New Site Launch: LinuxExchange.org
 

From http://jeremy.linuxquestions.org/201...xexchange-org/:

http://linuxexchange.org/

--jeremy

Thanks for sharing this website, something like answers.com or yahoo answers for Linux? :)
Looks great!

Looks good.

oh... I just logged in to LQ from another box and occasionally saw a new link... I usually don't go to mainpage, keeping only forums I read open. Looks like I'm in place at the right time :D
I see some LQ most active members & moderators already registered there :) Greetingz! :)

jeremy, you should probably create a new "bugtracker" for LinuxExchange, like one existing for LQ here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hp?projectid=1
what do you think? :)
I guess there should anyway be a special place for discussing that site.

Well, it's interesting, and I'll try it out. However, I may prefer the regular forum layout, as it makes more sense to me.

2 H_TeXMeX_H I love forum more too :) At least we can communicate user-to-user here... I can't find such feature in that engine.

You know what, it is better to use different favicon for LinuxExchange, it's a bit hard to understand which one is LQ when I have many tabs open.

i think it confuses people more, by using two same type of sites. (only displayed differently)
namely Discussion based question/answer system.

LQ is one
LE is another, by the same person.

What is the benefit of LQ'ers going to LE? or vice versa?

The questions and answers are now spread accross 2 sites, how convient to the enduser. (especially newcomers, required to hop from one site to another and back.. i don't see the benefit at all)

it should be EITHER LQ or LE, not both as it is now.
Or the same site on both domains, and combined (meaning threads are displayed if prefered as LE does now, or as LQ does, the enduser can choose)

LE is separate from LQ - the only thing that is the same is that they are owned by the same person. As we are all loyal LQers, Jeremy has publicised it to us, but there is no need to go there if you find that LQ does what you need. But, for people unhappy with forums, LE is there.

They're actually not both discussion based, which is a big part of why the decision was made. LQ is forum-based, and is therefore conversational. Non-Q/A topics are very acceptable here and the forum paradigm is well understood. LE (where LQ accounts do not work, also part of the decision) is not conversational. Non-Q/A topics and formats are not permitted and the paradigm used there is new and not well understood. I'm still open to feedback, but in the end I think not using the LQ brand was probably the correct decision for both LQ and LE.

--jeremy

new site
 

well, coming from you jeremy, i'm sure it will be very informative

the website looks great :)

This is a wonderful idea.

For those that speak of confusion, they seem to forget that there is also linuxforums.org and other sites like this one - now that is confusing. There doesn't seem to be anything like this yet, and it is definitely a format worth giving a try. It may turn out to be a much needed innovation for people searching for Linux answers. I can see why a Wiki wouldn't fullfill a need here, and why this could potentially be more attractive to some than a sea of threads... but only time till tell what this new hybrid will grow into.

Wait... You lanuched another site?

hi

my eyesight spots answered questions in the unanswered link or am I missing something?
(no body part answers please heh heh )

http://linuxexchange.org/unanswered

A question is marked as "unanswered" until the owner of the question accepts one of the responses as an answer.

--jeremy

HAve to check it out
 

This site is very confusing. Once I log in, I just stare at it wondering where to go.

I don't actually understand what its purpose is -- in other words, why would one post a question on LE as opposed to LQ?

Also, what does "collaboratively edited" actually mean? I thought it meant that, like a Wiki, everyone writes and/or edits the same body of text. But apparently not, because all of these new "collaboratively edited" sites look more like newsgroups than wikis. So exactly what does it mean?

r.stiltskin, I've attempted to answer that question earlier in this thread:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...3/#post3936391

--jeremy

I saw that, jeremy, but I think it answers "when should I not use LE?" What I still don't understand is under what circumstances should I prefer LE over LQ?

Ya but I could not understand what is the need of another forum?

LE is not another forum. LE is purely for questions and answers and is there for people who don't want to converse while solving a problem. It is entirely separate from LQ.

r.stiltskin, it's not really a matter of preferring one over the other. LE is utilizing an entirely new platform with an entirely different paradigm that is in no way a forum (in fact, "discussion" is off topic and will be remove or edited). That being said, I'm hoping we can learn from how the platform is utilized and it's possible you may even see some of those lessons learned applied here at LQ.

--jeremy

For those questioning the purpose of two sites, I'm all in favor of offering as much variety in the Linux website space as possible.

If LE turns out to be too redundant, it may fail. OK. But who knows--it might turn out to be more popular than LQ.

There are already numerous popular, thriving Linux forum sites very, very similar to LQ (more similar that LE). That doesn't seem to be a problem for any of them.

-----
A few moments ago when I tried to look at the site for the fist time I got an error: Server Error in '/' Application. But it looks like it's OK now.

