Can we import the perlfaq into Stackoverflow?

Question

Jeff said I should ask here.

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Hi Jeff,

I read your Stackoverflow blog post about the R folks getting together to push R content into Stackoverflow. I'm a maintainer of the Perl docs and would like to push the perlfaq into Stackoverflow too. We already have all the questions and the answers, a bit over 300 in total.

What's the best way to put these into Stackoverflow, considering issues of rep, community wiki, etc? Would you like me to create another user for these, tag them in some special way, etc? Would you like something you can import into the database directly, or can I write a posting robot to do it for me?

Thanks,

Answer 1

If you are posting so many questions as your faq, you should probably post them as Community Wiki. That way more people can join in editing them, and you won't get annoyed users trying to close your questions because they think that you are farming for rep points.

Answer 2

It appears that everybody agrees that the posts should be community wiki. However, Chris and Adam also propose creating a new user for this. I think that is not necessary, and in fact not desirable, for two reasons:

• By posting CW questions and answers, Brian will not receive any rep points anyway. But, as the maintainer of the Perl faq he did spend a lot of time on this, so the few badges that he may receive by posting using his own account are very much deserved.
• If Brian will create a new account, then it will not be as easy/convenient for him to keep track of any new answers and comments on/edits of the [perl-faq] questions.

Answer 3

I have wanted to see more activity about Perl, on Stack Overflow.

I mean, currently there are less questions tagged [perl] than tagged [delphi].

This could be a step on the way to that goal. It also could be very problematic if not done correctly.

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So I would suggest slowly adding questions, to start out with. That way if there is any backlash, it would be easier to manage. This would also help with the process of learning how the questions should be set up.

Answer 4

As a regular Perl questioner, ::waves @ brian::, I'd love to see this.

Answer 5

Have to say, nice idea, I'm looking forward to this! My opinion on the particulars:

• Create a new user in preference to posting them yourself, although I don't really have strong feelings on this one way or another, others might see this as more "fair".
• Use a robot rather than asking for DB insertion, since that allows for the same community involvement as regular posts. I'd say rate-limit the robot, for example 10 posts a day, spaced at one every 2 hours, and we're still done in about a month. This will also help to make sure the non-Perl crowd aren't confused and infuriated by the import.
• The posts should definitely be community wiki. That's another reason to rate-limit the import, to make sure us Perl folks can keep an eye on things and make sure nobody abuses the CW nature of these pages.
• Tag them all perl-faq, this tag is currently unused.

Answer 6

I think this is a truly great idea. The Perl community would benefit from this and stackoverflow would benefit. Win-win!

But:

• The questions shouldn't flood the site.
• Somehow we need to have an eye on what gets done to all those questions and answers. They might be edited in an unhelpful way, they might get flagged as duplicates. Some of them might no even be programming related if you are very strict. I guess this could be most easily accomplished by having members of the community "adopt" a couple of questions each.

Answer 7

One thing to consider (see my comment on this answer) is how to handle answers with version dependencies. The FAQ is synced to a release or Perl; it can and should take advantage of all the features available to that version. Readers of SO might be using an older version, however, which could create problems and confusion if they try to implement the answer as given. This is especially true if the SO answer mirrors the master and the master has been updated to take advantage of features that only exist in development releases.

Answer 8

I definitely think you should create another user. 300 Perl questions with good answers is an easy silver badge, and almost assuredly a gold badge too, and there aren't a whole lot of Perl programmers on Stack Overflow, so even spreading that workload out would give a lot of people a lot of badges, to say nothing for rep. Plus, it'd be funny to occasionally have someone's question answered by user perlfaq.

Answer 9

This is a great idea as it would also allow closing questions that are answered in the FAQ as exact duplicates.

I would recommend (as the maintainer of the FAQ) brian use his own account to do this using a robot and make the questions CW.

The rest of us will have to keep a keen eye on edits to these questions and answers.

I am assuming not all the edits made on SO will make it to the release version of the FAQ list. In that case, how would one keep the SO version in sync with the release version?

Update: I just read the blog post brian mentioned:

In the first hour, participants will pair up to claim a question, formulate it on StackOverflow, and provide a comprehensive answer. In the second hour, participants will rate, review, and comment on the set of submitted questions and answers.

I think this method also has some merit by allocating a certain degree of responsibility on a number of people for ensuring the integrity of the FAQ content instead of everyone assuming brian will take care of things ;-)