New Site Name discussion Jul 22, 2016

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 18:25

@RobertHarvey, @ThomasOwens, @Snowman et. al.: we need to clear a few things up here.

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 I'm around.

Shog9

First, I wanna make something clear: the "bullet problem" is a non-issue. There are multiple easy solutions, and we can wrap that particular debate up quickly... But we gotta get past a few other things first.

Number one is this idea that we're trying to fill Programmers with crap or drive everyone away or just hate you all personally or whatever.

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 I don't think anyone thinks that. I don't.

Shog9

Sure ain't coming across in the comments and answers I got this morning, but I'd hope it's pretty damn obvious that it ain't the case; if we didn't like you, or wanted programmers to fail, we'd just be ignoring these discussions; god knows there's plenty of other work to do.

Thomas Owens

If you just hated us, we'd probably just come to a site that's shut down one day.

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 18:30

But regardless, if anyone feels that way... It's probably time to step away from the site for a bit. This ain't a healthy activity if you're not having fun with it. No one wants this to become something you feel, ahem, trapped in.

Critically, name-changes aren't as simple as they sound. Rebranding is dangerous, even when the current brand is problematic; if we're all gonna invest time and energy in trying to do this, it's important that:
1) we all believe it's the right thing to do
2) we're all committed to making it work
3) we're not working on opposing sides

with that out of the way, I wanna quote a comment I just left under @Robert's answer:

You kinda bury the lede here: "There are three groups of people who visit Programmers" - this is your audience, this is who you're writing for, this is why changes to guidance and branding matter, if they are to matter at all. These people are not you. They don't have half a decade of history on this site. Understanding what brings them here and what creates the misconceptions they labor under when asking is critical to success. Otherwise, like the boxer, they'll hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest.... — Shog9 ♦ 9 mins ago

This is essentially the argument that kicked this off in the first place:

> If you walk down the streets of your city past the homeless beggars and they all harass you asking for some change, don't act surprised when you are wearing a shirt that says, "I got lots of change to give..."

That - the idea that in spite of all efforts in the help center, on meta, in closing and in commenting, folks are drawn here because the name implies they should be here - is a compelling argument.

So that's where I'm coming from, that's the mindset I'm trying - with a good deal of help from @Ana - to put myself into when discussing this.

To look at Programmers with fresh eyes, without a half-decade of history influencing how I interpret this stuff.

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 I'm almost certain it's mostly true. I don't think a name change will fix 100% of the problems, but it will go a long way. A very long way. I think there's some evidence of this with Electrical Engineering, if I'm not mistaken. I never participated there, since it's outside my knowledge base.

Shog9

@ThomasOwens of course it won't fix 100% of the problems; y'all have a lot of problems, and a wide variety of them.

But one of the biggest ones is... simple confusion.

Thomas Owens

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

Shog9

10K tools: question close stats

Thomas Owens

Totally agree.

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 18:39

In the last 90 days, 45.7% of questions were closed...

and out of that, 27% were closed as off-topic:

> Questions asking for assistance in writing or debugging existing code are off-topic on Programmers. These questions can be asked on Stack Overflow if they include the desired behavior, a specific problem or error, and the shortest code necessary to reproduce it in the question itself. See How To Create a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable Example.

another 5% were migrated:

> This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network

pretty much all of those to Stack Overflow

so even ignoring some of the more esoteric stuff, ignoring unclear questions that are probably still OT coding issues, it's safe to say that a solid 1/3rd of your problem here is a deep misunderstanding of what this site is about.

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 Absolutely. I'd say even more than that, perhaps. Thanks to Duga, how many people have we corrected or cross-posts have we stopped with a well-timed comment? There are more confused people that don't end up posting here because we try to fix the confusion.