One more Q&A can't hurt though I find the "sameness" of sites based on the stackoverflow.com engine very freewebs-like. Much too cookie-cutter.

OK, now that i've seen it, i also see the purpose. But - people seem to be not used to the way it's intended to work (a precisely formulated question should get precise answers, right?). Therefore, i see that many questions/answers already turn into discussion-like threads. Is there any policy planned so that it will not be used like a forum?

I'm pretty confused. I've used LQ.org and ServerFault and Superuser (similar to Stack overflow but more syseng and sysadmin focused). All have a nice community around them. All are for asking and answering questions. It is not clear at all why I would post to LQ vs LE despite what Jeremy has written. In my mind, the new site muddys the LQ waters without giving me a compelling reason to use it.

Since most of the time I post to the LQ forums when I need help with a systems problem (vs. "when will the next verson of slackware ship?"), I suspect my view of LQ is skewed. LQ is a perfectly good platform for asking system problems, so chances are I'll continue to ask there (plus they have a Slackware focused forum). At LE or Serverfault, my audience could be too broad to get a useful answer.

If you've used Serverfault, Superuser or Stackoverflow, you'll see that comments are used for QA. Otherwise there is no way to get clarity on a problem. And really, how often does someone ask a fully-formed question? Many questions are answered when the question is well understood. (Even if it just allows you to query google better)

Aside from me being the founder of both, the sites are not related in any way, which was a very cognizant decision. We debated launching the site as part of the LQ-network (as something along the lines of exchange.lq) but decided against it. Because of this, the site should not "muddy the LQ waters" in any way.

--jeremy

LE will very much sink or swim based on its own merit.

--jeremy

In the case of LE, the original question should be edited to clarify the question or add additional information.

--jeremy

Well, since you announced it in the LQ Community Bulletin, I suspect more than one person will suspect they are related.
IMO, LE will draw traffic away from LQ.org. Which would be a shame since there is already a atrong community there (in the forums I read)

Just a question out of curiosity - why a steamexchange site rather that something open source like OSQA? (For that matter why not something like phpBB or other open source forum rather than vBulletin, nice at it is?)

We'll actually be moving LE off the SE platform and onto something Open Source in the midterm future. I'm not aware of any Open Source forum platform that's a viable alternative for LQ (and certainly none were around when I founded LQ in 2000). Keep in mind that LQ does rely heavily on Drupal, MediaWiki and many other Open Source solutions.

--jeremy

To be fair, I explicitly made the distinction in the original announcement.

New Linux and Open Source related sites launch all the time. It's my opinion that competition makes us strong and is a constant driver for us to improve.

--jeremy

Agreed - competition is good. However, folks don't usually compete with themselves as it just means they can pay less attention to both.

Jeremy - this is your site, you owe me nothing. Best of luck with both sites.

I must admit that it takes a bit to get used to this forum, BUT when you do, it can be a blessing and certainly MOST informative. It was overwhelming at first but easily adaptable. At least to techy types anyway.

I thought cooperation not competition was the key to FLOSS and Linux ...

Well, either way good luck with it, I don't think I'll be able to get used to style of that site, it looks more like a blog.

I must also disagree, competition is one erratic concept that strangles our societies. It does not serve for fast improvement. To the contrary, it makes everyone invent the wheel themselves.

Problem is that everyone is stuck at 1 point. Can't vote answers up. So we continue to circle around at 1 point waiting for someone to upvote so we get enough to upvote, so the thing can take off. Needs owner/moderator with plenty of points to start reading questions and answers and do the initial upvoting to give it life.

I like the stackoverflow q&a approach for fast solutions.

hgriggs, we just took the site out of bootstrap mode (which greatly reduced the need for reputation points). If it's the case where there are not enough active users participating, we can enable it again.

--jeremy

Ah, I didn't realise there was a bootstrap mode. Interesting. Never mind. It will take on momentum. I was just being impatient.

I've re-enabled bootstap mode with the intention of disabling it permanently on 5/9/2010.

--jeremy

Gr8 job.....It's nice site. keep it up.....

Well I want to know one thing what will be the advantage of having LinuxExchange.org over LQ ?

I just joined there and asked a question regarding LQ Spy. Since I had to TAG the thread, I wrote "Spy" as a tag, but a message was shown saying "since you are a new user, you can't create tags"

Ok

But my question was not related to any of already existing tags, so I tagged the thread "Google" because I didn't have a choice !

Am I missing something ?

The question should be tagged "meta", since it's about the site itself. It's been retagged.

--jeremy

I like it. Already registered and answering questions!

I wanted to show my code of the .emacs file there, but where should I post the code ? I can't post it in the comments box as it is too small, and I can't post that code as an answer to my own question ?

and am I supposed to talk about such problems w.r.t that site in this thread only ? or there is some other place for it ?