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Use Stack Overflow as the official support site of an open-source project

I'm thinking of using SO as a q&a for my open source projects. Is that allowed?

If so, is it possible to create tags before questions have been answered? Since my users might not have enough reputation to create a tag and I want to be able to monitor questions for my plugins.

Example tag:

Or is those questions too localized for SO?

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  • You can't create a tag before you ask a question. Tags that aren't used by any questions get deleted from the system.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 13:33
  • Can I create a question/answer for a question that I usually get to create a tag? Or should I create a q&a somewhere else?
    – jgauffin
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 13:34
  • Using SO as the support forum for a project is not recommended. See: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19852/… and meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3966/…
    – ale
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 13:39
  • "Using SO as a support forum" - That's your first mistake. It's not a forum...
    – casperOne Mod
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 14:22
  • @casperOne: bad description. I edited it. Issues are handled at github. I were more thinking of usage questions like the average programming question at SO
    – jgauffin
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 14:46
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    @jgauffin Using SO in that case is perfectly acceptable (assuming it's on topic); note that in your case, a few people will see the editor as being off topic (unless it's programming against the editor) unless the editor is geared exclusively towards programming (there are people here who believe VS.NET issues are off topic, if you can believe that).
    – casperOne Mod
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 14:50

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I'm thinking of using SO as a support forum for my open source projects. Is that allowed?

Generally speaking, no. See:

Use Stack Overflow as the official support site of an open-source project
and
Is it okay to use Stack Overflow as the support forum for a product or project?

is it possible to create tags before questions have been answered?

No.

Can I create a question/answer for a question that I usually get to create a tag?

As long as the question is appropriate for stackoverflow, go for it! If you add enough good questions then people will naturally come here for programming questions regarding your project due to google.

However, as the above discussions point out, Stack Overflow cannot truly be your main support site. Programmers might be able to come here to resolve programming problems they face with your project, but you'll need to do development, bug, and similar discussions elsewhere.

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  • Note that to some degree there's flexibility and overlap. For instance StackExchange and Facebook worked on getting facebook developer support on a specific subdomain on stack overflow. So there is precedent for using stackoverflow as your programmer support channel, but not your open source project support/discussion/etc channel.
    – Pollyanna
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 13:42
  • Well, yes. Issues are handled at github. Is were more thinking of usage questions like the average programming question at SO.
    – jgauffin
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 13:44
  • A better way to handle it might be to say that you (and your team) actively monitor the "griffin-editor" tag at Stack Overflow. Maybe even seed the tag with some good questions that are likely to come up.
    – ale
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 13:47
  • @jgauffin You have enough experience with Stack Overflow to know what type of questions are appropriate, so I don't anticipate problems with you seeding the site with your frequently asked questions. Just be careful that your project is useful or big enough and the questions relevant enough that they don't get closed as too localized.
    – Pollyanna
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 13:48
  • It's too localized that I was wondering about. Since my jquery plugins are new and still got rather small user bases.
    – jgauffin
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 14:02
  • @jgauffin You might want to wait until people start asking about it organically then. If you seed it incorrectly it might even be seen as spam or advertising for it. You won't know until you try though. I used to play a game in the early days of stackoverflow where I'd get someone to give me an offtopic thing to post about, then turn it into an on-topic programming question and see how odd a question I could submit that would still be considered on-topic. If you plan it well, I think you can still succeed at seeding at least a few questions to start the tag.
    – Pollyanna
    Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 14:56

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