Shog9

Then you look at the friendly Duga, posting comments from SO from folks with tons of experience on that site, who still think "Programmers == Stack Overflow's trash heap"

@ThomasOwens right? That's really telling, IMHO - even more than the close rate. This isn't at all limited to folks coming in from google (although there are plenty of them) or folks who are banned on SO (a decent number though tiny by comparison) - it's folks who've been around maybe almost as long as you have, who still have no clue what this site is for.

Now, even for those, a name-change ain't a silver bullet.

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 Of everyone, I think we're among the best to realize that there isn't a silver bullet.

Shog9

Some folks just won't even realize it's changed; others will see the change and blithely assume that nothing else has changed, that it's still the same old game with new branding.

But I do think with a little bit of work, we can convince many of them that hey, this isn't a trash-heap, it's a site for folks who care about creating good software and want to go beyond mindless coding to learn real craftsmanship, discipline, skill.

Thomas Owens

Yes. My position is that a new name will make that work easier.

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 18:46

...*if* that's actually what we're setting out to do here. If we're working together on it and pushing in the same direction.

Thomas Owens

And not only to explain to people who have the wrong idea, but to explain to people who still haven't heard of the site in the first place.

Shog9

If half of you are trying to push for a broader, richer scope that excludes bug-fixing and half of you are just hoping for a bigger stick with which to hit folks who visit the site, this isn't gonna work.

If y'all want a clear, rich scope, we can work on a couple of sentences that convey this and trumpet to the heavens that this is the place for THIS and not THAT.

If y'all just wanna punch newbs, we just need another moderator election in which we convince gnat to run.

Thomas Owens

I do want a clear, rich scope. I think our current list of things, although verbose, captures everything. The only thing that I'd like to talk about more (but seems to be well received on our end) would be to move licensing questions to Law and Open Source. They just...do so much better at answering them. But we need to talk about that in far more depth.

Shog9

@ThomasOwens be careful of falling into the trap of trying to capture every problem that's ever come up here.

Licensing isn't something that really enters into most of the questions that get asked.

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 licensing is the 11th most common tag on the site.

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 18:52

@ThomasOwens Yeah, it's something y'all have to figure out... But it's a super inside-baseball kinda discussion; licensing and law just aren't a big part of this site on a day to day basis.

Thomas Owens

Yeah. That's going to come later. What I'm saying is that I think the power users have a good idea of what the scope really is.

Shog9

If and when you decide to just start pushing those over to Law, that'll be easy to solve compared to, say, code-fixing questions or personal advice or whatever.

Thomas Owens

Yeah. One problem at a time.

And licensing isn't a problem. It's just...a weakness.

Shog9

That's when you say, "ok, we need to start closing and/or migrating these", not "ok, we need to trumpet to the world that this site which doesn't in any way look like a law site isn't a law site"

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 Yes, that's the right way to do it.

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 18:54

There are a crazy number of things that should be closed or downvoted or edited or just discouraged, but only a tiny handful reach the sort of volume that you need to announce them to all visitors.

Thomas Owens

And the code troubleshooting types are, by far, the worst.

Shog9

I'm pretty sure just about every site on the network gets coding questions now and then, but only a few bother mentioning that they're off-topic explicitly anywhere.

here, they're a problem, so you focus on that

Meanwhile, you don't have to focus on, say, recipe requests, since those aren't as much of an issue.

Thomas Owens

And I think that's what we want to do.

If people are asking software engineers for recipes (for anything other than coffee or scotch based beverages), we have bigger problems.

Shog9

@ThomasOwens it's happened several times on SO. Still not even on the radar. Dups and low-quality are the emperor of maladies on SO

here, it's coding questions and ... personal advice?

Thomas Owens

Coding questions for sure.

The second place is either personal advice or tool/library suggestions.

Really, highly opinionated things. NPR-style questions.

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 18:58

@ThomasOwens I'd lump 'em into the same boat, really. Stuff that could be valid questions, but need a lot of work. Often a very large amount of work.

this is where you need to enlist someone like @enderland to help.

changing the name or help center or putting up big red banners doesn't help

Thomas Owens

No, it doesn't. Commenting, guiding, and so on will help. Unfortunately, the bigger problem (code debugging/troubleshooting) is keeping us worn down from helping users with the second problem. I think we get tired of the first and aren't doing what we can to coach on the second.

