Bukkit API & CraftBukkit - Definition Stage at StackExchange

Discussion in 'Bukkit Discussion' started by JayHerlth, Mar 13, 2014.

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Do you believe a StackExchange Bukkit site would be better than the plugin development forum?

  1. Yes, it's a great idea and yields much more benefits!

    9 vote(s)
    45.0%
  2. I'd use it, sure.

    2 vote(s)
    10.0%
  3. I would rather the forum style of getting answers & support.

    9 vote(s)
    45.0%
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  1. Offline

    JayHerlth

    The Bukkit API & CraftBukkit StackExchange proposal is now in Definition
    [​IMG]

    The purpose is to create a StackExchange Q&A site for everything Bukkit and to help disperse and document better questions along with their answers. Answers will be better handed out, and more easily managed.

    Experts will be needed, and eventually will need to sign to prove they will contribute. Currently though we are in Definition and need as many followers we can get. So go ahead and visit this link to view the proposal, follow, post example questions, and upvote those example questions.

    I will make my way around the community and talk about getting followers and getting this proposal on its feet for a better support system for Bukkit and CraftBukkit!

    Any questions, concerns, suggestions, or contributions you'd like to make please feel free to message me here. Site staff, please contact me if there are any issues. I plan to be in contact with a few of you in short notice to get this project on its feet with hopes I will have support from you all.

    For now, those of you who wish to participate, please go ahead and register at StackExchange and start earning reputation! Get your profiles set up if you haven't already and get ready for a more enhanced way of getting support and answers to your frustrations from a professional environment!
     
  2. Offline

    TnT

    Moved to Bukkit Discussion as this is not Project Feedback in anyway.
     
  3. Offline

    lol768

    Any reason we can't use the "bukkit" tag on SO for the programming questions? ServerFault is also pretty good for sys-admin-y questions
     
    lukegb likes this.
  4. Offline

    JayHerlth

    lol768 TnT
    If people are using it, all the more reason for a SE site for it. I personally like the idea of it as I have always hated the way the forums have been used for programming help. Forums never have been a place for questions and answers, more of a discussion. (For me)

    ServerFault isn't a bad idea, though most people own a dedicated server hosted for them and do not need to even deal with servers. Most contact their service providers saying "Hey, something isn't working, fix it please." Also, it's a mature audience guided towards IT professionals and server owners.

    Here's my sales pitch.
    Stack Exchange has been there for support for ages now, if someone needs help learning how to code or do something with Bukkit they can refer to the SE site if its approved and made. Now, the Plugin Development forum can be rid of code questions from new to Java guys and more theory or planning, and strategies of approach on a project at hand. SE will take care of reposts (Which you see A LOT on Plugin Development) and direct people to the correct answer with a clearly indexed knowledge base of answers.

    I understand everyones dislike in diluting the traffic into another site that is not under control of Bukkit staff but I think for the community a SE site would prove beneficial in a surplus of ways. It has been brought up before to have a Q&A site by community members. Please take the time to just think about it, people would get answers to questions and reposted questions would be taken care of. Plugin Development forum will gain better material in terms of user posts.

    If you disagree, that's okay. If you're going to try and force me to stop, I suppose that's okay because it is not my community to build. Though I do wish for a better knowledge base, and to get rid of those constant flow of threads that I've seen be answered a week prior.
     
    WarmakerT likes this.
  5. Offline

    TnT

    While I appreciate your desire to better the community, I do not see a benefit to our community to splinter it by driving people to another site that we do not frequent.

    At worst, if your idea succeeds, Plugin Development will still be used but only by the very new people to Bukkit, as all experienced developers will know to seek support elsewhere. Now we have just as many questions from inexperienced people with fewer experienced community members left to guide them properly. Your desire to have more theory and planning wouldn't happen at all, as all you would see on Plugin Development is nothing but newcomers asking questions with no one answering them, or only receiving incorrect responses without any correct responses to provide a counter balance. This would result in driving the high quality posts you seek completely into oblivion. On top of that, our development team would no longer have a forum to look at if they are concerned about how changes we make affect our users, as we can't expect our team to check our forums, our ticket tracker and yet another site for information. While it may result in some questions getting more clear answers, this would not overcome the damage to the community as a result of splintering development support to another site. The idea behind the Bukkit+ forum was exactly that - giving our community a place to discuss wild new concepts and come up with fantastic new theories on how to further develop for Bukkit and Bukkit plugins without being diluted by requests for help. The result? I think someone posts in Bukkit+ once a week.

    Put it this way, if you have one Starbucks which has 100% of all the possible customer base, opening another Starbucks across the street doesn't double the income to Starbucks. It only doubles the cost to provide the same thing, even if the new Starbucks has nicer chairs and better lighting. Splitting the customer base between two Starbucks doesn't help Starbucks any more than splitting our community between two sites helps our community.

    Its a great idea, one we have debated on numerous times in the past (this idea has came up before). Unfortunately when we look at the bigger picture we find the negatives outweigh the positives.

    Please do not let this discourage you from bringing forward your ideas, as we are always eager to hear what ideas our community can present us.
     
  6. Offline

    JayHerlth

    I understand your logic, I understand your reasoning, although I do stand my ground on preferring a support Q&A in SE. I'll persist and attempt to have it work out, if it doesn't so be it. I've already got a group of individuals that love the idea. Like you had said, I still predict that the Plugin Development forums will still contain the new member posts looking for help. I'm in hopes that if it works, our more knowledged group of individuals could rely on the SE for help or anyone outside of the bukkit community.

    I suppose I will get back to you on any further status in the future? I do not see this going through in the next week, though if and when it does I'll notify you.

