[yt-dev] Asking questions on StackOverflow

Britton Smith brittonsmith at gmail.com
Mon Nov 18 10:46:54 PST 2013


This all sounds fine to me.  I'm cool with giving SO a try.  It would
definitely be nice to have stock answers to common questions in a more
easily searchable place.

If this starts happening, someone please report back here and let others
know what we have to do to get involved.

Britton


On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 3:49 AM, Sam Skillman <samskillman at gmail.com> wrote:

> Okay so I think I've switched my opinion on using scicomp here, primarily
> based on the discussion here:
> http://meta.scicomp.stackexchange.com/questions/338/can-scicomp-stackexchange-be-used-for-project-specific-questions/339#339
>
> The main point is -- if the questions are general in nature, i.e. "what
> would be a good way to visualize/analyze this data in this way" would be
> great, but questions of "i'm having a problem using feature X in frontend
> Y" would not be appropriate. Personally, I can imagine many more very
> yt-specific questions being asked as opposed to big picture, but maybe i'm
> wrong.  I'd say we just start using stack overflow and see how it shakes
> out.
>
> If we're game, I'd say we ask a few planted questions and answer them
> ourselves, and if a question comes up on a mailing list that is answered on
> SO, then point to it.
>
> Sam
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 12:27 PM, Matthew Turk <matthewturk at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> 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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>> >>> > yt-dev at lists.spacepope.org
>> >>> > http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org
>> >>> >
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>> >>
>> >>
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