Ana

@ThomasOwens I think you're dead on.

Thomas Owens

I think if we can work on fixing that problem of coding questions, which was almost 1/3 of all closures, we'll have more time and patience to help other people.

I know I will.

Ana

As Robert accurately noted, I'm kind of an outsider here. But from that perch, I've been trying to understand this site's history, and the experiences of the people who have put in the most time and care into it over the years.

One thing which has stood out to me is that it looks a bit like the pressures and frustrations over the years have led to a tendency to moderate defensively.

Thomas Owens

I'd agree with that.

Ana

Jul 22, 2016 19:06

We'd really like to figure out how to help you set that feedback loop aside, because I think it wears on everyone over time.

Thomas Owens

I think we want to try to keep the homepage as close to representative of what we want on the site as possible for people who come in via Google. They hit a question, click the logo, go to the homepage. We want that next impression to be good. So we moderate defensively - down vote, close, and delete relatively quickly.

Ana

That's why Shog and I have been typing all these words in here the past couple days.

Thomas Owens

I think we all agree that a rebranding should be a giant step toward helping us to explain this community to other people, yes?

I know that I want people to understand what we are all about, to explain it to people.

Shog9

@ThomasOwens yeah, yeah... THAT is key.

and that's what I'm being... perhaps a bit too strict on here; I don't want folks showing up and thinking, "Huh, new name, everything else is the same, ok."

Thomas Owens

I don't want that, either.

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 19:10

It's not like y'all haven't been trying for years to convey a scope that's significantly different from expectations.

But it hasn't stuck

The last thing we want to do here is, uh, innoculate people to the name-change by implying that nothing has changed. Even if it hasn't changed for you the experienced user of the site, we want to make it utterly clear to folks who didn't pick up on the last 5 years of refinements that this is a change.

Thomas Owens

I want to be able to say "Hi, we're Software Engineering. We're all about questions about requirements, architecture/design, algorithms and data structures, quality assurance, configuration/build/release management, and processes/methods. We're not about helping you write code or learn how to use your tools. We're also not about opinions or discussions."

Robert Harvey

Can I just ask a couple of questions?

Shog9

@RobertHarvey yes

Robert Harvey

Are we all agreed that this is the site scope?

Thomas Owens

@RobertHarvey I think so, yes.

Robert Harvey

Jul 22, 2016 19:14

Except for code troubleshooting.

And peripherial concerns like law and product recommendations.

Shog9

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 Cross out "acquiring systems" in development, too.

But yes.

Shog9

Robert Harvey

OK.

Shog9

ok, but in all seriousness... Saying, "SDLC" is actually a pretty good start.

Thomas Owens

Jul 22, 2016 19:16

Bingo.

That's our scope.

Robert Harvey

Is there anyone that qualifies to ask a question at Software Engineering that would not understand that picture?

Thomas Owens

I say no.

Ana

Qualifying the asker, as opposed to the question, tends to be dicey territory. But probably not.

Shog9

@RobertHarvey critical question is, Is there anyone who qualifies to ask a question at Software Engineering that would not understand "Software Engineering" as a scope?

Robert Harvey

No, but there are people who will try anyway.

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 19:19

@RobertHarvey right. So after you say "Software Engineering", those people are your audience. Next word out of your mouth needs to disabuse them of the notion that this is what they're after.

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 It does need to be clear and up-front that we aren't about code debugging. That is a part of software engineering. A relatively small percentage, as you can see by how little text was crossed off your diagram.

Robert Harvey

Is the goal of SE to clean up the front page?

Shog9

Goal of SE - in this particular endeavor - is to reduce the amount of strain on the core community here.

