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[nil]

I'm really surprised at this overwhelmingly negative response.  Speaking as someone who's spent a fair amount of time giving answers in the Gameplay Questions forum, I think this is a really decent idea.  The Little Questions thread repeats itself every five pages, and the subforum as a whole does the same thing every couple of weeks, and this would go a long ways towards preventing it.  Protactinium is on the mark.

[RCIX]

I considered suggesting it for suggestions () but since long discussions often crop up around them, and the site format isn't really designed for that, it wouldn't work so well.

[C4lv1n]

I considered suggesting it for suggestions () but since long discussions often crop up around them, and the site format isn't really designed for that, it wouldn't work so well.

Ok, you keep saying this, how is an internet forum, something also called a "discussion board" not really designed for discussions, even long ones. It's the whole point of a forum. It would work fine, and really this thread should be there anyway.

[G-Flex]

I'm really surprised at this overwhelmingly negative response.  Speaking as someone who's spent a fair amount of time giving answers in the Gameplay Questions forum, I think this is a really decent idea.  The Little Questions thread repeats itself every five pages, and the subforum as a whole does the same thing every couple of weeks, and this would go a long ways towards preventing it.  Protactinium is on the mark.

Why can't the people repeating questions look on the wiki, then? And if the wiki doesn't have the information, why not add it there?

[Hyndis]

Why can't the people repeating questions look on the wiki, then? And if the wiki doesn't have the information, why not add it there?

Because he wants someone else to do the work. When it was pointed out that rumor or things involve magma and elves would be upvoted he suggested the moderators fix it. Moderators would magically appear on their own to police the entire stack exchange, using their power to ensure that all questions are accurately answered.

The moderators are the someone else doing all the work for him.

The search function on these forums works very well. Like just now I was having problems with a fey mood and a severe lack of shells. I wanted to save the dwarf since he was a very important dwarf in my fortress. After about 3 minutes of searching I had my answer, made the change, and the dwarf went to use some horse hoof in lieu of a shell. All was well.

[RCIX]

I considered suggesting it for suggestions () but since long discussions often crop up around them, and the site format isn't really designed for that, it wouldn't work so well.

Ok, you keep saying this, how is an internet forum, something also called a "discussion board" not really designed for discussions, even long ones. It's the whole point of a forum. It would work fine, and really this thread should be there anyway.

I keep saying this: Q&A site, not discussion board. I was talking about a Stack Exchange site for suggestions for DF, which was suggested a few posts back.

Why can't the people repeating questions look on the wiki, then? And if the wiki doesn't have the information, why not add it there?

Because he wants someone else to do the work. When it was pointed out that rumor or things involve magma and elves would be upvoted he suggested the moderators fix it. Moderators would magically appear on their own to police the entire stack exchange, using their power to ensure that all questions are accurately answered.

The moderators are the someone else doing all the work for him.

The search function on these forums works very well. Like just now I was having problems with a fey mood and a severe lack of shells. I wanted to save the dwarf since he was a very important dwarf in my fortress. After about 3 minutes of searching I had my answer, made the change, and the dwarf went to use some horse hoof in lieu of a shell. All was well.

I've already more-or-less given up on this, thanks to the complete lack of sensible thinking on the part of you guys. It could work, it has worked before. Trust me, programmers can be just as bad with memes as gamers, and it worked out for Stack Overflow. I've already more-or-less given up on this though. (repeated so you don't think that i'm still trying to push the idea)

And i said i'd be happy to be one of the mods, but you missed that. Either that, or you were "strongly opposed".

[NFossil]

Of course it could work. I guess people are mainly concerned that the forums and the wiki are already working perfectly fine on providing Q&As, therefore the new site may lack mods and users, and may subsequently not work as well as intended.

[Haspen]

Of course it could work. I guess people are mainly concerned that the forums and the wiki are already working perfectly fine on providing Q&As, therefore the new site may lack mods and users, and may subsequently not work as well as intended.

Thi(i^i)s.

[Footkerchief]

So you basically show up last week, don't try very hard to find any information, then declare the whole process useless and demand that everything be changed to suit your whims? And you even go and PM Toady about your demands?

Who do you think you are? 

Seriously. You barge in, declare everything broken, and proclaim you have the solution. These forums are very, very old. Use the search function. Many things have already been discussed to death or even tried out. The stack thing was apparently tried out. It was a dismal flop for the reasons mentioned earlier.

What the jesus?  This is a completely bizarre level of hostility.  He doesn't need your permission to PM Toady.

the forums and the wiki are already working perfectly fine on providing Q&As

I disagree.  People get quick answers, but the searching functionality for both the forums and the wiki is horrible.  Neither provides a clean way of marking "duplicate" questions.  I don't post in Gameplay Questions anymore because I got tired of seeing the same questions over and over.  I think a Stack Exchange could be a substantial improvement, if there were good moderators for it.

The bug tracker was a gigantic improvement over the Bug Reports forum, and that's a pretty similar niche to Gameplay Questions.  The existing DF SE failed because Toady didn't throw his weight behind it -- the bug tracker would have failed too, in those circumstances. 

[Hyndis]

Yeah, I do want to apologize. My earlier remarks were completely uncalled for.

I've been in a really pissy mood this weekend. 100 degree weather and nearly 100% humidity with no AC makes me very cranky. Hard to sleep as well with the weather and humidity. Just been in a bad mood. 



