10mo ago

The fediverse won’t succeed at putting up a #Stackoverflow substitute and that’s a problem?

Just an impression: All the pieces seem to be there. But what’s required is a team, with devs, PMs and coordinators, dedicated to making a particular place in the #fediverse .

That’s resources and decently sized financial and organisational demands, especially to get a critical mass of users.

Is the fediverse up to that challenge? If not, is it an issue worth addressing?

@fediverse

27 comments

The power of SO was never the software. It was the relentless effort the team put into community building and making sure site was valuable both as an interactive experience and as an archive.
You can’t code yourself out of that effort.
- Additionally: adoption is a feature you can't design. Any site that's just people talking is either firmly established or in deep trouble. The middle ground cannot last.
- Yea. That's more or less what I had in mind. This isn't merely a matter of writing the software. Like I said, many of the pieces are basically here already. It's building the place/platform, which has to include a whole bunch of just "work" including the moderation that you mention.

- Yeah. All we have to do is start asking.
  
  I dont think thats accurate. The problem here is data quality. In SO you likely get few but good answers because the system is designed that way. Thats why its not done here a lot. I tried asking code and sysadmin stuff here. The amount of hate and bs answers you get is shocking. SO is also insanely moderated. Something that isnt really feasible for mainline lemmy.
  I think a fork of lemmy would work though. With the karma requirement that SO has to post and the same requirements.
  SO is a meritocracy. Its not a nice feeling to not be able to answer a question. But it works. because you have to ask questions first, then comment and then post answers (iirc). this would not work on lemmy. but a special fork together with an instance (or many) could work imo.
  Disclaimer: I designed and wrote a couple of programs for a company I created and others. it worked well. Not saying I know everything. Just my ideas.
  PS: I made a mastodon fork to recreate linkedin/xing feel free to leave a star)
- Yes and no, I'd say. I think there's something to be said for specialising UIs and platforms, and SO strikes me as something that benefits from some of that. Lemmy could certainly be the base of a SO substitute, IMO, but putting it on a separate instance with some specialised UI and policies and even dedicated development of some additional features/tooling on lemmy core as is necessary, could go quite far to making a SO work well.
  Federation could still work well, though friction would likely develop between the UIs, which could hopefully be managed over time.
- Any community recommendations?

I think what we mainly lack is people asking questions, not a particular set up of tech.

😂 are you trying to goad the Fediverse into making an answer repository?
Surely a better approach would be you trying to build (and lead) a team rather than this weird immature approach? 🤷🏾‍♂️
- yea ... it's just a chat about the fediverse, come on. I, like many here AFAICT on the fediverse, are here out of interest in the ecosystem/idea, and so are happy to talk about it.
  
  I fully support discussion and actually encourage it, but, and this is just personal preference, it must be done in an honest and open way.
  For the record, a recent discussion about this can be found here https://lemmy.ml/post/15471632

IDK if we're really missing any software features, but I feel like it's a good opportunity for a Lemmy plugin
- Good lord please no.
- Yep.
  I think some sort of flair like feature for marking posts as questions and marking accepted or best answers as such are missing. Flairs are desire anyway. Tags perhaps as well.
  Then, if there are to be “super votes”, such as the OP accepting an answer or even a moderator highlighting an answer, that would be new too.
  If the UI can communicate with a plug-in, I’d imagine that could all be plugin side.
  what is the situation ATM for plugins affecting the UI in custom ways?
  But yea, this seems like maybe a perfect test case for the plug-in system.

Funny fact I just was thinking about asking if we could have good alternative for Stackoverflow that supports federation.

Can you make your case why that would be a problem?
- @admin
  Some, maybe many, hope for the decentralised model of the fediverse to “take back the internet”. Each time a commercial platform “enshitifies“, there are then calls for the fediverse to replace it with a federated alternative, in part to take advantage of the moment of user agitation.
  But, IMO, resources and financial support are a touchy topic in the fediverse. If such has lead to a mismatch between ambition and opportunity, and, capability, that may be worth addressing.
  
  I'd opt into targeted ads for a federated S-O service, personally. The site is a huge database and needs safe-keeping, and that's not free or even cheap. Tastefully placed ads that don't pop over or ruin the printed copy I'd totally go for.

Forget federated stackoverflow, give me federated Gardening.StackExchange!

27 comments