Thomas Owens

My strain would be reduced if I didn't have to deal with code debugging dumps.

Shog9

Front page is relatively easy to clean up. As is getting rid of Maple's panhandler. But if you gotta do it every 30 minutes, there's a bigger issue.

Robert Harvey

Jul 22, 2016 19:21

How does that get done?

Shog9

which?

Robert Harvey

Cleaning up the front page.

Shog9

Same way we do it on MSE every day: delete everything that's blatantly off-topic as soon as it appears.

Thomas Owens

That's...hard.

Robert Harvey

I don't have the power to do that, and neither do the remaining high-rep users that care.

Thomas Owens

Jul 22, 2016 19:22

It's too hard right now.

Shog9

@ThomasOwens right, because an hour later, you gotta do it again.

Thomas Owens

Yes.

user114359

@Shog9 I am short on time, so I will make this quick: you are correct, this site has several problems. Several of the (previously) very active users perceive a lack of commitment or caring on the part of the CM team. Some things we can do ourselves, some things we cannot. There is a lot of frustration among the high rep users, some of which who already left, some of which still participate infrequently (e.g. myself).

Shog9

So that's the critical problem. Doesn't matter how many folks look at the home page and see no coding questions, they're seeing something else that says, "ask about your code!" and listening to that.

Robert Harvey

Bingo.

Right now it takes somewhere between 4 hours and two days to dispatch unsalvageable questions. In my opinion, that's too long.

user114359

Jul 22, 2016 19:23

I am not saying that you hate us, or don't care, and this is not about you specifically: you have always been one of the more active CMs and we do appreciate that. This is a general statement about the perception among users, and I think a lot of this is simple communication.

user114359

It is similar to how I just asked my son to vacuum the living room instead of telling him to. The delivery of a message is often more important than the message itself, and that is not lost on the list of names who choose not to participate here anymore.

Shog9

so when y'all are looking in amazement at meta and wondering my I'm making an issue of something like a page-long interstitial or a 6-bullet list... That's where I'm coming from. I'm looking to eliminate as much as possible that has the potential to scream, "code! get your code here!"

because it doesn't matter if you have a big bold bit of text that says, "no code", if someone wants to ask about code and they've found something that suggests this is the place... That's what they're listening to. Everything else becomes noise.

Lemme tell a short story...

A while back, Tim wrote up a beautiful page explaining question rate-limits.

It was polite, instructive, comprehensive, and really just a joy to read.

...when we get questions about it, it's pretty obvious no one's reading past the first paragraph.

user114359

Anyway, my wife demands my presence on the beach. I will check back later.

Robert Harvey

@Snowman Lucky stiff. Leave your laptop on the kitchen counter.

@Evan: As to the length of my formulation, it's now down to a single bullet point with 9 words in it, and a cautionary banner with 72 words in it. I really don't know how I can make it any shorter than that. — Robert Harvey 2 hours ago

Shog9

@Snowman well, we're trying to change that. Don't promise it'll happen though.

They're not reading the bits that tell them how long they have to wait, or how they can reduce that time, or really anything that actually benefits them. They're reading, "no" and that's not what they want to hear so the rest is irrelevant.

Thomas Owens

Jul 22, 2016 19:29

See, I understand that people may not read things the first time. But my take is that having a few extra words to be quoted can be helpful.

Ana

@Snowman Thanks for weighing in there, I agree. It's worth nothing that this is why we're sitting here, hashing this out with you, trying to come to an understanding, even while Docs launched yesterday and our whole team is walking around with singed hair.

Shog9

@RobertHarvey so yeah - that single bullet is really kinda key. As we established earlier, the folks you'd want participating here are probably gonna be satisfied with "SDLC" or even just "Software Engineering". That conveys the information necessary to the right audience.

...and then leaves you free to talk to the folks you'd rather discourage, both for their sake and for your own.

