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I urged Joel to have the StackExchange team on the next podcast (#84) while I am gone to New Zealand for the next two weeks.

I thought it might be fun to do some Q&A on the podcast as well.

So what questions do you, the Meta StackExchange community, have for the StackExchange team?

update: podcast is now up!

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8 
 Thanks so much for this. A StackExchange podcast is long overdue. – Tomasz P. Szynalski Feb 11 at 0:02

15 Answers

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Note: I have edited this question in light of what has been said by Joel since I posted it.

Note 2: Unfortunately, Joel only answered the previous version of this question in the podcast. No information on how much of his strategy is based on existing SE sites and how much on launching his own StackExchanges. He did repeat his plans to help SE sites make money, but offered few additional details.

In his recent article, Joel announced he is looking for venture capital for StackOverflow. Here's what we've learned so far:

  1. Joel is looking for VC funding for StackOverflow in order to "change the way everyone gets answers to their questions on the Internet". (source)
  2. StackExchange will not be part of the new venture, but it is a future option. (source)
  3. Joel does not intend to compete with SE sites. He's thinking of partnering with them. "More promising would be to partner with them, for example, helping smaller stack exchanges bring in advertising or career revenue that they don't have the resources to bring in themselves." (source: Joel's comment here)

I think we'd all like to learn more about Joel's plans for bringing the StackOverflow model to areas beyond technology. How do the dozens of existing StackExchange sites in various verticals fit in with his new get-big-quick strategy?

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1 
 Thanks ! – Anton Geraschenko Feb 15 at 21:45
A valid concern. One way to mitigate this fear to some extent is to have a clear and simple export format of all user entered data. – unknown (yahoo) Feb 16 at 10:40
4 
 Awesome! I now have both the highest- and the lowest-rated answer in this question. There should be a badge for that. – Tomasz P. Szynalski Feb 18 at 1:18
Regarding your updates: while we're all curious exactly what SO is going to do with the VC funding, Joel said in the podcast that there is good reason for them to "play close to the chest." Based on that, I don't think we'll know how SE fits in until the time comes. – Anton Geraschenko Feb 22 at 21:26
@Tomasz: LOL. I hereby suggest the new badge for having the highest- and the lowest-rated answers in the same question should be called "Enlightened Shit-Disturber" ;-) ;-) – Chris W. Rea Feb 23 at 3:10
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There has been some talk about a code base merge with the Stack Overflow shortly after launch. I am curious how this will work. What will be the on-going arrangement between the two platforms to exchange bug fixes and new features?

Related:

Are there any features that StackExchange wont be bringing over from Stack Overflow?

Are there any features that the StackExchange platform might bring to Stack Overflow in the future?

Addendum (started by Anton).

How will you deal with the problem that for any given feature, some SE sites (let's include S[OFU] in this list) will want it and some will not? Plain old login vs. OpenID was a big enough thing that it made sense to allow the SE site admin to choose, but it seems like doing this with a large number of features is impractical.

Can you say something about whether/when the following features will be merged into SE?

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3 
 we already brought one feature over which is documented in podcast #83. blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/02/podcast-83 Hint: has to do with email. – Jeff Atwood Feb 11 at 4:36
@Robert: I'd like to expand on this question and throw in lots of subquestions (e.g. list specific features in SO that may or may not be merged into SE). Should I edit your answer, or would you rather I post a separate answer? – Anton Geraschenko Feb 15 at 23:24
Since you are not altering my content (you are adding), I would add a new section at the end of this answer clearly marked "edit:" or "addendum:" from you. That's wiki-ish. – Robert Cartaino♦ Feb 15 at 23:50
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Given that the Stack Overflow trilogy was explicitly optimized for running as single (or at most 2-3) site instances on a set of 4-6 beefy, dedicated servers -- what optimizations have been necessary to support the Stack Exchange model, which is running hundreds or thousands of smaller sites on a single server?

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A Progress report on StackExchange.

How many are trying to use it?

How many have created viable communities?

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How are you planning to promote the StackExchange product once it is out of beta?

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What is the target audience for StackExchange?

This answer analyses what Joel has written about SE and suggests it is for businesses that wish to use it as a support platform or knowledge base. Is this correct?

What if you are a not-for-profit community site that may struggle to pay the monthly bill?

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1,000,000 page views a month is a lot for a site that is just starting out. If you want significantly less than this $129 is a big spend. What is the thinking behind setting the initial tier so high? I would be concerned that this will discourage new sites from from adopting stack exchange and once sites are established elsewhere they are unlikely to port over. Isn't this going to limit the growth of the whole business?

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1 
 I think $129/m is actually pretty low. Lowering the price will lower the quality of sites using stackexchange, as the lower sustainability threshold for sites will lessen the impact of 'economic' natural selection. See here for reasons: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/31/… – dj Feb 12 at 3:33
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 I don't really see why having low quality sites on stack exchange is a such bad thing? After all it won't affect the rest of us that much and will reduce the number of phpBB sites we all have to deal with. I am not proposing that the price should be so low that it doesn't cover costs. – Martin Brown Feb 12 at 12:02
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One of the goals of Stack Exchange is to (hopefully) replace phpBB.

phpBB is free. Stack Exchange is not.

How can you work to replace phpBB and still make Stack Exchange a viable business model? Does this mean an ad-supported 'community' edition is in the works?

