subject:"Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page\?"


 I am also totally up for this idea as well.
 
 What's wrong with this list?  Everybody wants to take his LilyPond
 business to the web interface of his choice that takes a lot of
 additional work over just reading and typing text and further
 dilutes the LilyPond knowledge.

I second that.  We have a central knowledge place (contrary to, say,
C++ or general algorithmical questions), and scattering that is not
beneficial at all.  Of course, we are using an old-school e-mail list
instead of the super-duper web interface 6.0 which might be unusual to
all the kids outside.  However, so is lilypond itself, which doesn't
have a nifty GUI...

I really like StackExchange!  However, given that web possibilities
exist to search and access the lilypond mailing lists, and to ask
questions using gmane, I think it is not useful to set up a new forum.
Just consider a complicated question that nobody on StackExchange can
answer directly: Eventually, someone would step forward and ask the
very question on the lilypond-user (or lilypond-devel) list, then
report back to StackExchange.  What a waste of time and resources.


Werner

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

I agree with Urs that a Stack Exchange page shouldn't be instead of this 
list, if that was the suggestion.


But as Gilberto pointed out there is already LilyPond questions asked on 
different Stack Exchange forums (I answered one myself earlier this 
week). And it seems to be some confusion about where to put questions. 
See this for example 
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/168297/on-which-site-are-lilypond-questions-on-topic


I think it would be beneficial for both those who have questions and 
those who tries to answers to have all LilyPond related questions on one 
page.


As the proposal is already made we just have to wait and see what happens.

Best
Peter
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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

2013-11-02 Thread ryanmichaelmcclure

Allow me to clarify that in no way did I intend for the Stack Exchange page
to replace this list. It would have been purely an addition of resources.

For me, the purpose of the Stack Exchange page is about accessibility to
those who are 1) not familiar with LilyPond or 2) not familiar with mailing
lists. I don't want to see anyone stop using LilyPond because they couldn't
get help. Blaming them because they don't understand how mailing lists works
isn't a good solution.

...I'm not trying to spark controversy, I'm simply trying to help out the
community.



-
Ryan McClure

Luna Music Engraving
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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

Peter Bjuhr peterbj...@gmail.com writes:

 I agree with Urs that a Stack Exchange page shouldn't be instead of
 this list, if that was the suggestion.

 But as Gilberto pointed out there is already LilyPond questions asked
 on different Stack Exchange forums (I answered one myself earlier this
 week). And it seems to be some confusion about where to put
 questions. See this for example
 http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/168297/on-which-site-are-lilypond-questions-on-topic

Well, they are on-topic in this mailing list.

 I think it would be beneficial for both those who have questions and
 those who tries to answers to have all LilyPond related questions on
 one page.

Here?  The one thing that may be argued is missing is a thematical
index.  But there are several mailing list aggregators with a search
interface (including the main mailing list archive), and it's not like
StackExchange has significantly better indexing.

 As the proposal is already made we just have to wait and see what
 happens.

If everybody waits and sees, I am not afraid for this list...

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?


 Allow me to clarify that in no way did I intend for the Stack
 Exchange page to replace this list.  It would have been purely an
 addition of resources.

Well, you might answer all lilypond questions by simply pointing
questioners to the list :)

 For me, the purpose of the Stack Exchange page is about
 accessibility to those who are 1) not familiar with LilyPond or 2)
 not familiar with mailing lists.

Then point to the gmane interface.

 ...I'm not trying to spark controversy, I'm simply trying to help
 out the community.

Thanks for that.  Please don't get the impression that our partly
sarcastic remarks were against you personally.


Werner

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

ryanmichaelmcclure ryanmichaelmccl...@gmail.com writes:

 Allow me to clarify that in no way did I intend for the Stack Exchange
 page to replace this list. It would have been purely an addition of
 resources.

 For me, the purpose of the Stack Exchange page is about accessibility
 to those who are 1) not familiar with LilyPond or 2) not familiar with
 mailing lists.

So those who are not familiar with LilyPond should talk among each other
in order to figure things out and in that manner _increase_ the quality
of support?  Or what does purely an addition of resources mean?

 I don't want to see anyone stop using LilyPond because they couldn't
 get help.  Blaming them because they don't understand how mailing
 lists works isn't a good solution.

