From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Thomas Renkert Subject: Suggestion: Stackoverflow for Orgmode Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:10:11 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:57755) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QjS5k-0003dM-H6 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:25:21 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QjS5e-0000z1-JJ for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:25:16 -0400 Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:46490) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QjS5e-0000xt-0w for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:25:10 -0400 Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QjS5Y-00089a-Is for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:25:04 +0200 Received: from mnhm-4d00f29a.pool.mediaWays.net ([77.0.242.154]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:25:04 +0200 Received: from tunnelblick by mnhm-4d00f29a.pool.mediaWays.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:25:04 +0200 List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Hello, I have been using Orgmode for the last two years. In fact, I started learning Emacs only to use orgmode (btw: a huge thank you to Carsten and the other contributors!). I noticed that - as more people with a diverse range of background knowledge start to use orgmode - the mailing list is getting more and more difficult to navigate: a lot of threads are long and winding and many of the posts are basic questions from beginners and questions about special use cases or scenarios from more experienced users. Long story short: Orgmode is in itself so complex and powerful and its use cases and the demands of its users are so diverse that I think we need a better method of "getting quickly to the answer". To clarify: the manual, worg and the mailing list are superb! I just think we could speed up things, especially for new users. This could also attract new users and make the mailing list a bit "leaner" in the end. An idea: Many of you may be familiar with the Q&A-Sites www.stackoverflow.com or www.superuser.com. This is pretty much what I have in mind. The closest to Orgmode is maybe http://tex.stackexchange.com which is the same concept for a similarly large and powerful system, LaTeX. The biggest advantage, IMO, is the aspect of self-organization: Good questions get upvoted and attract better answers. "Good" can mean anything here: a fundamental / innovative / original / detailed / effective question. Questions and answers can be tagged. Contributors are rewarded with badges. New users will find basic answers without extended searches and experienced users can discuss about new and interesting problems basically in realtime. And: Good solutions, once they are found, don't get buried in long threads. It is hard to explain it this way: just have a look at http://tex.stackexchange.com and try to find the answers to a simple and to a more obscure problem in LaTeX: No matter what your level of knowledge is, you will get to the solution very quickly. My proposal: could we have something like this for Orgmode as well? There are basically 4 viable options, IMO: 1. Hosted by stackexchange: Stackexchange is commercial, but they host a dedicated Q&A-Site if it attracts enough interest in their sandbox: http://area51.stackexchange.com We could propose an Orgmode-stackexchange site to them and then vote for it. This may take some time, if it happens at all. 2. Hosted by shapado.com (commercial) Looks less polished but seems to work (maybe with ads?). They have a free plan http://shapado.com/plans (at the bottom of the page) 3. Self-hosted with http://askbot.org/ (FOSS and looks good) 4. Self-hosted with http://www.osqa.net (FOSS) If there is enough capacity on our server, I would suggest to try askbot (or osqa) because of the level of autonomy and independence this would give us. If we don't have the capacity, it might be worth it to set up a test site on shapado or to propose this to stackexchange. A site hosted by stackexchange might itself attract new users. What do you think?