange (or a clone thereof) rather than AUTOCAT? I'm not sure I see a reason. One of the big problems, IMHO, with the StackExchange model is their strict adherence to the model with which a question is presented. It seemed to me that so many were trying to use the LIS StackExchange space in a more open way than it was intended. It looked, after a while, like so many people were being penalized for failing to state their question in a specific way ... like when Jeopardy! contestants are penalized for failing to put their answer in the form of a question. That was what I ran into. Asking what software would solve a problem was strictly forbidden on the library SE. You had to already know what software you wanted to use and ask specific questions about its functionality. I decided rather quickly there was no point to it. The digital preservation SE looked more encouraging, but I think the interested community just wasn't big enough to meet the requirements. -- Gary McGath, Professional Software Developer http://www.garymcgath.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
What, exactly, is the intended goal for the stack exchange sites? We have pretty established and highly active forums of communication in our field. What does SE bring to the table that's enough of an advantage to pull people away from the existing forums? These SE sites really seemed to be trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist, especially, as noted by others, that the SE way is culturally quite different than how we usually ask questions. -Ross. On Jul 6, 2013 1:21 PM, Collie, Aaron col...@mail.lib.msu.edu wrote: Hey, So, both the Libraries http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/12432/libraries-information-science and Digital Preservation http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/39787/digital-preservation StackExchange sites did not pass beta. Apparently there was not enough interest (e.g. 200 vs 1,500 visits/day) and I also suspect some issues with scope (e.g. information science vs libraries vs digital preservation) and execution. Am I the only one that feels like it is something worth revisiting? I would think given this community's success with backchannels and communication, the concept might benefit from some code4lib incubation. Or maybe that already happened and there is just not enough interest in a QA site. -Aaron
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
Hi, On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Ross Singer rossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: We have pretty established and highly active forums of communication in our field. What does SE bring to the table that's enough of an advantage to pull people away from the existing forums? The main thing that the SE model adds is the ability to build up a set (in one, search-engine-visible place) of consensus answers to questions over time via the process of commenting and up-voting. In other words, I view it as a way to maybe achieve a community-built FAQ or best practices database. Mailing lists and IRC channels provide immediacy, but there are some important library mailing lists whose archives are not (intentionally) accessible to search engines, and there are none that I'm aware of that try to maintain a community-curated set of best questions and answers. Of course, for that model to work, there has to be a sizable number people participating and actually getting answers to their questions (as opposed to caviling about asking their questions properly). Providing immediate and (hopefully) well-informed answers to questions would have to be priority for the community of users; a goal of building a knowledge base would not be achievable without a recognition that it's necessarily a secondary goal. Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton Manager of Implementation Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts email: g...@esilibrary.com direct: +1 770-709-5581 cell: +1 404-984-4366 skype: gmcharlt web:http://www.esilibrary.com/ Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org http://evergreen-ils.org
[CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
Hey, So, both the Librarieshttp://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/12432/libraries-information-science and Digital Preservationhttp://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/39787/digital-preservation StackExchange sites did not pass beta. Apparently there was not enough interest (e.g. 200 vs 1,500 visits/day) and I also suspect some issues with scope (e.g. information science vs libraries vs digital preservation) and execution. Am I the only one that feels like it is something worth revisiting? I would think given this community's success with backchannels and communication, the concept might benefit from some code4lib incubation. Or maybe that already happened and there is just not enough interest in a QA site. -Aaron
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
You could set up http://www.osqa.net. On Jul 6, 2013 11:21 AM, Collie, Aaron col...@mail.lib.msu.edu wrote: Hey, So, both the Libraries http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/12432/libraries-information-science and Digital Preservation http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/39787/digital-preservation StackExchange sites did not pass beta. Apparently there was not enough interest (e.g. 200 vs 1,500 visits/day) and I also suspect some issues with scope (e.g. information science vs libraries vs digital preservation) and execution. Am I the only one that feels like it is something worth revisiting? I would think given this community's success with backchannels and communication, the concept might benefit from some code4lib incubation. Or maybe that already happened and there is just not enough interest in a QA site. -Aaron
Re: [CODE4LIB] StackExchange reboot?
Hi, On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Collie, Aaron col...@mail.lib.msu.eduwrote: Am I the only one that feels like it is something worth revisiting? I would think given this community's success with backchannels and communication, the concept might benefit from some code4lib incubation. Or maybe that already happened and there is just not enough interest in a QA site. I started participating in the Libraries StackExchange towards the end of the beta, and was sorry to see it go. I personally found it most interesting, at least in principle, as one way of gathering together QA from disparate library software developer and user communities. Perhaps a broader remit that aimed to include more information management and information service professionals might have better chance of attaining StackExchange's activity targets, but it's not a sure thing, given the very strong mailing list culture that a lot of librarians and archivists are used to. To give a concrete example, one question that would deserve an answer is why would a cataloger use a StackExchange (or a clone thereof) rather than AUTOCAT? I have no sense how the StackExchange folks would respond to taking another bite at the apple. Certainly there are a number of clones [1] that we could host, for some C4L-ish definition of the word we, which wouldn't require that we meet StackExchange's activity guidelines. [1] http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/2267/stack-overflow-clones Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton Manager of Implementation Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts email: g...@esilibrary.com direct: +1 770-709-5581 cell: +1 404-984-4366 skype: gmcharlt web:http://www.esilibrary.com/ Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org http://evergreen-ils.org