Robert Harvey

There are always going to be people who will post whatever they want no matter what you say. I have no illusions about that. But if we provide some reasonable disclosure about what people cannot do on the site, in a place where it cannot be ignored, they can no longer claim ignorance.

And hopefully some of them will go somewhere else to ask their off-topic questions.

Shog9

Quite honestly, I don't care if you have 1 bullet or 4 or 6. Until someone reads them and thinks, "yeah, I'm in the right place"... and isn't. As soon as you have to qualify the text, it becomes suspect.

Robert Harvey

I've said this before, but it bears repeating I guess... I will entertain almost any software-related question that meets my 72 word cautionary banner.

It might not be a great question. It might not even be answerable. But at least we've made a minimal effort to inform people about some of our expectations.

Thomas Owens

Jul 22, 2016 19:33

That right there is why I'm a fan of more specific lists of things that are allowed.

I don't care if people read it, but I want something to point to.

I don't want to write a novel, but I want people who do read to have 0 confusion. And people who don't read...well, the name should give them a good enough idea.

Robert Harvey

And that's why I'm a fan of letting people know what they should not do. I think I've demonstrated that you can do that, be succinct, and catch most of the really problem cases.

The best off-topic question is the one that never gets asked.

It relieves the community of having to process the question for removal. I spend far more time on the site going through those mechanics than I do answering people's questions, and that's not how it should be.

Shog9

The best off-topic question is indeed the one that doesn't get asked. The best way to not get it asked is to not have the person who wants to ask it even visiting your site. So after an hour or so of conversation, let's see how close we are to being on the same page with that.

That's the current audience or, uh, tagline for Programmers.

Thomas Owens

Software Engineering, a Q&A for software developers interested in questions about the software development life cycle?

Or even remove "questions about" - a Q&A for software developers interested in the software development life cycle.

Shog9

Remember, you're hopefully already capturing the right audience with the name itself. Software Engineering.

Robert Harvey

Are you guy still toying around with that tagline? Software Engineering is a Question and Answer site where you can ask questions directly related to the Systems Development Life Cycle, but not code troubleshooting.

Thomas Owens

Jul 22, 2016 19:39

I like.

Although "directly" isn't necessary, is it?

Robert Harvey

Um, what was my wording before?

Thomas Owens

I think you always had directly. It just adds 8 characters. 9 if you count the space.

Software Engineering is a Question and Answer site where you can ask questions related to the Systems Development Life Cycle, but not code troubleshooting.

Robert Harvey

[sigh] We're counting characters now?

Shog9

> Q&A for software engineers interested in the Systems Development Life Cycle (not code troubleshooting)

Thomas Owens

@RobertHarvey No. I just don't like the word directly. I don't know why.

It bothers me.

Unless you are going directly someplace.

gnat

Jul 22, 2016 19:42

@ThomasOwens "directly" is better to keep. Indirectly related question could be like this: "how do I build my career in order to have more influence on the project development life cycle"

Robert Harvey

It's there as a signal to those people who want to ask about peripherial issues.

Thomas Owens

Oh, that's true.

I suppose it makes sense.

Shog9

keep in mind, this isn't just a line in a help page somewhere. This is what describes your site pretty much everywhere it appears on the network that isn't the site itself.

Thomas Owens

I like @RobertHarvey's now. I've been won over.

Shog9

Here's DBA for comparison:

Robert Harvey

Jul 22, 2016 19:45

Suitably fluffy.

Thomas Owens

You should change their name to Database Administration, FYI. I counted once. I think there are only something like 4 SE sites that are nouns. Android Enthusiasts, Programmers, Database Administrators...I'm missing one.

Shog9

yeah, that was an old, old thing that we kinda stopped doing

Thomas Owens

Webmasters.

Shog9

Writers, probably

oh. Then more than 4

anyway, only major issue I'd have with @Robert's suggestion is that it focuses on asking questions. Might be slightly off-putting to folks who, y'know, come here to answer.

Robert Harvey

Then add the phrase "and get answers" to it.

