Network Engineering Q&A Site Launched

Hamburg writes "Stack Exchange launched a new site for network engineers. It's in question and answer style, content is tagged for filtering and subscribing to topics. A voting system supports quality of posts, leading to so called reputation scores which determine moderation capabilities of the users. It's now 18 days in beta, at this early stage users decide which way it will go, from quality and kind of contributions up to the future design of the site. People there discuss mainly professional subjects such as the best dual-provider design for the enterprise, when to choose fiber instead of copper cabling, and efficient ways for troubleshooting switching loops."

Comments

Not what it used to be

[reiserifick]

I really dislike StackOverflow now because very useful questions are discouraged, simply because they are open ended. I've been on SA since it was in closed beta, and I really do miss the discussion-oriented questions and answers that used to be the norm, rather than the exception.

Re:Not what it used to be

[Anonymous Coward]

Stackoverflow is turning into Wikipedia. There are a lot of dickheads there who care for nothing but the process.

You mention open-ended questions. Lots of open-ended questions from the early days have been recently closed because "it might lead to extended discussion and other bad things yada, yada, yada". Except in the four years the question was there none of these bad things happened. So why close it now? Oh yeah, because rules and processes matter more than having useful answers to useful questions.

Re:Not what it used to be

[aybiss]

Yep, I closed my account there. This new site will simply be a replication of any router manuals you may have laying around. It will deliberately go out of its way to discourage any form of discussion or even the documenting of useful general techniques, because it will be too 'open ended'.

I hate SO with a passion and I used to enjoy it a lot. Good luck to them with the new arm though.

Re:Not what it used to be

[hedronist]

Ah. We seem to have a StackExchange Moderator in our midst.

I note that, just like the mods that delete 4 year-old, highly viewed/rated posts, this one chooses to act as an AC.

StackOverflow vs Programmers

[Frankie70]

I really dislike StackOverflow now because very useful questions are discouraged, simply because they are open ended.

The place for open ended question is not SO.

How to choose between SO and Programmers - http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/82988/choosing-between-stack-overflow-and-programmers-stack-exchange

If it is related to coding, it should be on Stack Overflow.

If it's related to higher level programming concepts or is conceptual (but still related to programming), it should be on Programmers.

Rule of thumb: if you're sitting in front of your IDE, ask it on Stack Overflow. If you're standing in front of a whiteboard, ask it on Programmers.

Re:Stack exchange launch... another subsite

[hcs_$reboot]

only slightly different CSS

Not only. If you take the math.stackexchange.com you see that they put an extra effort to have mathematical equations displayed properly on the site.