On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 9:12 AM, Schulkins, Joe <joseph.schulk...@liverpool.ac.uk> wrote: > Presumably I'm not alone in this, but I find Stack Overflow a valuable > resource for various bits of web development and I was wondering whether > anyone has given any thought about proposing a Library Technology site to > Stack Exchange's Area 51 (http://area51.stackexchange.com/)? Doing a search > of the proposals shows there was one for 'Libraries and Information Science' > but this closed 2 years ago as it didn't reach the required levels during the > beta phase. > > The reason I think this might be useful is that instead of individual places > to go for help or raise questions (i.e. various mailing lists) there could be > a 'one-stop' shop approach from which we could get help with LMSs, discovery > layers, repository software etc. I appreciate though that certain vendors > aren't particularly open (yes, Innovative I'm looking at you here) and might > not like these things being discussed on an open forum. > > Does anybody else think this might be useful? Would such a forum be shot down > by all the vendors legalese wrapped up in their Terms and Conditions? Or are > you happy with the way you go about getting help? > > Joe
I suspect such a site wouldn't work for the same reason the Libraries site failed; the potential audience is relatively small, but more importantly it's made up of people who know how to do their own research and so ask a smaller volume of questions than you see on most Stack Exchange sites. A model where opinion-based questions don't work and where questions with a definitive answer have the people with the questions just finding it themselves most of the time seems doomed to failure on the SE platform. That said, despite my pessimism I'd probably support an Area 51 proposal just to see what happens. -- Geoffrey Spear Metadata Manager Health Sciences Library System University of Pittsburgh