My 79-year old mother is able to send and receive electronic mail, and
she has not mastered copypaste (if she needs to rearrange something,
she prints it out and types off the smaller part in the right place.
Yes, I tried teaching her, but after she opened one document, typed C-x
on the whole of it (several days of work), exited the word processor,
started the mail program, and C-y did not paste into the mail, she
stopped trying to dabble with the devil).

 ...I'm not trying to spark controversy, I'm simply trying to help out
 the community.

Like so many proposals, I have the distinct impression that people are
trying to fix stuff that isn't broken, based on some mythical conception
of an idiot who could not possibly get anything done in any different
manner.

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?



On 11/02/2013 08:28 AM, David Kastrup wrote:

Well, they are on-topic in this mailing list.


If it's community policy or at least a general agreement that we should 
always refer to this list, I will of course do so the next time!


But I hope we agree that it, as Ryan wrote, would be helpful for the 
community if we found ways to deal with questions posted outside of this 
list!?

If everybody waits and sees, I am not afraid for this list...

Yes, you are right! It would of course take an effort for those who 
would like to see a LilyPond Stack Exchange page!


Best
Peter

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?


 If it's community policy or at least a general agreement that we
 should always refer to this list, I will of course do so the next
 time!

Yes, please do so.

 But I hope we agree that it, as Ryan wrote, would be helpful for the
 community if we found ways to deal with questions posted outside of
 this list!?

If you mean with `deal' to forward stuff to the mailing list, or to
direct users to the list, this is fully OK.


Werner

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?



On 11/02/2013 10:28 AM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:

If it's community policy or at least a general agreement that we
should always refer to this list, I will of course do so the next
time!

Yes, please do so.


No problem! Then I suppose I should also post that answer to the meta 
question I linked to previously!?


So, is this the link to give? 
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user



But I hope we agree that it, as Ryan wrote, would be helpful for the
community if we found ways to deal with questions posted outside of
this list!?

If you mean with `deal' to forward stuff to the mailing list, or to
direct users to the list, this is fully OK.


Yes, I meant any solution rather than ignoring those questions...

Best
Peter

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

Werner LEMBERG w...@gnu.org writes:

 If it's community policy or at least a general agreement that we
 should always refer to this list, I will of course do so the next
 time!

 Yes, please do so.

 But I hope we agree that it, as Ryan wrote, would be helpful for the
 community if we found ways to deal with questions posted outside of
 this list!?

 If you mean with `deal' to forward stuff to the mailing list, or to
 direct users to the list, this is fully OK.

Well, perhaps the medium is not the main attraction, but rather the
feeling of its inconsequentiality.

Maybe it's like going to a pub to discuss policy.  Then you don't want
some drinking pal of yours to say you know what, let's get the
president on speakerphone about that.  Total mood killer.

Which is one reason the NSA listening in to anybody discussing politics
is a bad idea.

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?


 Then I suppose I should also post that answer to the meta question I
 linked to previously!?

I think this would be good, yes.

 So, is this the link to give?
 https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user

It depends.  For casual users, the gmane interface is perhaps better
suited, thus the link should rather be

  http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.general

However, if people are getting involved, a subscription to the list
perhaps better than gman.

For searching, it's also possible to directly access the archive with

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/


 Werner

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?



On 11/02/2013 11:16 AM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
It depends. For casual users, the gmane interface is perhaps better 
suited, thus the link should rather be 
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.general 


Maybe it is even better to send them directly to the posting!? 
http://post.gmane.org/post.php?group=gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.general


Best
Peter
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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

Peter Bjuhr peterbj...@gmail.com writes:

 On 11/02/2013 11:16 AM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
 It depends. For casual users, the gmane interface is perhaps better
 suited, thus the link should rather be
 http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.general 

 Maybe it is even better to send them directly to the posting!?
 http://post.gmane.org/post.php?group=gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.general

It's common advice to read up a bit on a mailing list before posting the
first time.

It avoids asking the same questions for the third time one day
(particularly dangerous if you discussed this previously on some other
forum since others might already have taken it to the list), and it
helps figuring out how people are communicating.

Of course, if you first listen in to conversation in a bar and then
approach a stranger with Hi, asshole.  How's the old wife? then you
still might get a worse result than the person you witnessed delivering
that exact line previously.

But it's still a good rule of thumb.

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?


 Maybe it is even better to send them directly to the posting!?
 http://post.gmane.org/post.php?group=gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.general

Probably.  I don't use gmane at all, so I can't give a
recommendation.  However, as with StackExchange, people should
*search* first before post something whether a related question has
been answered already.