Software Engineering is a site where you can ask questions and get answers directly related to the Systems Development Life Cycle, but not code troubleshooting.

3

Ana

Jul 22, 2016 19:49

@RobertHarvey Got a nice ring to it.

Thomas Owens

@RobertHarvey If it's laid out like the pictures @Shog posted, does it need to start with "Software Engineering"?

Shog9

5

Thomas Owens

Yes.

Robert Harvey

Yeah, that works.

Shog9

@ThomasOwens this'll get all chopped up into little pieces and then re-assembled in different ways in various places.

Internally, there's Audience, Topic, and a bunch of more specific strings that may or may not be built on those first two.

But initially, just need like one good example we can agree on and work with.

Thomas Owens

Jul 22, 2016 19:52

I think that example works. If you wanted to call the audience a plural noun, I'd use "software developers"

Shog9

@ThomasOwens not, uh, engineers?

Thomas Owens

Or engineers. Either one works.

Shog9

ok, no, I'm not gonna sit & bikeshed this. I think we could make this work, but there are probably a dozen variations on it that'd work too.

Thomas Owens

Yeah.

Shog9

Take it back to meta, talk about it some more, let's see where we are next week

onward & upward or something

Thomas Owens

Jul 22, 2016 19:54

Are you going to launch a new meta question?

Shog9

@ThomasOwens not today. You can if you want. Or just write another answer.

I'm gonna go drink for a while

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 I'm not sure what you want in the answer.

Ana

I recommend a new question.

Thomas Owens

I think a new question is best, too.

Can someone dig up a link to the start of this convo?

Robert Harvey

What was the question again?

Shog9

Jul 22, 2016 19:55

2 hours ago, by Shog9

@RobertHarvey, @ThomasOwens, @Snowman et. al.: we need to clear a few things up here.

Anyway, thanks y'all. I feel like we've maybe moved a little bit forward on this.

Robert Harvey

Two. Hours. Ago.

Shog9

YEAH.

Fortunately, I budged a solid hour for it :-p

naw, I think it was good. I hope so at least.

Ana

This was solid. Thanks guys.

Thomas Owens

This was great.

We're inching closer. Next week, Jin shows up and we complain about the design? :P

Robert Harvey

In other news, I think I finally got a solution to my telemarketer problem.

Ampt

Jul 22, 2016 19:57

wait, I just got out of a meeting, can we go over my idea on colored bullet points?

Robert Harvey

>_<

Thomas Owens

Will it work for my recruiters, who started calling me after I started my new job?

Robert Harvey

Don't know.

Ampt

Jan 22 at 15:20, by Kit Z. Fox

<-- helping

Robert Harvey

The way it works is you set up your phone account to ring simultaneously on their number, and if it's a robocaller, they answer and hang up.

Fantastic.

So I can now answer my phone again, if it rings twice.

Thomas Owens

Jul 22, 2016 19:59

Doesn't the call to their number get a busy signal?

Robert Harvey

I assume they have a big bank of lines on a rotary.

It's a simultaneous ring. Your phone rings, and their phone rings. If it's a robocaller, they pick up instead of you, on the first ring.

You have to set it up in your phone account. You can do the same with a landline and a cell phone, where both phones ring on one number.

Anyway, it works perfectly.

Thomas Owens

@Shog9 and @Ana You said we'd be revisiting next week. What would the next discussion primarily be about?

I'd like to include that in my Meta post.

Shog9

@ThomasOwens whatever comes up on meta twixt now and then

Thomas Owens

OK. Cool.

@Shog9 @Ana meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/8114/…

Stack Exchange

Jul 22, 2016 20:19

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Q: Follow-Up 2: New Site Name and Scope Proposals

After a discussion today (July 22nd) with Ana and Shog9, we've made some more progress toward a new site name and scope. You can check out the transcript for the full details, but we talked about the purpose for rebranding the site, what we hope to get out of it, a high level scope of the site, a...

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