Re: rdf.stackexchange.com -- Identity problems numbers 3 and 5 - was Re: Toward easier RDF: a proposal

Very informative Antoine. Thanks for those historical details.
I have copied and pasted your mail with a link as an answer to the question

"What gap is the web-data proposal filling given we already have OpenData?"
https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/28389/what-gap-is-the-web-data-proposal-filling-given-we-already-have-opendata/28394

I don't exactly know what it means for a site to be in beta on area51. Does it still
allow them to make changes to their proposal (or name) to be more open to questions
you point out is of interest to our community? I suppose we have people here who
know people who are working on that. 

In any case this exercise is worth while, as it may help locate what is missing in
the open-data setup, and if indeed it is worth having a bigger Stack Exchange site
that brings both communities more closely together.

After all StackOverflow which seems to be their most successful community has questions
on languages as diverse as JavaScript, Haskell, Scala, Erlang, Lisp, etc... Usually 
people who work on one of those communities don't look much beyond their language of choice.

With experience I have found it preferable to work with people who are very closely
aligned in aims and vision. But that is when building a product. As far as questions
and answers go, being more open may be better.

I asked a question relative to when tags and communities are better. My question is 
not well asked and it must have hit a raw nerve so it got -7 votes, but I did
get an interesting answer which stated that Stack Exchange differentiated itself
from its predecessors by focusing on making sure answers were good - as it is easy to
get questions.

https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/28390/would-it-not-be-better-to-have-communities-emerge-out-of-existing-stack-exchange/28391

Btw. when folks tried to create these Q&A spaces based on SE you mentioned did they 
get they do some marketing for it? Like going to conferences and making announcements 
there about the existence of this community? The most important thing seems to be the 
quality of the experts present willing to answer questions, so that would seem to
be a very important part of getting this to be successful.

Henry


> On 10 Dec 2018, at 16:30, Antoine Zimmermann <antoine.zimmermann@emse.fr> wrote:
> 
> FWIW, in Oct. 2009, a certain Andrew Matthews created a web site for Q&A on semantic web technologies, called Semantic Overflow (semanticoverflow.com). The software used on this site was Stack Exchange 1.0. It was good, it was fresh, it was lively.
> 
> A little later, Stack Exchange launched Area 51. I seem to recall that someone tried to get a Stack Exchange instance on semantic web topics via Area 51 in circa 2010, but it never flew up.
> 
> In the meantime, in 2011, Semantic Overflow was acquired by a company called semanticweb.com (now Dataversity). semanticoverflow.com ceased to work and redirected to answers.semanticweb.com. This new site was not using the Stack Exchange engine. The software in place there really sucked in comparison to SE. Slowly but surely, users of stackoverflow.com went away from the site, using Stack Overflow more and more instead. Quality on answers.semanticweb.com went down the floor and the site finally shut down.
> 
> When answers.semanticeb.com was in terminal stage (yet not clinically dead) in ~2015, someone proposed a new semantic web Stack Exchange site on Area 51. This one neither got the critical mass required to launch the site for real. It was deleted.
> 
> I find that a Q&A site on semweb tech is missing but I'm not optimistic that it will happen on Stack Exchange anytime soon.
> 
> Of course, you can use Stack Overflow for some technical questions on semweb tech, you can use Open Data Stack Exchange for some Linked Open Data questions, you can use Data Science Stack Exchange for some data analysis questions, you can use Artificial Intelligence SE for questions on KR & reasoning, etc.
> 
> But you cannot use Stack Overflow for all legitimate semantic web questions. You cannot use Open Data SE for all semantic web questions.
> 
> Consider for example the question "What are the success stories of the Semantic Web/Linked Data?" asked on 22nd August 2010 on Semantic Overflow. I'd say it is a legitimate semantic web question, but according to Stack Overflow's policy, it would probably get closed there. And it does not relate to open data, so it should be closed too on Open Data SE.
> 
> 
> I extracted a few questions from the late answers.semanticweb.com, that most likely would not last on SO if they were asked there:
> 
> https://www.emse.fr/~zimmermann/QA/q.html
> https://www.emse.fr/~zimmermann/QA/q2.html
> https://www.emse.fr/~zimmermann/QA/q3.html
> 
> I would like to see a place where those questions can be asked and answered and stay.
> 
> 
> 
> --AZ
> 
> 
> 
> Le 07/12/2018 à 16:18, Henry Story a écrit :
>>> On 7 Dec 2018, at 15:08, Hugh Glaser <hugh@glasers.org <mailto:hugh@glasers.org>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I know this was not the intention of the discussion participants, but that is certainly a reasonable view to take away.
>>> Maybe this is the wrong forum - is there somewhere else where I would get help?
>> Perhaps the trick for more pragmatic answers would be to open
>>    {rdf/semweb}.stackexchange.com <http://stackexchange.com>
>> StackExchange is helpful because it forces people to ask a question clearly,
>> and then once the answers are given and voted on, one does not need to
>> answer them again.
>> https://stackexchange.com/sites#
>> A discussion forum such as this one tends to always reopen issues because it is more
>> difficult to link to previous answers and there may just be too many of them.
>> Henry
>> I have found math.stackexchange.com <http://math.stackexchange.com> very useful, and actually posted a semweb
>> question on cstheory.stackexchange.com <http://cstheory.stackexchange.com>
>> https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/41578/what-does-the-category-of-rdf-models-look-like-in-institution-theory/41613
> 
> -- 
> Antoine Zimmermann
> Institut Henri Fayol
> École des Mines de Saint-Étienne
> 158 cours Fauriel
> CS 62362
> 42023 Saint-Étienne Cedex 2
> France
> Tél:+33(0)4 77 42 66 03
> Fax:+33(0)4 77 42 66 66
> http://www.emse.fr/~zimmermann/
> Member of team Connected Intelligence, Laboratoire Hubert Curien

Received on Monday, 10 December 2018 16:45:12 UTC