dansupAnyone building a federated Stack Overflow?
Commander William of GrungeWorks@dansup hmm...someone probably should though and one that doesn't do that B.S. "you can't post an answer unless you're one of the cool kids with enough points." thing
congusbongusgames@caranmegil @dansup iirc anyone can post answers even with 0 rep. Other actions require some rep like voting and commenting
@congusbongus @dansup eh. it was some sort of broken system. i remember, i posted a question, some tech bro called me names, and gave me a negative enough rating where i never recovered mostly due to lack of interest. let them have that platform!
Hobson Lane@caranmegil
Same thing happened to me, and i licked my wounds and came back later with better answers that others could appreciate and started to enjoy it. But for some stackexchanges (legal advice) what happened to you happened to me, there are gatekeepers that have #enxittified the comments by negatively SEOing (making sure your answers and comments are pushed below the fold) if your questions, comments or answers challenge elites or bigtech.
@dansup @congusbongus
Same thing happened to me, and i licked my wounds and came back later with better answers that others could appreciate and started to enjoy it. But for some stackexchanges (legal advice) what happened to you happened to me, there are gatekeepers that have #enxittified the comments by negatively SEOing (making sure your answers and comments are pushed below the fold) if your questions, comments or answers challenge elites or bigtech.
@dansup @congusbongus
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@caranmegil @dansup @congusbongus Yes. The problem with both SO and Wikipedia is that moderators become "little hitlers". I suppose federation would solve that? Maybe?
@congusbongus
Exactly. The algorithms for managing user contributions were pretty good, but the algorithms for managing moderators (people with lots of points) could be improved.
@caranmegil @dansup
Exactly. The algorithms for managing user contributions were pretty good, but the algorithms for managing moderators (people with lots of points) could be improved.
@caranmegil @dansup
Len@caranmegil that isn't how SO works, though. They do close questions that have already been asked, though, which I think a lot of people don't expect.
Thommy@dansup it seems like lemmy can be that with the right skin. We also really need a federated alternative to github. Gitea is partway there but thinking also about how github is sort of a linkedin for programmers.
Григорий Клюшников𝚝𝚓𝚠, there were several "federated github" projects
𝚝𝚓𝚠, https://forgejo.org for example
mat@thomasjwebb @grishka @dansup forgje is a fork of gitea maintained by codeberg. And they are working on federation.
@grishka @thomasjwebb @dansup I feel as if git is already the federated github.
It's missing some features. But other VCS are adding issue lists, etc.
D1re_W0lf@thomasjwebb @dansup what about @Codeberg ?
maybeanerd@forgejo is trying to become the (federated) GitHub alternative
Gilou@thomasjwebb @dansup gitlab is also working on it, and in a rather nice way ..
Bruno Rocha 
@dansup isn't that Lemmy?
I would like to have a federated LinkedIn with job board that federates the job listings.
Passageiro clandestino@rochacbruno @dansup Lemmy's devs created a federated wiki. I think it would be more in line. SO is a mix of forum, voting and wiki. maybe there is a way to mix Lemmy and that wiki I forgot the name.
@cochise
The key is the algorithm, the karma. Lemmy and the wiki would need to find good karma algorithm to trigger engagement and quality content.
#SecondPrice auction algorithms are how google dominated adwords.
Karma #gameTheory is what kept SO going till now.
@rochacbruno @dansup
Zuri (he/him) ❌️👑 | 🕐 CET
Chris Silverman 🌻@rochacbruno @dansup if I had to pick one service that I'd like to see an unshittified version of, it would be LinkedIn. That site is unusable, and that was even before they added paid DM spam as a feature.
Sean Tilley@dansup don’t do it, Dansup! You’ve got enough on your plate!
SpaceLifeFormSame for a search engine, human currated like Yahoo! used to be.
Ric Harvey 🇪🇺🌍💚@dansup @JustineSmithies often thought this would be a great idea
Josh@dansup Shite I thought you were doing that
Xerø@dansup has Pixelfed for Android gone live?
Shark Attak@dansup
And if they now use ChatGPT, one would be morally allowed to scrape all the data that is there to migrate on the new thing.
And if they now use ChatGPT, one would be morally allowed to scrape all the data that is there to migrate on the new thing.
I don't know about federated, but there is one run by a not-for-profit, using open source software, which I've switched to.
https://software.codidact.com/
https://software.codidact.com/
🏰Christophe S.❄IceEnchanter🦢@Hyperlynx @dansup
This looks great !
I remember having seen other implementations in the past, but not necessarily fancy enough at that time, this one is very neat (it might be one of those that matured since...).
That might be a proposal as an improvement to their software, it would allow to broaden and dispatch the communities, for example: https://codidact.com/
Although, certainly not trivial.
Ben Pate 🤘🏻@dansup Yes. After Bandcamp.