My apologies, RCIX.

Granted I still think the stack exchange thing won't work, but my apologies on the personal attacks.

[chmod]

Well this thread got more action than mine when I set this up last year.

History: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=43721.msg827333#msg827333

Site: http://df.stackexchange.com/

[StrongAxe]

Wow! There was a Dwarf Fortress Stack Exchange site and I didn't know about it!?!  As far as a 2.0 site, I was planning on posting a bunch of DF stuff on the Gaming site (already fully committed) and seeing how that goes.  If it goes well DF may not need it's on SE site.  I love the SE model for questions and answers, and I think it can work alongside the wiki and the forum.  For those of you who program, I invite you to visit StackOverflow.com and see what it's all about.

[Patchouli]

I disagree.  People get quick answers, but the searching functionality for both the forums and the wiki is horrible.  Neither provides a clean way of marking "duplicate" questions.  I don't post in Gameplay Questions anymore because I got tired of seeing the same questions over and over.  I think a Stack Exchange could be a substantial improvement, if there were good moderators for it.

The bug tracker was a gigantic improvement over the Bug Reports forum, and that's a pretty similar niche to Gameplay Questions.  The existing DF SE failed because Toady didn't throw his weight behind it -- the bug tracker would have failed too, in those circumstances.

I see what you mean with the bug tracker. But I imagine that - just like the Bug Reports - Gameplay Questions would have to basically be completely replaced by Stack Exchange before it manages to get good use. It doesn't really seem to make much sense to have both of them hanging around, or to half-ass it and say, "Well, let's just see how many people will join up". I feel it has the potential to do a fair amount of good, especially for the wiki, but unless it gets the promotion and attention similar to the Tracker, I get the feeling that it'll just pretty much chill and do nothing, or it'll just sort of spread users around for no reason.

[Retro]

I don't get this, to be totally honest. Duplicated questions are a problem, yes. But how would a stack exchange site stop duplicated questions? The best I've been able to infer from this thread is that moderators would lock the duplicate questions and post a link to the 'original' question which would have been answered long before. In this sense, the only difference is that moderators can easily deal with the duplicates by locking them. Well, that or people hypothetically don't ask duplicate questions because they use the search function and find the 'original question' themselves. I'm going to assume that the stack exchange site has a better search engine (few places don't, really), so there's that in favour, but would Gameplay Questions moderators be sufficient to improve the current question/answer system without requiring a whole new site branch?

I've already more-or-less given up on this, thanks to the complete lack of sensible thinking on the part of you guys. It could work, it has worked before. Trust me, programmers can be just as bad with memes as gamers, and it worked out for Stack Overflow. I've already more-or-less given up on this though. (repeated so you don't think that i'm still trying to push the idea)

And i said i'd be happy to be one of the mods, but you missed that. Either that, or you were "strongly opposed".

This is what I was talking about when I said I was strongly opposed - you mostly ignored the points we were making instead of responding to them, and you are now saying that there's a 'complete lack of sensible thinking' on the part of anyone who opposed your idea. I also ask you to consider that you're new to the community - whether or not you know what you're talking about, you would have to build up some cred first before people would consider you a valid mod.

Now, I'll say I am only currently opposed to the idea of a DFSE. While I could hypothetically be convinced that it would be a good system, it would require more than just saying that it works for other people. And I do agree that the forums aren't perfect, but the stack exchange proposal is currently failing to convince me that it's the right way to improve it. I also agree with those who are worried about the community itself - if a new system was to work, it would need Toady to throw his full support behind it and to lock GQ in order to a) give the new system the support it needs and b) not break up a fairly small community among more sites.

What I currently see as our problems are duplicate threads (masses of them; as Footkerchief said no matter how much you may like helping people out you eventually just stop answering the same questions over and over) and poor search functionality. I really, really have doubts about the democratic method for voting and the inability to have any sort of repartee between asker and answerer (and DF is such a dense game that new players often don't realize they need to provide information or ask questions so specific that the answer doesn't help their actual problem and the answerers have to pinpoint what the core problem is first), but is there a way to improve the SMF search function, or replace it with a new one?

I do like that SE uses a tag system, I'll say that much.

[zwei]

RCIX: I take it you are posting this in relation to your constructed-floors-to-walls thread?

I'm really surprised at this overwhelmingly negative response.  Speaking as someone who's spent a fair amount of time giving answers in the Gameplay Questions forum, I think this is a really decent idea.  The Little Questions thread repeats itself every five pages, and the subforum as a whole does the same thing every couple of weeks, and this would go a long ways towards preventing it.  Protactinium is on the mark.

Well, I can see it working because nowadays when googling technical questions, stacks are usually more helpfull than forum threads and blog posts.

I want to know two things:

1) How do you solve duplicates? It occurs to me that if people do not bother searching then they will post duplicates, polluting forum.

2) How will stack solve obsolete questions and answers? GW is game in develpment and answer for for example military quick-n-dirty setup is bound to be wildly different in different version.

If the answer is not on wiki, then people can ask on IRC, or on the forums even. There will be always someone who will know the answer, be it helpful or not.

There is one very important step you are missing here:

... Then people should edit wiki and fill-in missing information.

That one is very important because it causes less questions being asked as well as ability to provide simple illuminating link