Re: emacs stackexchange beta site

[Emanuel Berg]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> How would adding a third, "Emacs", site improve
> things for anyone? Just one more site to check for
> Emacs Q & A. I looked at the proposal for the new
> site, and at the "discussion" of it, but I haven't
> seen any good arguments in support of it, so far.

Well, no one is forcing anyone to use it, if it were to
happen, of course.

You wouldn't have to use the tags at the other sites
though preferably those would remain, with a reference
to the new site.

On the Emacs site, tags would instead be Gnus,
emacs-w3m, Elisp, message-mode, and other familiar
topics.

I already said I don't like those sites, and why, but I
definitely see the advantages. It is PR for the editor.
It is a place to gather lots of Emacs-specific
information. And Emacs is such a big software system
that it can easily fill such a site with interesting
contents.

Again, as for PR, the SX has a good, eh, "reputation"
among Googlers. Often, after Googling a specific
problem, the SX answers are the very first to show up.

Compare this to Googling for Emacs questions - or even
worse, Elisp - which can bea dread. Either you get very
long texts in manuals or "extended discussion" (in the
lingo of the SX people) on mailing lists and newsgroups
(like this). Of course, I am in favor of lengthy
manuals as well as extended discussion, only those are
better suited when you travel by train - and, as for
the discussions, when you yourself take part in them or
follow them message by message and don't get 20-30
posts in one chunk to digest.

The SX are very suited for the Google quick fix age -
we may or may not like that age, but even I who dislike
both Googling and those SX in principle cannot deny
that often (especially error messages) are very suited
to Google, and often it is one of the SX sites that
instantly provide you with an answer.

And, if this age is here and now, Emacs should be in
that world and at that time, at least in all the 50/50
cases. It is just a site. It is not like why turn Emacs
into a Facebook farming game or turn it into a twitter
client. Besides, we can encourage the people who will
do the Emacs SX site (who?) to include links to the
FSF, to the Emacs and Elisp and Gnus manuals, to this
list/newsgroup, etc. etc. It is all interconnected
infrastructure.

Contrary to what some people believe, building roads
(so that people won't have to queue in the city core)
will *increase* overall traffic, not decrease it. And
traffic - in this case - we want.

-- 
underground experts united