I thought about posting this for a while, but then when seeing someone else here post something in the codegolf section, I figured I’d actually, well, post here. I’d also seen an IFMudder or two post, as well as several people from my past outside the IF community.
SO has been invaluable for me to learn Git and Python as well as some separate tricks in PERL I didn’t know before. I know we had a SO type structure for IF but it never gained critical mass.
It really does feel like cheating with helping me know stuff, and the semi-stupid badges for voting, editing, etc. really appeal to me.
So who else participates? How much/how heavily? If you don’t, I’d encourage you to. Just voting helps you feel like you’re doing and learning stuff, and seeing that 500000+ people viewed the page with your question, or 2000 upvoted it, helps you feel you’re not alone asking a potentially silly question. It’s helped me ask a lot more.
Yeah, I need to only focus on specific tags. Though I’ll generally concentrate on one small subforum, then move to another for a bit, as a substitute for other web browsing.
I recently discovered the newly-open beta site https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com/. A lot of the questions have been fascinating to me. How much this says about me is up for debate, but … SE/SO has more information than I thought possible. It took me a while to get used to the pace, though, even when I focus on certain parts.
You are the Draconis I see on Linguistics aren’t you? That was the first site I joined in the SE network!
I’m in the interpersonal beta too, though I don’t know how well it will fare. Too many of the members there seem to really want bad subjective questions.
I’ve been on for years, almost from the start, but really am not that active. When I do a search for something I tend to always end up on SO, but I don’t search it specifically. I rarely answer questions as the pace is too fast for me and to be honest, I’ve found people to be rude (at least the vocal ones) in the adherence to the rules with little room for growth through making mistakes.
But, it is a wealth of knowledge on there and I typically am on at least indirectly every working day.
I am indeed the Draconis in Linguistics! I spend most of my time in Latin though, since my Linguistics knowledge is less often useful. Worldbuilding is also fun for sparking ideas and snowballing all sorts of eclectic knowledge; I earned my first real rep there by researching early experiments leading up to photographic film, which I never would have learned about otherwise.
The interpersonal beta is up and down, for sure, but it’s a place where I’d like to contribute if I can. Sometimes I feel like I’m just voting and that’s it, but there’s something to sitting down and giving 300 votes and seeing if I can/will stay there.
I know I got some blowback for not asking a question as well as I should’ve, and I was able to flag that person, and later they gave a nicer answer to my question, and–well, that was just a good thing.
Also, the meta sites can sometimes be pure gold. I’ve learned a lot about how to ask questions, etc. Something like this is just funny, as I think it’s a good question, good answers and funny graphics.