I was recently reading the Skeptics.SE FAQ, and one of the top lines of their faq is:
New users (even users familiar with the StackExchange format) should
read our introduction to the site before posting
The link listed goes to a very newbie-friendly meta post which explains what SE is, h...
@Rachel I'm thinking we should do it on the Workplace, see if people like it and if it's actually helpful. I think it will be, but let's test it first.
@Rachel To be perfectly honest, I'm not convinced that Programmers is not easy to navigate or understand, most people arguing that it is either never bothered to read the faq or are just bitter their questions were closed... But if it works on the Workplace there would be no reason why we shouldn't have an adapted version here. It won't help with those not bothering to read the faq though...
Which is why I want to test it on The Workplace first. Lot smaller, which means that it's a lot easier to engage people individually, and see if the guide helped or not.
@YannisRizos Fair enough. I hope it works out, because I think Programmers could use something like this judging by the number of closed questions it gets daily
@Rachel We get a lot of crap questions from Stack Overflow. Not direct migrations, but people that had their questions closed there, were advised on how to improve them and instead decided to come try their luck here. The problem is not so much with the number of closures, there's absolutely no problem there, it's more that we are growing and we attract the wrong audience.
And a secondary problem is deletions, compared to other sites we don't delete either as fast or as much. Which kinda makes our closures more visible...
@YannisRizos All the more reason to have a welcome post specifically for new users to help them understand the site scope before they post. Most people I know want to do the right thing, but frequently just don't know what that is
But I'm fine waiting to see how it works out on Workplace.SE first
To quote a line from the Workplace.SE meta suggestion: "I realize that the FAQ is currently meant to be for new users, however it is quite long and contains more than a standard new user is usually willing to read. A FAQ should be for frequently asked questions, not for a manual on how to use the site."
I think you'd get more new users reading a welcome message designed for new users than reading the FAQ
@Rachel Well, what you can ask here and what not is frequently asked questions. But I do agree it's long and not very noob friendly. That said, we are not a noob friendly site by design, we aren't really supposed to cater to total beginners the way SO does.
Still we got quite a few teenagers that cope with the site just fine.
@Rachel Well, then, I really don't know. RTFM is a core programming principle, I really don't understand why programmers would refuse to read the damn docs before using a resource, any resource.
@Rachel Now you are splitting hairs. It's a piece of documentation that explains what the site is about and what you can ask here, regardless of how it's called.
And it's long, boring, and talks about stuff that usually isn't that interesting to a new user (like reputation, login, etiquette, etc). A page designed to introduce new users to Programmers would be far superior
But like I said, I have no problems waiting a bit if you want to see how it works out on Workplace.SE first
@Rachel Not arguing with that, just let's test it on the Workplace first. It's a far more controllable environment due to it's relatively smaller size, so it would be a lot easier to check if it works or not.
So JA wants to restructure the /faq page for SE sites. Because current /faqs suck. Or at least that's my assumption.
I think there's another assumption we should examine...
Why have a /faq page at all?
Here's my reasoning.
Nobody reads the /faq.
When was the last time you read it?
It is...
@TomWright Quick question: b. English words c. Foreign words Should I treat that as b. Native language wordsc. Foreign words? We aren't all native English speakers...
@YannisRizos - Thanks for the Court of Justice of the European Union link. A court ruled well on a programming copyright issue! Not a U.S. court, obviously, but still amazing.
I was recently reading the Skeptics.SE FAQ, and one of the top lines of their faq is:
New users (even users familiar with the StackExchange format) should
read our introduction to the site before posting
The link listed goes to a very newbie-friendly meta post which explains what SE is, h...
So JA wants to restructure the /faq page for SE sites. Because current /faqs suck. Or at least that's my assumption.
I think there's another assumption we should examine...
Why have a /faq page at all?
Here's my reasoning.
Nobody reads the /faq.
When was the last time you read it?
It is...
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