Re: Stack Exchange Q&A site proposal: Plone

On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 1:20 PM, Hector Velarde <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have no idea, Dylan; I saw Drupal, Joomla and WordPress sites and I
> was wondering why we don't have ours...

That is, frankly, not a very good reason to start a new site.

Starting a new Stack Exchange site is a *lot of work*. It'll take a
lot of commitment, community building and hard work getting the focus
and topic range right. This is not a step you should take lightly.

It could be worth it, of course, but you need to weigh the benefits
against the disadvantages here.

One advantage would be is that you get to set your own scope. Stack
Overflow is *strictly* about programming problems. A dedicated site
could expand this to end-user questions (*How do I make the text in a
Page blue?*, *How do I set my folder to the gallery view?*), server
configuration, general administration tasks, broader integration
advice, etc.

However, the Stack Exchange model is not suitable for open-ended or
broad questions; the model is only really workable for questions with
clear answers, not for hashing out strategies, for making
recommendations about what the 'best' add-on is for a given task, etc.
Starting a Plone.SE wouldn't give you a card-blanche to just toss out
that focus. As such you'd still need to retain a mailinglist or forum
of sorts, to handle discussions that don't fit the Q&A model.

Also note that users with programming questions involving Plone won't
automatically be shunned from Stack Overflow. Any Wordpress or Joomla
questions that involve a programming problem are not off-topic for
Stack Overflow just because there are dedicated sites now. Having your
own site doesn't guarantee you get the Stack Overflow traffic.

Personally, I don't think that there is going to be enough material
and activity to sustain a Plone.SE site. You'd need many more active
users than just the initial 60-odd users to get through the beta
stages to a fully graduated site. You'd need a higher question volume;
Plone on Stack Overflow has seen a little over 2000 questions in 5
years time; the Joomla site has more than 1000 in just 230 days, and
that is actually considered *low* for a beta.

That said, I'll happily help out defining scope and giving feedback on
the site proposal. I've started following it, and if it does reach
private beta I'll certainly try to be active on it.

-- 
Martijn Pieters

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