[development] Drupal Answers: A Stackoverflow/StackExchange site proposal

[Dave Metzler]

As a module maintainer, the fragmentation of support channels is of primary concern to me.  To be a responsible maintainer, I think that I allready need to pay attention to:

My issue queues
Forums
Support mailing list
Appropriate groups.drupal.org groups

Then success of any of these tools is only going to be based on who and how many people participate.  IMHO adding channels will only degrade support, not enhance it.  I'd like to see people who have problems with my own code driven towards my issue queue and not away from it. 

Dave

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 31, 2011, at 10:59 AM, Justin Ellison <justin at techadvise.com> wrote:

> I was going to keep quiet on this one, but Scott's mail spurred me to back him up.  I'm pretty sure I'm the one that started the Area51 link being passed around twitter.  I think the StackExchange site is an excellent idea, but I knew that the conversation would quickly become "we could do it ourselves with modules X, Y, and Z".
> 
> Drupal is a swiss army knife.  However, if I have to chop down a tree and have my swiss army knife sitting right next to my chainsaw (that was built specifically to chop down trees), which one will I pick up?  Just because I *can* use my knife doesn't mean I *should*.
> 
> With my background in the sysadmin world, we're often preaching using the best tool for the job, and I think that mantra is being overlooked here.
> 
> I understand the that the idea of having a .NET site run any part of something endorsed by d.o is a bit unsettling, but you can't deny how cheap it would be.  It costs little to no time, no custom module needs built, and it will cost zero in terms of infrastructure.
> 
> All the hard work is already done wrt the StackExchange setup, all it needs now are committals from the community to use it.  Why not at least help push it forward just to see how it's received by the community?  If nothing else, use the StackExchange site as a pilot/prototype, assess its strengths and shortcomings, then develop a homegrown solution to succeed it?
> 
> The bottom line here is that it will take very little effort to get the StackExchange site up and running, and I don't think anyone here would argue that what we have right now is better than what the StackExchange site would provide.
> 
> I should clarify that I'm not dead set on the idea either, and I'm not saying I'm right.  These are just questions and ideas of mine that no one else has brought up.  If you think I'm completely off base, please tell me why.
> 
> Justin
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Scott Reynen <scott at makedatamakesense.com> wrote:
> ... 
> And that sounds a lot like what the Drupal community has been working hard to improve the last few years, so this might be a good opportunity to push that even further.
> 
> -- 
> Scott Reynen
> MakeDataMakeSense.com
> 
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