Please read! FRC.Stackexchange Proposal

[BenjaminWard]

Hey CD!

I originally wrote about this on reddit's r/FRC, but some people suggested that I post about this here.

I know a lot of programming teams use resources like StackOverflow, but now myself and other FIRST members and alumni are trying to create a StackExchange site exclusively for FIRST Robotics teams. Possible topics would be basically anything that's applicable to CD, such firmware upgrades, electrical best practices and tips, mechanical tricks and strategies, programming questions, math applying to mechanical/electrical/programming (and CAD as well), and everything else FRC related. And I mean everything. The advantages of having a StackExchange network page as well as Chief Delphi are an easier question and answer structure: essentially people can get help when they need it, and mark answers as correct. This helps people in the future to find the solution to that problem, instead of scrolling through the whole CD thread for the solution.

Personally, I think that Chief Delphi is much more applicable to discussion based topics, such as game strategy, speculation, etc., however a SE site would be a much better fit for technical questions, questions about specific game rules, and similar topics that fit the Q-and-A format.

Here's a link to sign up: http://area51.stackexchange.com/prop...Jf4eKpJpcRrJA2 (This is a referral link, please use it!)

So please set up a StackExchange account if you don't already have one, and help us upvote good sample questions, and add some of your own (please ask and upvote as much as you can). We need 22 more followers and 36 more questions with a score of 10 to get to the next stage.

A note, please do not upvote questions above the 10 score mark. It is much better to spread the points around to other questions that are not yet at that score rather than using your 5 upvotes uselessly.

Help us, and help yourselves and your teams! This will be a fantastic team resource if we can get it up off of the ground.

[Arhowk]

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=137577

Again, I don't see this being an upgrade on the current ChiefDelphi community hub, if anything you (and the people involved) should think of things like online electronic/programming training, team usable assets, etc. Nice try though.

(Also, a side note, your launch point could use some work. This will most likely be abandoned long before the popularity gained from build season activity helps it get off the launch point)

[Spaghetti]

I think everyone would agree a stackexchange site couldn't/shouldn't replace CD as a community hub. That said, there are a lot of questions that are poorly served on CD today with the forum format that would be an 'upgrade' to Q&A on stackexchange with features like voting on the best answer to help it bubble to the top instead of being buried inside page 4 somewhere on the thread (especially on the programming side).

I'm at least personally interested in giving it a chance before writing it off.

[evanperryg]

This is a great idea. It serves a role that needs to be filled. Little technical questions, when posted on CD, can often go unanswered, or when they do get answered it turns into an entirely off-topic flame war of where beating a dead horse is the primary weapon. A robotics stackexchange would give little questions their own space, where they won't be ignored, and where they won't cause pointless debate. Good idea, I hope it continues to grow.

[Pault]

I definitely agree that a lot of threads on here could be moved to a Q&A website (I.e. the 100's of basic rule questions during week 1 of the build season). In fact, I would be pretty happy if we could move those things off of CD, so that the front page is a lot less cluttered.

I have seriuos doubts that this will catch on, though. People now just accept CD as the go-to place for all discussion FRC. People will actually ask questions here when they belong on the official Q&A. I doubt they will pick up so new stackexchange website, even if it is better.

[Foster]

My only reservation is how many sites can I go to in one day? Between, FIRST, CD, VEX, VEXIQ I'm up to 5 sites to look at for robot stuff. Add in Hackaday, Adafruit, Hacker News, EETimes, Embedded, and a few others and there goes the morning.

[gblake]

Normally any thread title that starts with any variation of "Please read" goes to the bottom of my to-do list, but I'm making an exception. If the subject isn't interesting on it's own, "Please read" doesn't make it more interesting.

For the goals you outlined, please try collaborating with the Chief Delphi folks to help them improve this site, before trying to create a spin-off site.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by gblake

For the goals you outlined, please try collaborating with the Chief Delphi folks to help them improve this site, before trying to create a spin-off site.

