Hello, some of you probably know StackOverflow (for programmers) or other Q&A sites on Stack Exchange: http://stackexchange.com/sites#science-traffic They are quite a different thing than mailing lists and web forums (definitely not a potential replacement for rietveld_l, xrayforum, facebook groups, etc). StackOverflow is the biggest of the sites and it has notable impact on programmers. Partly because it encourages even simple questions and the answers are more useful than "use google" or "search the archive" (btw the latter answer without a link is quite frustrating for the next person who searches rietveld_l archives and comes across it). All answers create a knowledge database and can be improved like a wiki.
Sites for new topics are created (basically) if enough people is interested. Unfortunately SE is focused on bigger communities and the Crystallography site may not be created soon. The proposal: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/91841/crystallography?referrer=Jt3KSnNUGlR-C_x4xA_MDw2 is now in the stage of definition. The scope is being implicitly defined by adding and voting on examples of good questions (currently mostly MX people are there). Regarding concerns that SE is a for-profit company - yes, but they've been reliable and quite transparent for many years, providing dumps of all the content on creative-commons license. Best, Marcin
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