Another useful pointer is the LilyPond snippet repository at

  http://lsr.dsi.unimi.it/LSR/Search

which users should also search before posting something.


Werner

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

2013-11-02 Thread Janek Warchoł

Hi,

my 3 eurocents:

1) StackExchange is great.  It's QA style of sharing knowledge is
very efficient and pleasure to work with.

2) LilyPond is too small to have its own StackExcange site.  If you look at
http://discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/questions/10733/leaving-beta-requirements
you'll see that the expected questions/day ratio is 15.  We're
significantly below this limit.  I've looked around on area51 and my
general impression is that we're definitely too small with regard to
other metrics as well (number of users, etc).  I suggest to return to
this discussion in 3 years.

3)
2013/11/2 David Kastrup d...@gnu.org:
 Gilberto Agostinho gilbertohasn...@gmail.com writes:

 I am also totally up for this idea as well. [StackExchange for LilyPond]

 What's wrong with this list?  Everybody wants to take his LilyPond
 business to the web interface of his choice that takes a lot of
 additional work over just reading and typing text and further dilutes
 the LilyPond knowledge.

when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail.
Mailing lists are an all-purpose communication tool.  Many things can
be done using a mailing list, but some things may be done more
efficiently using other tools - for example, most of us thinks that
reviewing patches via email is inconvenient, so we use Rietveld.
QA sites like StackExchange are better for sharing QA knowledge than
mailing lists because they allow to edit information, update it,
remove duplicates, and make order.  When searching lilypond mailing
list archives, i sometimes get two dozen of different answers, most of
which is irrelevant (because it's impossible to find good keywords for
the search; StackExchange offers muhc better search), and the other
half is scattered all over the place, works only in some LilyPond
versions, and the code is scattered too - for example, some functions
written by David N and Harm are updated so many times over so many
email threads that it's really hard to find the latest version.

However, things are still manageable with the mailing list because
we're not that big.  If there was 10x more traffic, i imagine that a
mailing list would become an unholy mess - and coincidentally, with
10x more traffic we would be big enough for a StackExchange site.

So, i'd love to see LilyPond on StackExchange, but we may think about
it only when we get 10x bigger.

best,
Janek

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

Janek Warchoł janek.lilyp...@gmail.com writes:

 when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a
 nail.  Mailing lists are an all-purpose communication tool.  Many
 things can be done using a mailing list, but some things may be done
 more efficiently using other tools - for example, most of us thinks
 that reviewing patches via email is inconvenient, so we use Rietveld.

It's not clear that the turnout is actually better.  There is no
question that, say, the Linux kernel development manages quite fine with
reviewing a lot more patches a lot more thoroughly via Email than we
manage using Rietveld.

 QA sites like StackExchange are better for sharing QA knowledge than
 mailing lists because they allow to edit information, update it,
 remove duplicates, and make order.  When searching lilypond mailing
 list archives, i sometimes get two dozen of different answers, most of
 which is irrelevant (because it's impossible to find good keywords for
 the search; StackExchange offers muhc better search), and the other
 half is scattered all over the place, works only in some LilyPond
 versions, and the code is scattered too - for example, some functions
 written by David N and Harm are updated so many times over so many
 email threads that it's really hard to find the latest version.

Which is the reason the latest version tends to be in LilyPond proper.
At any rate, it sounds like it's not the medium as such that is the
problem but rather the indexing capabilities of the archives.  There are
a few partly competing archives, like Gmane, Nabble, of course the
upstream archive, and a few others.  There is not much competition with
StackExchange: it's take it or leave it.

-- 
David Kastrup

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

2013-11-02 Thread Gilberto Agostinho

Hmm, after  reading all arguments against a Stack Exchange page, I have to
say I completely changed my opinion on this regards as well. Indeed it would
not be good for us to spread a small community in two places, and re-posting
questions on both would be a waste of time indeed. My first reaction on this
idea was simply how cool, more places to discuss LilyPond, this might bring
even more people on board!, but now I see it is really not that simple.

And no David, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this mailing-list :)

Regards to all,
Gilberto



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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

2013-11-02 Thread Hilary Snaden

On 2013-11-02 05:52, David Kastrup wrote:
 Gilberto Agostinho gilbertohasn...@gmail.com writes:
 
 I am also totally up for this idea as well.
 