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I think some SE-like thing will show up, which is open source. SEs' contribution in the long term may be "raising the bar" for online collaboration. The main obstacle is not if one codebase or other is open source or not, but the mindset. That there is something else other than phpBB style of discussion to point to, is their greatest achievement. So, I would give Joel a free pass here. He needs a return on his investment and I think he is wise to run with the technology and not look back. The open source dogs out there are already picking up the scent... they WILL implement an alternative. – unknown (yahoo) Feb 12 at 11:58
On the other hand Fog Creek could be the equivalent of MySQL in the online collaboration area. But once an open source competitor starts to gain ground, there is nothing (AFAIK) that stops Fog Creek from open-sourcing SE and short-circuit the competition. – unknown (yahoo) Feb 12 at 12:00
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My question:

Will the SE team consider rolling out the Jobs and Careers stackoverflow co-sites as (paid) add-ons to SE instances?

While rolling our own is possible, it's non-trivial to integrate with a SE site, especially without an API.

(Regardless: congratulations to the SE team for both a great product and a professional roll-out!)

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1 
 I don't think it would make much sense to do so. The critical mass needed to make a job board successful is enormous - larger than any current SE site. – Kyle Cronin Feb 11 at 8:20
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 Correction @Kyle. Any SE site that you know of at this moment in time. – unknown (yahoo) Feb 11 at 8:40
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 I think unknown was making the point that while there may be no current site that could support a job system, there'll likely be sites in the future. Probably both the startups SE sites and mathoverflow are already there! – dj Feb 11 at 9:38
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 I'm pretty sure I answered this somewhere else already... but the answer is no. We have no plans to do this. – Michael Pryor♦ Feb 12 at 14:27
2 
 Michael, I voted your comment up for people to see. Too bad though, it would have been nice, but now we know there is no point waiting for it. It increases the need for credentials/login API or something, though. – unknown (yahoo) Feb 15 at 8:46
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What are some of the logistical problems associated with having lots of databases that may churn, grow unexpectedly, and require upgrades? Do you have a methodology for client:server ratios?

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Why not facebook connect? I want their take on why they wont add it. Is it the API?

I can understand for the personal trilogy, but we will be paying for our sites. Our goal is to be successful (their goals too), and Im sure any user who can connect with facebook, will.

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2

I am a huge fan of StackExchange and wish to thank everyone who made this product exist.

Jeff Atwood mentioned on a recent Stack Overflow blog post that "the sooner we can get people off the archaic, busted phpBB style of discussion on the internet, the better off we'll all be".

I completely agree. And looking at things from that perspective, I would like to talk about growing user base...

Other new Q&A platforms like mahalo or vark get a lot more media coverage than StackExchange... even though StackExchange offers a much better way to exchange.

Today each individual StackExchange site is marketing itself "alone", and there is no common marketing approach. Will this strategy work in the long run?

One proposal I would have: a StackExchange portal (or directory) that newspapers can mention to all their readers.

I'd be interested to hear your take on this. Thanks in advance.

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there was one at stackexchangesites.com – Jeff Atwood Feb 11 at 23:47
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 @Jeff Atwood Most stackexchange sites don't link to stackexchangesites.com. Might be for different reasons: no "filtering" of sites, no classification (Business, Games, etc), the site itself is slow. End effect: we don't benefit fully from "cross-fertilization". I think many users would love to discover other sites, but we don't have a "hub" to refer them to. – tucson Feb 12 at 9:31
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Are there any plans to start communicating more effectively with SE site owners? Will the SE blog be getting more action in this regard?

As much as there is dislike for phpBB and email, an SE engine (specifically meta.se) is not effective nor timely for communicating with site admins.

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2 
 We are planning to use the blog for announcements, and to put admin notifications in sites when you get upgraded. What else would you like to see? – David Fullerton♦ Feb 12 at 3:18
I'd like to hear more about the business side once SE goes out of beta. I could simplify my question down another way: will all important matters, be it technical or administrative be communicated via the blog? I guess I'm trying to ascertain how much transparency there will be. I don't expect a lot, but there could be a little more than there is now. – photographr.info Feb 14 at 22:48
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Given recent activity, have you changed your mind about localization? Is it still put on the back-burner?

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-5

Judging by some of the responses we've been getting from the SE team, it appears that the SE engine was written without much forethought regarding localization or customization. Requested features such as localizable UI strings and customizable reputation thresholds have been described as hard to implement, which suggests that these things are hard-coded or at least not stored in the database.

So my question for the SE team is this: If a StackExchange user were to think slightly less of Jeff Atwood for designing the StackOverflow engine in such a short-sighted way, would he or she be morally justified?

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 -1. Localisation is certainly a needed addition to the SE engine, but the tone of your answer is pretty unneccessary. Time to edit this to be a little more objective. – dj Feb 11 at 9:46
1 
 @dj, agreed. If you really want to take a stab at Jeff, do it in a much nicer way like: "do you regret taking that decision?" or "in retrospect, would you have done the same thing all over again?". Thanks. – unknown (yahoo) Feb 11 at 12:16
1 
 Dear downvoters, please check out paulgraham.com/disagree.html ("Responding to tone"). BTW, I took the liberty to write my question in this way because I have seen Jeff take much more caustic criticism graciously and with a sense of humor. It seems to be a universal psychological truth that fans/followers take offense much more easily than the person who is the actual target of criticism. If I came up to Linus Torvalds and criticized some of his design choices, I'm sure we could have a nice conversation. Imagine what would happen if I said the same thing to an avid Linux user! – Tomasz P. Szynalski Feb 11 at 14:19
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 @Tomasz, I can not downvote, but I might have. It is not entirely clear what you want with your question. Do you want to bring localization to the table? So do I! So desperately in fact, that I don't want to risk the message being stuck on peoples egos. – unknown (yahoo) Feb 12 at 12:07

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