I had an online discussion about a Federated-Yelp that raised some interesting points that might apply to SO as well -- How do you “federate” the features that DON’T fit into the standard social media formulae? Things like “accepted answers” might only work on a centralized server.
Also, this might fall under the threaded discussion WG. I’d love to talk in more detail if you’re ever interested.
julian@[email protected] @[email protected] a federated StackOverflow would be an excellent use case that would benefit directly from the work ForumWG is doing (yes, "Forum and Threaded Discuss Task Force" is the official name, but ForumWG rolls off the tongue better, no?)
Dan, if you're interested, the WG meets up first Thursday of every month, 11am Mountain Time.
utzer 
@benpate @dansup probably not a real problem, this partly incompatibilities exist since the Fediverse is around, so 14 years or so, the only way is to discuss ideas and then implement some solution that works for all sides.
In the past there was Diaspora (still exists) that was the big player, that had fewer functions than for example Frienidca, they somehow arranged and it worked quite well. Today Mastodon is the big player, now others arrange their projects around the reduced feature set that Mastodon had... It kind of works, mostly.
In the past there was Diaspora (still exists) that was the big player, that had fewer functions than for example Frienidca, they somehow arranged and it worked quite well. Today Mastodon is the big player, now others arrange their projects around the reduced feature set that Mastodon had... It kind of works, mostly.
@utzer @dansup Yeah. We could always just build a new network with special features that would require an account on a Q&A -style server.
But an emerging feature of "fedi" is that you can take your identity everywhere. I'd really like to support this somehow, too.
Perhaps it just means using main Mastodon (or whatever) account as a "universal inbox" for notifications. But then we link you back to a site with SSO, so you can interact more richly there.
Dunno.. TBD.
I'll take any/all advice.
@[email protected] @[email protected] may I pose a question?
What is the actual difference between a site like StackOverflow (or their sister sites on the exchange) vs. a forum with a question-and-answer functionality built in?
At its core, as Ben alluded to, each question is essentially a "topic/thread", with immediate replies considered "answers", and further sub replies considered "comments".
An accepted answer needn't federate, though it can always provide that information via a separate ActivityStreams property.
My assertion isn't that StackOverflow does anything different "technically", but that their network effect and centralization, along with being the only good option to ExpertsExchange, allowed them to prosper.
Yes. Stack Overflow isn't magic. I think they succeeded because they focused heavily on SEO, which brought both ask-ers and answer-ers to the site.
Personally, the "accepted answer" is the killer feature. Dunno if NodeBB, Kbin, or others already support this.
There's potential in SO's gamification aspects, too. I'd love to let third-party sites to award badges or "endorsements" and display them on my profile page. This could work in all kinds of trust/credibility situations.
@[email protected] said in Anyone building a federated Stack Overflow?:
Personally, the "accepted answer" is the killer feature. Dunno if NodeBB, Kbin, or others already support this.
Yes! NodeBB's been around for a decade, we have tons of stuff that got built because people wanted it.
So yeah we have a plugin that already does full question-and-answer support. We use it on our forum: https://community.nodebb.org/category/16/technical-support
Note the "solved" and "unsolved" labels, and descending into a solved topic, you'l see the accepted answer floated to the top.
NodeBB's theme and plugin engine is very flexible, so it is feasible to stand up a StackOverflow clone rapidly.
KichaeBut an emerging feature of "fedi" is that you can take your identity everywhereTaking your identity everywhere and having access to all of the features offered somewhere else are different things, though.
Like, you can post to Lemmy groups from Mastodon-based websites, but you don't get the forum or content-aggregator features like post titles, cross-posting, etc. And you can communicate with people on Misskey or Friendica or Hubzilla, but that doesn't mean you can do everything that people using sites based on those platforms can do. Or you can comment on Wordpress blogs, but that doesn't mean that you can post to them.
You can interact with everything, but that doesn't mean anywhere else has to treat you like a first class user.
Like, you can post to Lemmy groups from Mastodon-based websites, but you don't get the forum or content-aggregator features like post titles, cross-posting, etc. And you can communicate with people on Misskey or Friendica or Hubzilla, but that doesn't mean you can do everything that people using sites based on those platforms can do. Or you can comment on Wordpress blogs, but that doesn't mean that you can post to them.
You can interact with everything, but that doesn't mean anywhere else has to treat you like a first class user.
@dansup a giant webring of "here's how I solved X" technical blog posts, maybe?
Juan Luis@dansup Why?
On Mastodon, I cannot see the full conversation, only the posts my server knows about.
On a federated SO, would I see only the answers my server knows about? How can I know I'm looking at the best then?
What's the point of decentralizing questions, which have just one "most correct" answer?
Dan Neuman 🇨🇦@dansup The problem with doing that to avoid ChatGPT *et al* is that all they have to do is build their own server and federate. They can then scrape every answer.
However, it would be nice to have a non-corporate system. Painful to rebuild Stack Overflow's database.