With all due respect to the administrators, it doesn't seem like things move at a pace necessary to keep up with suggestions and new use cases. Heck, the planned vBulletin upgrade from 2013/2014 still hasn't happened, so the forum is running on a version from 2006 (!). I don't know if it's lack of time from Brandon, or licensing, or what, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be willing to help test and deploy updates a bit more quickly if given the chance.

Also, the forum format is great for many things, but not everything. If we were to suggest trying to keep those minor Q&A-type threads here, at the very least a few plugins should be installed to make the experience better. Best-case scenario would be finding a StackExchange-like module that is a part of (or integrates deeply with) vB. The ability to upvote, edit others' answers, and use a more robust tagging system makes a world of a difference.

Lastly, I think no one is suggesting that the SE site take over for CD. In fact, it can be a huge help, as long as it's promoted and highly visible on CD itself. In my opinion, the subreddit should be seen as much more disruptive than SE, yet CD still stands after all this time.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by synth3tk

the forum is running on a version from 2006 (!). I don't know if it's lack of time from Brandon, or licensing, or what, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be willing to help test and deploy updates a bit more quickly if given the chance.

Just wondering: What does the newer version offer that justifies the time, effort, and risk of updating? Is there a significant majority of CD users clamoring for the update?

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by Ether

Just wondering: What does the newer version offer that justifies the time, effort, and risk of updating?

New/updated plugins that can fill the roles that people want to see implemented within CD. I haven't kept up with vBulletin in quite a few years, though, so I honestly couldn't give you a concrete list.

As long as the site is secure and meets the needs of the audience, then it's fine sitting at 3.4.6. I'm certainly not suggesting upgrading solely for the sake of being on the latest version number. Just offering my services if that'll help get things moving.

Originally Posted by Ether

Is there a significant majority of CD users clamoring for the update?

I couldn't tell you without a poll or a working mind reader.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by synth3tk

New/updated plugins that can fill the roles that people want to see implemented within CD. I haven't kept up with vBulletin in quite a few years, though, so I honestly couldn't give you a concrete list.

As long as the site is secure and meets the needs of the audience, then it's fine sitting at 3.4.6. I'm certainly not suggesting upgrading solely for the sake of being on the latest version number. Just offering my services if that'll help get things moving.



I couldn't tell you without a poll or a working mind reader.

I think, and this is going from memory rather than citations so it's a bit outside my usual approach, that there's a fair number of custom things implemented which make upgrading a bit of a pain. If I recall, Brandon was kid when this whole CD thing got started. Plus add on the sheer size and desire to not lose information and upgrading becomes quite a task.

I remember some posts along this line but I'm not sure.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I think, and this is going from memory rather than citations so it's a bit outside my usual approach, that there's a fair number of custom things implemented which make upgrading a bit of a pain. If I recall, Brandon was kid when this whole CD thing got started. Plus add on the sheer size and desire to not lose information and upgrading becomes quite a task.

I remember some posts along this line but I'm not sure.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=118256

That being said, some of the work that's been done so far on here has been... er, let's just say that I hope it can be undone after the upgrade?

I do recall that CD-Media is mostly custom. (And that Brandon has a day job.)

[lynca]

Stack exchange is a fantastic resource for technical questions.

CD could definitely learn from the Stack Exchange answer process on how to filter the best responses on technical questions. Over the years the ChiefDelphi signal to noise ratio has been reduced to too much noise. Filtering responses base on upvotes is a great way to direct people to the best answer.

Forming a FIRST related SE (stackexchange) site is a bit of a stretch because the robotics SE site has not progressed passed the beta stage.
I encourage you to post your FIRST questions to the robotics SE site and help build a single robotics SE site pass the beta stage.

Here is the link to the Robotics SE Beta site.
A dedicated crew of volunteers could possibly transfer over the best Chief Delphi questions onto the Robotics SE site to help share the knowledge.