[yt-dev] Asking questions on StackOverflow

[Matthew Turk]

Alright, so I guess we're in sort-of agreement?  What's next?  Do we
want to just skip the main site, try for SciComp, encourage people
(and even ask/answer questions ourselves) and start following the tag?

On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 12:17 PM, Sam Skillman <samskillman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd be happy to reach out to the sci comp folks. They field questions for a
> few other codes so it may be a good fit.
>
> I'm a +1 on trying it out. It also has the added benefit of a rewards
> structure.
>
> Sam
>
> On Nov 17, 2013 11:11 AM, "Nathan Goldbaum" <nathan12343 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Didn't realize one needs very high reputation to create a new tag - I
>> guess that makes sense though.
>>
>> While fragmentation is bad, I'd argue that StackOverflow's high google
>> ranking negates that somewhat.
>>
>> Are there any SO users with high reputations who might be interested in
>> creating the tag?
>>
>> Barring that, the scicomp beta exchange is also probably a good fit.
>>
>> On Sunday, November 17, 2013, Matthew Turk wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Nathan,
>>>
>>> On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 12:01 AM, Nathan Goldbaum <nathan12343 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Hi all,
>>> >
>>> > I recently subscribed to the [yt] tag on StackExchange.  Now, whenever
>>> > a
>>> > question is asked using this tag on any StackExchange site, I will get
>>> > an
>>> > e-mail about it, just like if a question is asked on the users or dev
>>> > list.
>>> > Currently (as far as I can tell) zero questions have been asked using
>>> > this
>>> > tag...
>>> >
>>> > If there are a few others who are interested in subscribing to the tag,
>>> > I
>>> > think it might be worthwhile to add StackOverflow to the website and
>>> > docs
>>> > where we describe how to get help and also announce on the user’s list
>>> > that
>>> > StackOverflow is an alternate place to ask questions.
>>> >
>>> > While this might split the community somewhat - not everyone will be
>>> > subscribed to StackOverflow and thus might miss useful info - I think
>>> > moving
>>> > some helpful suggestions to StackOverflow will massively improve
>>> > googleability of common yt issues, allowing us to avoid answering the
>>> > same
>>> > questions over and over again.
>>> >
>>> > It might also be worthwhile to ask and answer some common yt questions.
>>> > Off
>>> > the top of my head, I think we could at least answer how to load
>>> > various
>>> > types of datasets into yt.
>>>
>>> In principle, I'm okay with this.  But I have a few concerns --
>>>
>>> 1) I don't think the tag "yt" can be created unless someone with high
>>> reputation does so.  (
>>> http://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/create-tags )
>>> 2) We have well-defined usage metrics that we can quantify based on
>>> mailing list activity, so this may fragment that.
>>> 3) Many of the existing contributors and users don't want another inbox.
>>>
>>> *However*.  SO is really quite good for evolving questions and for an
>>> updateable reference.  I do really like that aspect.  But I think we
>>> may find ourselves getting a bit fragmented -- in fact, what I see as
>>> being a possible outcome is that if yt does end up growing into an
>>> interdisciplinary space, we'd see people from non-Astro disciplines
>>> using it, but retaining our original core audience here.  All your
>>> points really are good ones.
>>>
>>> I don't know.  Could be awesome.  And, I'd like to see us embrace more
>>> modern and useful methods of communication and outreach.  So ... I
>>> guess the experiment could be a good one!
>>>
>>> -Matt
>>>
>>> >
>>> > -Nathan
>>> >
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>>> >
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>>
>>
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