[Geoserver-devel] featuring gis.stackexchange.com on the geoserver site more?

GeoServer GeoServer Developer
1

Hi,

I agree with Andrea. It is good that stackexchange wipes out the simple user-to-user cases but actually stackexchange should feature more prominently that difficult cases are more likely and effectively resolved in geoserver-users.

-Jukka Rahkonen-

···

Andrea Aime wrote:

On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 8:23 PM, Chris Holmes <chomie@…403…> wrote:

Thinking about the website got me wondering about if people might be in to featuring http://gis.stackexchange.com/tags/geoserver more prominently?

We already get 10 - 20 geoserver related questions there a week, so there’s already an active community answering stuff. I know Andrea and Ian are on it. But if you go to http://geoserver.org/display/GEOS/Mailing+Lists or anywhere else on the website you wouldn’t find out about it as a resource.

I haven’t been on stackexchange for a long while now, just too hard to field two platform and I was dissatisfied with stackexchange anyways.

While I like the platform and it shows up a lot in google searches, it’s not good for anything that requires a public discussion, threading

is limited to two levels… it’s just very good for a straight question and (one) answer setup, but basically useless for bug reports

and discussions that might lead to one.

I also don’t like much that the time the answers were given to, while available, is not emphasized enough, so the careless

reader might stumble into a wrong/outdated answer and just assume it’s still valid. We’d need someone to do some gardening

and comment on these answers to mark them as outdated (and hope the comment is visible enough for people to notice).

That said, people are going to use stack-exchange no matter what, so don’t see much harm in advertising it on

our mailing list pages.

I’m just not sure how to word it though, afaik there is no active core developer answering questions there, so it’s

not the place to go if answering the question involves some knowledge of how things work inside the box,

in other terms, as things stand now it seems to be more of a good user to user support place.

Cheers

Andrea

–

==

Meet us at GEO Business 2014! in London! Visit http://goo.gl/fES3aK

for more information.

==

Ing. Andrea Aime

@geowolf

Technical Lead

GeoSolutions S.A.S.

Via Poggio alle Viti 1187

55054 Massarosa (LU)

Italy

phone: +39 0584 962313

fax: +39 0584 1660272

mob: +39 339 8844549

http://www.geo-solutions.it

http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it

2

Note the authors of stack exchange acknowledge this limitation (as a design choice) and now have a “forum” product as well.
http://blog.codinghorror.com/civilized-discourse-construction-kit/

···

Jody Garnett

On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 8:41 AM, Rahkonen Jukka (Tike) <jukka.rahkonen@anonymised.com> wrote:

Hi,

I agree with Andrea. It is good that stackexchange wipes out the simple user-to-user cases but actually stackexchange should feature more prominently that difficult cases are more likely and effectively resolved in geoserver-users.

-Jukka Rahkonen-

Andrea Aime wrote:

On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 8:23 PM, Chris Holmes <chomie@anonymised.com> wrote:

Thinking about the website got me wondering about if people might be in to featuring http://gis.stackexchange.com/tags/geoserver more prominently?

We already get 10 - 20 geoserver related questions there a week, so there’s already an active community answering stuff. I know Andrea and Ian are on it. But if you go to http://geoserver.org/display/GEOS/Mailing+Lists or anywhere else on the website you wouldn’t find out about it as a resource.

I haven’t been on stackexchange for a long while now, just too hard to field two platform and I was dissatisfied with stackexchange anyways.

While I like the platform and it shows up a lot in google searches, it’s not good for anything that requires a public discussion, threading

is limited to two levels… it’s just very good for a straight question and (one) answer setup, but basically useless for bug reports

and discussions that might lead to one.

I also don’t like much that the time the answers were given to, while available, is not emphasized enough, so the careless

reader might stumble into a wrong/outdated answer and just assume it’s still valid. We’d need someone to do some gardening

and comment on these answers to mark them as outdated (and hope the comment is visible enough for people to notice).

That said, people are going to use stack-exchange no matter what, so don’t see much harm in advertising it on

our mailing list pages.

I’m just not sure how to word it though, afaik there is no active core developer answering questions there, so it’s

not the place to go if answering the question involves some knowledge of how things work inside the box,

in other terms, as things stand now it seems to be more of a good user to user support place.

Cheers

Andrea

–

==

Meet us at GEO Business 2014! in London! Visit http://goo.gl/fES3aK

for more information.

==

Ing. Andrea Aime

@geowolf

Technical Lead

GeoSolutions S.A.S.

Via Poggio alle Viti 1187

55054 Massarosa (LU)

Italy

phone: +39 0584 962313

fax: +39 0584 1660272

mob: +39 339 8844549

http://www.geo-solutions.it

http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it

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Geoserver-devel mailing list
Geoserver-devel@anonymised.comsts.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel

3

On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 3:48 PM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett@anonymised.com> wrote:

Note the authors of stack exchange acknowledge this limitation (as a
design choice) and now have a "forum" product as well.
http://blog.codinghorror.com/civilized-discourse-construction-kit/

Unlike stackexchange, it seems that you either host it yourself, or you pay
for a hosted version of it

Cheers
Andrea

--

Meet us at GEO Business 2014! in London! Visit http://goo.gl/fES3aK
for more information.

Ing. Andrea Aime
@geowolf
Technical Lead

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy
phone: +39 0584 962313
fax: +39 0584 1660272
mob: +39 339 8844549

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it

-------------------------------------------------------

4

Agreed, I was not promoting discourse as it has no real advantage over a user email list.

If we do want to try stack exchange I recommend going cold turkey for six months. Like shut off the user list and try using it, at the end of six months we can evaluate if it provides better service for less effort.

I also note on the uDig site we have search fields that search the user list archive. Adding that to our website may also increase satisfaction and reduce effort.

···

On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 3:48 PM, Jody Garnett jody.garnett@anonymised.com wrote:

Note the authors of stack exchange acknowledge this limitation (as a design choice) and now have a “forum” product as well.
http://blog.codinghorror.com/civilized-discourse-construction-kit/

Unlike stackexchange, it seems that you either host it yourself, or you pay for a hosted version of it

Cheers
Andrea

–

==
Meet us at GEO Business 2014! in London! Visit http://goo.gl/fES3aK
for more information.

Ing. Andrea Aime

@geowolf
Technical Lead

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy
phone: +39 0584 962313
fax: +39 0584 1660272
mob: +39 339 8844549

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it

5

On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 8:18 AM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett@anonymised.com> wrote:

Agreed, I was not promoting discourse as it has no real advantage over a
user email list.

If we do want to try stack exchange I recommend going cold turkey for six
months. Like shut off the user list and try using it, at the end of six
months we can evaluate if it provides better service for less effort.

Please let's not, that's too radical of a choice (just checked, we have
over 2200 subscribers on the user list). But I'm good having it on the
lists page as a further option (if it's really that popular, the user list
will dry up by itself)

I also note on the uDig site we have search fields that search the user
list archive. Adding that to our website may also increase satisfaction and
reduce effort.

Right, nice idea!
Where are you hosting your uDig archives? Or, where are you making the
search?
Like, in our case, I guess the most user friendly search could be on the
Nabble archives

Cheers
Andrea

--

Meet us at GEO Business 2014! in London! Visit http://goo.gl/fES3aK
for more information.

Ing. Andrea Aime
@geowolf
Technical Lead

GeoSolutions S.A.S.
Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054 Massarosa (LU)
Italy
phone: +39 0584 962313
fax: +39 0584 1660272
mob: +39 339 8844549

http://www.geo-solutions.it
http://twitter.com/geosolutions_it

-------------------------------------------------------