Technical site integration observational experiment live on Stack Overflow

Question

Final Update (2020-4-22): This experiment has concluded and is now turned off. Thanks for your feedback.

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We have just made an observational experiment live on Stack Overflow that will test out three ways of integrating links or content from other Technical Stack Exchange sites. (Even though the experiment is only going up on Stack Overflow, we are posting about it here since it also relates to Technical Stack Exchange sites. We have made a related post on MSO as well.) This experiment will be live for two weeks, through April 22, and will then be turned off.

This experiment will show three different variants to a small number of users (anonymous and logged in). The first two variants will add three links to Technical Stack Exchange sites to the left sidebar on every page, either above the Teams section or below it.

The third variant will show a new section on the homepage labeled as Technical Communities Recently Active Questions that will contain links to two or three questions from other Technical Stack Exchange sites that are pulled from the Hot Network Questions list. If you are part of a Team, then you already see a similar section with recent questions from your team.

This observational experiment is part of a larger discovery process that we are in the middle of that is exploring potential ways of allowing more integrations between Stack Overflow and other related sites on the Stack Exchange network. These specific variants were chosen because they allow us to (relatively) easily test out different basic ways of integrating links or content to other Technical Stack Exchange sites. The goal is to see how users react to seeing these new paths of content integration, and to use this as one factor in deciding if (and whether) to proceed with other efforts in this area.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the goals of this initiative? Why is it good for users?

While we do not know the final form that this initiative will take, the general goal is to find new ways of integrating content between Stack Overflow and other Technical sites, and to give users more options in this area. We have found that the average SO user is either not aware of other Technical sites on the network (which often include content that is relevant to them) or would support a closer integration between SO and technical content from other sites. Increased awareness can also help leading to fewer off topic questions on SO (where “this is an SF/SU question” is a common off topic reason) As plans begin to take more shape over the next few months, we plan to keep the Community up to date as well.

How are you choosing which Technical Sites to show or to draw content from?

If a user has pinned Technical Sites in their site switcher, we will use the first three from there. After that we will prioritize Technical Sites where the user has an existing account. Most users (who do not have sites defined in the site switcher or accounts on other sites) will see links to or content from three of the most popular technical sites.

Why are you telling us about this? Won’t this skew the results?

Since this is something that is going to be publicly visible, it is inevitable that users will be asking questions about this, so we wanted to preempt any confusion and share what we know up front. That said, overall the reach of this experiment (around 10% of homepage visitors seeing the content module there, and around 1.5% of users seeing the left sidebar variants) should go far beyond the users who will be reading this post, so we don’t anticipate foreknowledge having a significant impact on our results.

How can I see the variants if I'm not selected or if I want to see the other versions?

We've included the screenshots of the three variants here for you to see but, you can't have it turned on (or off) or change groups. The experiment will only be shown to a small percentage of users for a limited time. Update 1: functionality has been added that will allow users in variant C (the home page content module) to be able to collapse the module. When collapsed, this state will be observed on subsequent page loads in the same browser for one week. Update 2: An additional button has been added that will appear in the Collapsed state for Variant C which will allow you to [hide] the section completely for the duration of the experiment (in the same browser).

Answer 1

I’m an option 3, and it’s seriously obnoxious. I have a Team first, then this new panel, and I have to scroll down 1.5 screen heights before I see the questions I came to see.

Really bad UX.

edit: I'm no longer on any of the test groups. Can't say I'm unhappy about that.

Answer 2

feature-request status-completed

Update: functionality has been added that will allow users in variant C (the home page content module) to be able to collapse the module. When collapsed, this state will be observed on subsequent page loads in the same browser for one week.

Add a way to entirely disable or collapse the large Technical Communities Active Questions panel.

It takes up ~45% of the landing page, when I'd rather see the rest of my question list.

Don't get me wrong, I do NOT mind being able to see technical site recently-active questions, but I would also like the ability to collapse it if the ones that pop up do not interest me.

