lemmyreaderMay 10, 2024

Ideas to build a federated StackExchange alternative

https://lemmy.ml/post/15471686

Ideas to build a federated StackExchange alternative - Lemmy

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15471632 [https://lemmy.ml/post/15471632] > Codeberg [https://codeberg.org/] was asking about this. The linked toot by a commenter points to : > > > SEqlite [https://seqlite.puny.engineering/] > > > > These are CC-BY-SA 4.0 remixes of the Stack Exchange Creative Commons Data Dumps. 100% Unendorsed by Stack Exchange, Inc. > > > > They are minimal. They provide the data you probably care about and the data you need to comply with the original license in SQLite format.

Show threadMrSoupMay 10, 2024
Would creating a Lemmy instance with that content be enough? Doing so the already enough large Lemmy community could already interact with it.
Show threadExcrubulentMay 10, 2024

I think it would make sense to have a specialised forum for it. The question & answer format requires data that Lemmy just isn’t able to fully replicate as it is.

Also the community editable nature of stack exchange is really unique and more like a wiki than a standard forum/braching discussion threads, where we’re presumed to have sole ownership of all of our posts.

Show threadMrSoupMay 10, 2024

The question & answer format requires data that Lemmy just isn’t able to fully replicate as it is.

Other than marking the correct answer and having user score/badges, there is anything else?

Also the community editable nature

You’re right, I just forgot that people can edit your questions and answers.

Show threadnatarey

The two-tier reply system on SO is really useful and would be harder to implement – the replies to the questions, but also replies to the posts/replies. I don’t know how that would look if starting from Lemmy as a base.

I also like the bounty system to highlight questions the community feels are important to answer, which doesn’t have an obvious equivalent in Lemmy.

Tagging is also really good and important – both general tags that should be public and probably defined by the instance/moderators or by the software itself, and user tags which should be private or semi-private and more open. That’s stuff that would have to be built.

There’s also a zillion ways to improve the user experience. Multiple acceptable answers. Better filtering and search. Better clarity around edit histories.

Really, I think the best course would be to start from scratch, but it’ll take more time to get up and running.

May 10, 2024 at 5:28pmWeb
Show threadxigoiMay 11, 2024

The two-tier reply system on SO is really useful and would be harder to implement – the replies to the questions, but also replies to the posts/replies. I don’t know how that would look if starting from Lemmy as a base.

How so? Lemmy allows unlimited nesting of replies, which is even better.