Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Welcome to Codidact Meta!

Codidact Meta is the meta-discussion site for the Codidact community network and the Codidact software. Whether you have bug reports or feature requests, support questions or rule discussions that touch the whole network – this is the site for you.

Comments on Why prefer Codidact to Stack Exchange?

Parent

Why prefer Codidact to Stack Exchange?

+18
−7

As I explained in this post and some community staff confirmed, Codidact is almost a miniature version of SE. In fact, I see no radical difference between them.

As we know, almost all (in my opinion, all without exception) people coming to Codidact are already familiar with SE. So, why should we expect that they prefer to contribute to this community, rather than SE? Only because of some meta issues?

I know that the main motivation for creating Codidact was some controversy about some meta issues. But, please note that many people, who are interested in contributing to a Q&A community, do not care about meta subjects like "Code of Conduct", "Copyright Licenses", firing some community staff etc.

Even, almost all Codidact community staff are still serious active SE users, and I think almost all user protestors against some SE policies will continue their contributions to SE even if they face more unpleasant policies. Why? Because the main important thing to almost all contributors is "asking and answering."

In my opinion, if we want active communities, we need many people to contribute regularly, especially for some communities like a math community.


Updated

There are some some points in the answers, which need to be responded to (Since a math community is about to launch, I use this community as an example to clarify what I mean):

  • I agree with the fact that Codidact is a non-profit, community-focused, and open-source platform, which distinguishes Codidact from Stack Exchange. However, such characteristics cannot motivate enough people to contribute to such a community regularly. I, as a typical math enthusiast willing to contribute to a math Q&A community, prefer to spend my time and energy in a community in which I can be sure that there are enough math experts to communicate with them. Why has Math Stack Exchange become successful? Because at the time of its beginning many people needed a math Q&A community and there was no serious rival, so people had to join Math.SE and developed it. But, now there exists a terribly successful community, Math.SE, so that I think almost all career math experts (including teachers, students, and researchers) prefer to devote their little free time to contributing to a developed community, rather than an embryonic one; one can only hope that a few idle math experts contribute occasionally to such a new community.

  • Some people believe that they can always have an alive small community and do not need to attract individual people. I think such a claim is not true for any Q&A community; it may be true for some people willing to discuss some topics with each other, but the story of a Q&A community is different. Mathematics has terribly many independent branches. So, if we want to have an active math community we need many people, and a small community is not enough for such a subject. The point is, that when people see that their questions are not answered (properly), they become discouraged from asking in such a community.

  • I agree that many people opposing SE policies and rules; I personally have many problems with them. But, such people still continue their contributions because the most important factor of a successful Q&A community is its population, especially for some communities like a math community. People like good policies, rules, and norms, but their needs, namely asking and answering, are their priorities, which would not be satisfied in a small community.

  • I agree that casual users do not care about meta issues. But, the point is that active meta users will come from such casual users; if not enough casual users are not interested in continuing their contributions to a community, we cannot have enough active meta users to develop the community. Each community first needs to attract casual users and then it expects to be developed by serious users.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

1 comment thread

General comments (3 comments)
Post
+8
−0

As I explained in this post and some community staff confirmed, Codidact is almost a miniature of SE. In fact, I see no radical difference between them.

Codidact is being used since not long, that explains the similarities. Even so, there are huge differences below the sea level:

  • Codidact is open source, which means you can fix bugs, adapt to your needs as long as complying AGPLv3, you can publish your own instance.

  • SE is an aged and dying platform, technologically speaking.

As we know, almost all (in my opinion, all without exception) people coming to Codidact are already familiar with SE. So, why should we expect that they prefer to contribute to this community, rather than SE? Only because of some meta issues?

They don't have to. Codidact is for communities, not for individual people.

I know that the main motivation for creating Codidact was some controversy about some meta issues. But, please note that many people, who are interested in contributing to a Q&A community, do not care meta subjects like "Code of Conduct", "Copyright Licenses", firing some community staff, ... .

Well, that's their motivation. Others are here only because open source.

Even, almost all Codidact community staff are still serious active SE users, and I think almost all user protestors against some SE policies will continue their contributions to SE even if they face more unpleasant policies. Why? Because the main important thing to almost all contributors is "asking and answering."

So what's the question?

In my opinion, if we want alive communities, we need many people to contribute regularly, especially for some communities like a math community.

Communities can be small and alive. I don't understand.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

1 comment thread

General comments (4 comments)
General comments

Skipping 2 deleted comments.

MathPhysics‭ wrote about 4 years ago

Thanks for your answer. I have updated my post. Can you please update your answer to cover my updated points?

Those new four are either seemingly right to me, or about communities unknown to me, or maybe apparently wrong to me but if so having nothing to use as a counter.

Incnis Mrsi‭ wrote over 3 years ago

SE is dying – on what is this statement founded? If the StackExch opposition is so influential, then why are Codidact’s sites miserable?

I don't know. I can't tell why you see misery where I see prosperity, and you see prosperity where I see misery.