If there were a one-click way to to at collapse this panel (by clicking the header/title bar of the panel, perhaps?), it'd be much less in-your-face. As it is right now, it takes up a rather large amount of space on the main page.

I would ask the same for the teams panel that used to be here for me (was trying out Teams at my workplace). Their style is the same.

Answer 3

How do I opt out of this? The third variant is getting in the way of my list of SO questions :(

If I were to use the Stylus browser add-on, or similar, to make it invisible via CSS, SO wouldn't know I couldn't see it.

The "collapse" option does not have the same effect as not being subjected to the third variant because it still leaves the bones of the experiment to interfere with my previous view.

This is not a small UI change: it is putting something I do not need to see in the prime viewing location.

Perhaps it could affect only users who are not aware of other SE sites? Anyone whose SE profile encompasses more than, say, three, SE sites could be deemed to be aware that there are more sites available and so don't need the extra hint.

Answer 4

All variants are fine as long as you don't choose variant C.

I am in favor of variant B. Variant A is also fine as difference is minimal.

But variant C with other technical sites on top of SO questions is absolutely, totally, fully and completely unacceptable.

Answer 5

bug

Option 3 leads to a duplicate ID attribute on the homepage.

It doesn't seem to lead to any anomalous behavior, but it's not valid HTML, and might lead to trouble down the line. If the ID was unique, that would also make styling/hiding it a bit easier.

For some context, see Why are duplicate ids not allowed in HTML.

Answer 6

Related: Block migration if user is suspended/question-blocked at destination

I would very much appreciate if system would hide such links from users who recently (say, within a week or a month) hit some asking limit / block.

It is known that such users are often inclined to (ab)use other technical sites with sole purpose to circumvent asking limits at Stack Overflow. As evidenced by the feature referred in above link the issue is bad enough to warrant changes made to the system to address this.

As a side note, in case if you don't know whether it is possible to find out about asking blocks recently experienced by a user, this information is available in the system. It was even used to obtain statistic data requested in a related discussion at other site meta: How many questions do we get from users recently blocked at SO, how many of these are closed / deleted?

^{approximately 23% of the users asking question on Programmers had hit a block on SO... Blocked users asked approximately 24% of questions...}

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Alternatively to hiding as proposed above, you could implement functionality helping target sites in expedite closure and removal of inappropriate questions, for example as proposed here: Perform automatic checks for question block at SO when post enters close queue

If you make a feature having a distinct side effect of polluting other sites with questions from users willing to circumvent asking limits at Stack Overflow, it would be only fair to do something to help target sites handle this, wouldn't it?

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See also:

• serverfault.com is not your trash bin!
• Please stop using SoftwareEngineering.SE as your toilet bowl

Answer 7

It's option C I have a real problem with. I don't see how A or B actually help vs the HNQ, bu they don't cause any real harm either because the left sidebar has plenty of room available.

C commits what is IMO the biggest crime in modern web layout - and the main reason I create new rules for my adcrapblocker; it adds a large block of content other than what I came to for that I need to scroll past to get to what I actually want to see.

Answer 8

Since the goal of letting users know about the existence of and question on other network sites is the same as for HNQ, how about an option D: put n technical questions on top of HNQ, for example 5, or all, either adding non-technical questions if the available number of technical questions is not sufficient to fill the list, or make the list shorter if that happens. Or make two parts of HNQ, "HNQ tech" on top, "HNQ all" below, to be switched on or off individually.

That would also work for people that switched off left navigation, although I expect that people that do that are usually already aware of the other sites in the network. It would not help for people that have switched off HNQ (again most of those will know about the other sites), but I expect those people might be interested in switching HNQ back on if only technical topics are shown (more or less an uncustomizable version of HNQ filtering that is currently status-deferred).

Answer 9

I got punished with option C. I rarely come to meta.se but it's so annoying that I was forced to look for a fix. Apparently the options are: post a complaint here and hope you get removed from the test (like Jamiec did), or use an ad-blocker rule. Since I already have AdblockPlus installed, I was able to add a rule to block it:

stackoverflow.com##.qlist-wrapper--boxed.s-card.p0.mb24

(This goes in ABP's settings under Advanced > My Filter List, if you are looking for where to put it.)