 What's wrong with this list?  Everybody wants to take his LilyPond
 business to the web interface of his choice that takes a lot of
 additional work over just reading and typing text and further dilutes
 the LilyPond knowledge.

I agree. I may have an advantage in having worked mostly with mail and
news for a long time now, but I still far prefer those media to any web
interface I've seen. I suggest politely redirecting enquirers elsewhere
to the manuals, snippet library and mailing list. They're all for the
most part lean, clear and accessible.

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

2013-11-02 Thread Urs Liska

I think there is one thing the mailing list can't really offer compared to a
QA site: accepted answers. This is really a good thing. But definitely no
reason to spread our forceds and competence.
Ther already _are_ places to present solutions, although not as answersx to
posted questions: the LSR and - for solutions requiring newer LP versions - the
Github repository. For topics that benefit from a tutorial-like explanation we
have the blog with its (still very much empty) faq category.

So I would vote for either doing nothing or setting up a landing page which
directs to the proper place (i.e. the list)

Urs

Gilberto Agostinho gilbertohasn...@gmail.com schrieb:
Hmm, after reading all arguments against a Stack Exchange page, I have
to
say I completely changed my opinion on this regards as well. Indeed it
would
not be good for us to spread a small community in two places, and
re-posting
questions on both would be a waste of time indeed. My first reaction on
this
idea was simply how cool, more places to discuss LilyPond, this might
bring
even more people on board!, but now I see it is really not that
simple.

And no David, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this mailing-list
:)

Regards to all,
Gilberto

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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

Hilary Snaden h...@newearth.demon.co.uk writes:

 On 2013-11-02 05:52, David Kastrup wrote:
 Gilberto Agostinho gilbertohasn...@gmail.com writes:
 
 I am also totally up for this idea as well.
 
 What's wrong with this list?  Everybody wants to take his LilyPond
 business to the web interface of his choice that takes a lot of
 additional work over just reading and typing text and further dilutes
 the LilyPond knowledge.

 I agree. I may have an advantage in having worked mostly with mail and
 news for a long time now, but I still far prefer those media to any
 web interface I've seen. I suggest politely redirecting enquirers
 elsewhere to the manuals, snippet library and mailing list. They're
 all for the most part lean, clear and accessible.

I guess that basically the one thing missing from our mailing list
archives is a popularity metric.  Mail search engines including the
mailing list's own search engines work by matching significance, an
approach that ceased working for the much larger search space of web
sites long ago (basically, this is what made Altavista lose to Google in
user numbers).

Sites like Stack Exchange have voting mechanisms that work for assigning
popularity to answers as well as reputation to authors.  And they make
it possible to sort entries into categories.

Feeding information like that into the searches for mailing list
archives and displaying them might help with organizing better what
appears like a somewhat uniform search space.

I mean, if it just the look/interface, you could read this at
URL:http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.general and be
happy.

Hm, I like this idea of turning a mailing list into an entirely optional
social networking medium by adding more of a feedback/scoring criterion
than Report Spam.

Putting in a Bcc to someone who might or might not have a thought on
this.

-- 
David Kastrup


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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?

2013-11-02 Thread Paul Morris

janek.lilypond wrote
 QA sites like StackExchange are better for sharing QA knowledge than
 mailing lists because they allow to edit information, update it,
 remove duplicates, and make order.  

I think this is a good point.  The mailing list is sufficient and fine, but
it's probably not optimal for organizing a QA-type knowledge base that (1)
makes it easy to find definitive and best answers to (often very common)
questions, and that (2) can be edited, improved, and evolve over time with
different versions of LilyPond, etc.

And given how some amount of QA is almost essential to learning LilyPond...  

Anyway, for what it's worth, especially concerning the size restrictions on
StackExchange, there is also Shapado, a stackoverflow-like app written in
ruby, mongomapper and mongodb, whose source code is under the GNU Affero
General Public License (AGPLv3):

Main site:
http://shapado.com/

Source code repository:
https://gitorious.org/shapado

Apparently it allows you to answer by email: You can use Shapado without
leaving your favorite mail client, just subscribe to people or tag and you
will receive your question by mail so you can just answer from there.

I mention it just for the record as another option, not to suggest that it
should be used or not (I don't know that much about it in any case).  

Best to all,
-Paul



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Re: Thoughts about creating Stack Exchange page?