Stack Exchange and Codidact Writing forums

[M. Robert Gibson]

This is just a 'For Your Information' post that I thought would be nice to pass on.

First, a bit of background.
You may or may not be aware of the shenanigans that have been going on over at StackExchange.com. If not you can read about it here.

Basically, because of certain actions by the StackExchange company, a lot of users/moderators were unhappy and have stopped their moderating duties, or even resigned, and some are looking to start up a new Question and Answer type network of sites. More information on this fledgling venture can be found at Codidact.

Get to the point will you?
One of the upshots is that the site writing.stackexchange.com has been left with virtually no moderators (at the time of writing there is only one) but there is a new up-and-running alternative to be found at Writing - Questions.

If you were active on the StackExchange site, then your content has been transferred to this new site and it is possible to 'claim' your content if you join the new site.

I have just been through the process and is straightforward. The only downside is that when asked to authenticate, you are automatically enrolled onto stackoverflow.com site, which is the Q&A site for programmers. Not much use for many people here I'm sure. (Seems like an underhanded way to increase user numbers)

Now, if only we can get everyone from scifi.stackexchange.com and worldbuilding.stackexchange.com to join up here...


Anyway, that'll do for now. I hope it helps in some small way.

 

[Danny McG]

I only go onto stack exchange to browse through their 'book search' and answer the ones I know (like I do in here and SFF world and Alien Soup) so I wasn't aware all this stuff was going on

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

I don't think many people who just use the sites to ask and answer questions are aware. I'm a member of quite a few IT related sites and occasionally my eye is drawn to the 'meta' questions that appear next to questions. That's how I became aware and I started following the events back in October

It looks like the usual story when money becomes involved - make a profit at all costs and sod the users.

I'm not alone in thinking it's the beginning of the end for the network. First the users of the smaller sites will find new homes. With no moderators the sites' quality will decline and the trolling will increase. Eventually the sites will become like Yahoo Answers - a wilderness of badly asked questions with irrelevant answers

It'll take a few years, but the rot has started IMHO

 

[AlexH]

I use Stack Exchange occasionally and wasn't aware of this until I read this thread. I don't know if it's just hindsight making me think I've seen a lot of crappy questions the past few weeks.

 

[Danny McG]

I've seen a lot of crappy questions the past few weeks.

Probably posted by me!
I even did one on The Wiggles on Friday