UPDATE

I added another rule to also hide the “Stack Overflow Recently Active Questions” banner above the normal questions list:

stackoverflow.com##.p12.fs-body1.bg-black-025.fc-black-600.bb.bc-black-2.btr-sm

I think this rule probably includes some classes specific to my dark theme setting.

Anyway, I think there's a vastly less obnoxious way to include recently asked questions from other communities. Just include them mixed in with the normal questions list! Stop wasting precious screen real estate on banners and separators.

Answer 10

feature-request

Add option to move the panel to the bottom; having a required "initial scrolldown" overhead for each SE site (or any site) is a bother.

Answer 11

Options A and B both look good with a slight preference for A. There is so much unused real estate there. It'd be nice to also include meta (and while on meta, SO). I find it really awkward trying to get to it from the menu bar.

Update:

I just experienced option C. It seems terrible. It's a bit hard to understand why you would give over the absolute most prime real estate on site X to promoting sites Y, Z and W. Even the collapsing isn't enough - now there's a big chunk of completely non-functional wasted space, again, right in the middle of prime real estate:

If this becomes a thing, I'll definitely use UBlock Origin to remove it. (Just like I removed the "hot network questions" which are impossibly distracting for me.)

(Unrelated: dark mode is awesome. Thank you!)

Answer 12

So I just realized I am in group getting the third variant, but only because I deliberately did something I rarely do, which is go to the "home" page of Stack Overflow. SO is already a fire hose, and the last thing I want is to be blasted with even more stuff to look at, so my opinion of the change was negative. However, I use SO almost exclusively by searching for an answer to a specific question, and that search is not usually limited to just SO, so I'm probably not your target audience for these changes.

Just out of curiosity, why are y'all going down the "make everything an advertisement" path instead of really integrating the sites? All of three of the test cases are going to have the same problem as most web ads. The ones in the side bar are going to be quickly rendered invisible by habituation and the one that inserts irrelevant content into the middle of the relevant content is going to quickly get blocked because it's annoying.

Some examples of really integrating the sites would be returning the most relevant search results from other sites in a box along with the Stack Overflow results. Or showing "Related" links from other sites. Or searching other sites for "similar questions" when someone is posting a new question to one of a family of related sites.

Those are just a few off the top of my head, I'm sure there are other creative ways to integrate the sites that ensure that the existence of the other sites and their content is relevant to the user in the context of their current interaction with the site.

Answer 13

I think I found a bug with how you apply which group a participant belongs to. I was enabled for variant 3, then switched to a different PC, now I don't see variant 3 on either machine.

It's not a big deal but maybe it will skew your results if a person can change group midway through the experiment.

Works for me, since option 3 is incredibly obnoxious, especially for the homepage. I come to Stack Overflow for... Stack Overflow. Don't force the network sites on me.

Answer 14

feature-request

As long as you're playing with the left side content bar, would you consider putting watched tags over there someplace? I find myself looking for it there all the time anyway. Perhaps make it an option that people can turn on or off so my idea doesn't get thrust upon everybody including people who may not want it.

Answer 15

It does save some clicking having your communities in the lower left...That could be handy, I like the idea.

I would choose option A maybe with "Communities" written as a heading - like it's in option B. (Would the "Teams" users be at a disadvantage if "Communities" showed above "Teams"? Could the order be configurable in preferences? Which "Communities" to show being fully configurable would probably be preferable for the majority.)

Answer 16

Are there any plans to try something like this beyond the technical sites. I can think of various site clusters where there might be shared relevance/interest, just like between Stack Overflow and other technical sites. Some examples:

• Literature, Movies & TV, and Science Fiction & Fantasy
• Biology and Medical Sciences
• Mathematics, Math Overflow, and Mathematics Educators
• Christianity, Biblical Hermeneutics, and Mi Yodeya
• The Workplace, Academia, and Interpersonal Skills
• Etc.

I, for one, would find this interesting.