    I am still allowed to create a discussion threads concerning the SE proposal, correct? Just no links.
     
  7. Offline

    mattrick

    TnT
    What I meant by having something similar to StackOverflow, I meant it was hosted by Bukkit, and run 100% by Bukkit. Seeing as this is unlikely, JayHerlth decided to put it into motion on StackExchange. Its just a proposal.
     
  8. Where is the uncivilized "No" option?
     
    JayHerlth likes this.
  9. Offline

    caelum19

    Although I agree with your points, and your example is good, this all assumes Bukkit doesn't react to the stack exchange site.

    My thoughts, Sticking with the Starbucks theme is that the New Starbucks with inproved lighting and chairs(Recliners, ofcourse) is built to replace the out-dated Old Starbucks, and the Old Starbucks is turned into a hotel, providing accomodation for Starbucks workers and pointing confused Star bucks customers to the new one accross the road. everyone's happy.
     
    WarmakerT likes this.
  10. Offline

    TnT

    We haven't found a XenForo plugin yet that satisfies our requirements. Its not outside of the realm of possibility, just not high on our list of forum requirements at this time. I understand this is only a proposal, but this proposal simply ignores the negative consequences.

    You want us to completely change what our forums are used for, what the community can expect to find here, and where they go to for help just to satisfy a desire for a potentially better way to get support? That's like asking to borrow your parent's car to go on a road trip to Vegas with your buddies when you're three years old. It is asking a great deal from us and still doesn't address any of the negatives that would come from such a situation.

    One does not splinter a community to satisfy what is at best a marginal positive improvement in support, and at worse a large negative to the community as a whole.
     
  11. Offline

    JayHerlth

    TnT I doubt it's going to ruin the forums, honestly. It's just going to provide a support Q&A site for the Bukkit API other than the forums. You've got a Wiki, correct? You send users there quite often for help and support, or tutorials for plugin development. Your community is not splintered. All of the forums will not be bothered or interrupted other than Plugin Development. Users or people outside of the bukkit community will source the SE site. Those that are oblivious to the site looking to learn how to develop plugins using the Bukkit API will turn to YouTube, if they have an issue they will google "Why wont my bukkit command work?" will get a SE link probably ranked #1-5 in the SEO results and will click, and see the #1 answer that fixes their problem. It's not a social community site, it's just a place to ask questions to provide a large knowledge base.

    If anyone else would like to explain to me how it will kill the forums, please, do share and I will listen with 100% attention.
     
  12. Offline

    xTrollxDudex

    Wouldn't it be easy enough just to auto put a poll up on the post and decide where it goes based on votes to the poll?
     
  13. Offline

    JayHerlth

    I'm game for that.

    xTrollxDudex poll is here if you're interested.
     
  14. Offline

    mrkirby153

    I personally don't like how SE works and I think it will deter most people. SE at the moment has this "spam protection" reputation system that allows only people with X amount of reputation can comment on questions and you need Y amount of reputation to upvote/downvote questions. I feel that the average user should be equal to each other. Not that this person gets this perk because he has this amount of reputation.

    Touching on your wiki point, the wiki is there as a reference. It's there as a tutorial. There is no "Wiki Community." There is only the wiki. We refer people to the wiki so we don't have to repeat ourselves hundreds of times when newcomers to the Bukkit API and (hopefully not) java.

    Also, I don't really like the look of SE and I feel that Xenforo provides a smooth, clean look to everything. In my opinion, SE is sorta like reddit (No intentional advertising). It has the upvote/downvote system and "karma" in the form of reputation.

    All in all, don't get me wrong, I like the way that SE has an option to mark a question as "This solved my question" and have it move up to the top of the list. SE has a nice way of doing things like this. Maybe someone could write/find a xenforo plugin to do such a thing. Also, a tagging system should be implemented into the forums. So it makes developers who want to help people be able to find threads by category. I also really like SE's "New Questions" tab that shows questions with no replies.
     
  15. Offline

    JayHerlth

    mrkirby153 I was told by staff that there is no such plugin for xenforo right now and it's not a concern for the forums right now. I agree with you on parts of that, though my views on this is that it doesn't have to relate to this community. Just there for developers or those looking to learn how to make a plugin for their server to go to and quickly get answers or reference answers.

    I just don't see forums being very good sources for a question/answer support in the terms of programming w/ an API. I understand the spam protection on SE but it's not all that bad, after you confirm your email you get 50 points so you can begin asking questions, and start upvoting. It's not as bad as xenforo for new users looking for quick answers.

    If you could head over to here and cast your vote so the community can decide that'd be nice, I'm assuming it's an unsupportive vote but still looking for feedback.

    Thanks :)
     
  16. Offline

    mrkirby153

    JayHerlth
    Wait. Whoa, you can confirm your email and get like 50 points??? How does one do that?
    Actually, I'm more in the middle when it comes to things like this. Like if it were to happen, implement it seamlessly into the main site so users don't have to go off to another site for their questions
     
  17. Offline

    JayHerlth

    It'd be nice, though that's not going to happen. I'd much rather a xenforo plugin that runs a Q&A site just like SE but again, it's not going to happen...
     
  18. Offline

    Garris0n

    That's the only way this will ever work. Splitting into two sites is both confusing and not supported by the staff.
     
    caelum19 likes this.
  19. Offline

    caelum19

    How does one make XenForo plugins?
     
  20. Offline

    Assult

  21. Offline

    JayHerlth

  22. Offline

    TnT

    Locked. Unfortunately the benefits of this are far outweighed by the negatives.

    We have brought forward our concerns and they have been completely ignored. We will not encourage people find support for our software elsewhere - people should be free to find support on our forums and not have to sign up to some other site somewhere to find support for our software.
     
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