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The Stack Exchange Network
Type of siteQuestion & Answer
OwnerStack Exchange Inc.
Created byJeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky
URLstackexchange.com
CommercialYes

The Stack Exchange Network is a group of question and answer websites, each covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process. This process allegedly promotes knowledgeable users, best answers, and important questions.

A wide range of topics in different fields is covered. All subscriber generated content (questions and answers) is licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike (CC BY-SA) license.

Community design

Users can ask and answer questions, up-vote or down-vote an answer. Through this process users earn reputation points and badges. A user is awarded 10 reputation points for receiving an "up-vote" on an answer given to a question, and can receive badges for achieving certain meta-goals, such as logging in continuously for 100 days, or fulfilling simple criteria, such as answering their first question. By collecting reputation points, users are given more privileges, ranging from the ability to vote and comment on questions and answers to the ability to moderate many aspects of the site. According to Jeff Atwood, the reputation and badge system is modeled after video games. By building game-like feedback systems into community websites, such mechanics will encourage users to contribute more actively.

History

The first site in the Stack Exchange Network was Stack Overflow, created by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky in 2008 as a more open alternative to earlier forums such as Experts-Exchange. Soon after Stack Overflow exited from its beta phase, a few more sites were added to the network, starting with Server Fault, which entered public beta on May 26, 2009. On February 6, 2012 Jeff Atwood publicly announced that he was to leave Stack Exchange and spend more time with his family.

The Stack Exchange platform was first released by Fog Creek Software as a solution for third-parties to create their own communities based on the software behind Stack Overflow and its sister sites. Later, the site was repurposed so the community can collaborate in deciding on what sites should be added to the network.

The Stack Exchange Network began with three sites, StackOverflow.com, ServerFault.com, and SuperUser.com.

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow was launched in 2008 as a more open alternative to earlier programmer forums such as Experts-Exchange. The name for the website was chosen by voting in April 2008 by readers of Coding Horror, Atwood's popular programming blog. On September 15, 2008 it was announced the public beta was in session and that the general public was now able to use it to seek assistance on programming related issues.

As of June 2012, Stack Overflow's publicly available usage tool reports it has about 1.2 million registered users and 3.2 million questions. Based on tags assigned to the questions, the most common topics on the site are C#, Java, PHP, .NET, ASP.NET, JavaScript, C++, jQuery, iPhone, and Python.

Server Fault

File:Serverfault.pngServer Fault Homepage

The site deals exclusively with questions related to the field of system administration, designed for use by system administrators and IT professionals. The website was launched in public beta, open to registration in May 2009.

The most popular topics discussed on the site, based on tags assigned to the questions, are Linux, Windows, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, security, networking, SQL Server, Apache, Ubuntu and backups.

Super User

Super User is dedicated to questions from all computer "power users", rather than just programmers or system administrators, and it was launched publicly on August 18, 2009.

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

StackExchange 1.0

In February 2010, Stack Exchange 1.0 was launched as a product sold to third parties to create sites based on the software powering Stack Overflow. Ownership of these sites is retained by the third parties. These sites have been hosted by Fog Creek Software. Pricing was based solely on the number of page views.

Stack Exchange 2.0

In April 2010, funded by venture capital, Stack Exchange 2.0 was launched by Stack Exchange, Inc. (then Stack Overflow Internet Services, Inc.),. This consisted of free-of-charge sites owned by Stack Exchange Inc. and the content licensed under the Creative Commons license. New sites are created using a crowd-sourcing process based on voting. The site creation zone of the Stack Exchange Network is called Area 51. As of May 2012, Stack Exchange Network accounts 83 different websites.

Notable sites

One of the early sites using the Stack Exchange 1.0 software is Mathematical research Q&A MathOverflow. The network is using the Stack Exchange 2.0 to expand to cover other academic research areas like statistics and data mining, theoretical computer science, linguistics, theology. The network also supports questions and answers sites for general level questions in topics such as mathematics, physics and history, as well as non-academic topics such as video games, cooking and the English language.

Criticism

Stack Exchange and related sites have been subject to criticism on account deletion, voting and closing policy, suspension policy, editing policy, user antagonism, deprecation, and authoritarianism.

Voting policy

Critics argue that up-voting does not always promote the best answer. Questions are commonly answered fast without focusing on quality or correctness, to boost reputation. Another argument is that answering a question does not by itself increase reputation, no points are awarded, which does not provide enough incentive for posting a different approach to an older question. Criticism is also geared towards the judgemental nature of responses, for example

I second that, I do nothing but read SO because it seems way to strict, and all of the 'meta' discussion of it leaves me with a feeling like I can't post to it, lest my post be scrutinized as to whether it's on-topic, off-topic, not on-topic enough, similar to a question asked previously months ago, is this a useful question? is this a stupid question? is it properly formatted? was enough effort put in composing the question? is the question to broad? is it too "RFTM"? is the question too opinion based? is the question irrelevant? Sometimes I just want to ask a question without having to worry if it is worthy enough to be answered by the lords of Stack Exchange, & all of it's over enforced rules.

Closing policy

Questions can be closed once five votes have been cast from a group of users that have gained this privilege. Moderators can close any question without requirements, invalidating the voting system. A user has the right to try to persuade the voters for the contrary, however this remains difficult, since the subsequent judgement is to be carried out by those who have carried out the first and therefore it remains biased. Judgements upon the closure of questions are not always delivered with the same criteria and this can lead to user dissatisfaction, nor are always in accordance with the community.

Suspension policy

In April, 2009 Stack Exchange implemented a policy of "timed suspension", in order to curtail users whose actions are deemed to be detrimental to the community. Criticism of this new feature has focused on the broad nature of such definitions. Further criticism is focused towards authoritarian tone and punitive nature set by the new policy and the arbitrary judgment it allows. The procedure followed to determine the perpetrators is unclear, and the system lacks a concise rebuttal process. Users who are deemed problematic may be suspended for a period of time based on a moderator's judgment. The suspension is accompanied by a temporary removal of the user's reputation score and an announcement on the user's profile page informing the community of the suspension and general reason.

Data and user deletion policy

The Terms of Service for Stack Exchange states: "You agree that all Subscriber Content that You contribute to the Network is perpetually and irrevocably licensed to Stack Exchange under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license". User accounts can not be self-deleted if the user has contributed content to the site, and moderators or high reputation users can reverse deletions of content. The only way to delete an account is to submit the unique user ID to Stack Exchange by email requesting account deletion or for a moderator of the site to delete the account.

User antagonism, depreciation, and authoritarianism

As in the case of user suspension, responses from reputed users can be too judgemental, or even offensive for a user. Similar is the case with answers to questions, where commenting and downvoting of an answer is possible. This practice may lead to devaluation of a poster's opinion or factual experience. Such practice promotes antagonism between users and usually requires moderation of the topic that is usually administered by a senior renowned member in an absolute manner.

Editing policy

In Stack Exchange answers can be edited by anybody. Users over a certain threshold of reputation have the right to edit other users' posts without notification or approval of the original poster. Edits of users below the threshold are placed under review and once approved can be published without the original poster's approval. It has been reported that this practice can lead to misinterpretation of the original poster's answer.

References

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  3. Alan Zeichick (2009-04-15). "Secrets of social site success". SD Times. Retrieved 2009-04-16.
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  5. Joel Spolsky (2009-04-24). "Learning from StackOverflow.com". Google Tech Talks. YouTube. Retrieved 2009-05-23.
  6. Keller, Jared (November 18, 2010). "Stack Overflow's Crowdsourcing Model Guarantees Success". The Atlantic. Retrieved 4 January 2011.
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External links

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