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Spread the word - SE meta information page?
We all know that Stack Exchange has been there for a long time. It has taken root to a lot of people. Unfortunately, I feel like codidact's word has been spreading less than what I would expect. I had just encountered two people who were skeptical about Codidact and thought that it was just a simple GitHub fad that would take years to come to fruition.
I understand that this indeed is a work on progress and it might take some time but you have to understand that marketing is one of the most important aspects. Codidact's founders think that the site is not developed enough to spread the word. However I see that people are skeptical that codidact would indeed thrive.
We have to make this community better but all that mean absolutely nothing if there are no people in it. Every company advertises it's product before launch. There is a psychological reason for it. It would make potential donors even more confident that this community will indeed learn to stand up on its feet.
It would give the code contributors moral support that they are creating something and they should contribute to it.
Don't just go outright that "join codidact. it is one of the best forum" but instead a simple SO meta post explaining the work we have done (as a progress bar to judge when the site will be ready) the core rules (since it is still in draft) and observe its views and support.
This community will be dead in water if experts (like the people who showed skepticism) don't join to build this site. I think this page will advertise our work, and people will come to know that there is an alternative to Stack Overflow but to build it, we need their wholehearted support.
What is the problem with that? How long will codidact hide in the shadows? At this rate even when the site opens we will have only a handful of people. We have to do something about this!
It will also bring feedback from everyone - what do they dislike about SE? What improvements can be made? encourage them to join in our discussions!
Edit:-
As a reply to Monica Cellio (too big for a comment), We need some more people to help us contribute. A meta post can give us at least some advertising to further pitch our idea. I guess SO might not be happy with it but if they prevent someone posting on their forum for their own business gains, it will paint them in a bad light.
People will think of SE as big brother and they will leave it to join codidact which would benefit from their actions. Please think about this. what do we have to lose except our imaginary internet points?
If they ban one of use, someone else will uncover their activities. Someone else will post that question.
So on the whole, SE will frown on us but they won't do anything (more) to ignite the already dissatisfied community...I think the situation warrants the risk and is worth the try.....
If anybody has any objection, then you can reply to this thread
2 answers
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I agree almost entirely with ArtOfCode. In particular, I will tell you that, as a current Stack Overflow moderator, I have every intention of removing Meta posts that serve no other purpose than to advertise Codidact or any other platforms. And aside from whether or not Stack Exchange will allow it, it just wouldn't be in good taste. Again, as ArtOfCode says, Codidact needs to come up with its own way of advertising that is sustainable and works for this site.
That said, Meta Stack Overflow does have at least one Q&A discussing alternatives to Stack Overflow. There is nothing wrong with posting an answer there and/or editing an existing community-wiki answer to add a link to Codidact. Stack Overflow (and indeed Stack Exchange the company) recognizes that their site is not the end-all-be-all of the Internet. There are folks who don't like Stack Overflow's style for plenty of reasons, be it because they want to ask more "discussion"-style questions, because they don't like the idea of a moderated site, or whatever. There are existing answers pointing out the existence of Quora, Yahoo Answers, etc. Codidact may well take its place among these many Stack Exchange alternatives, and there's nothing wrong with a tasteful mention there.
Whatever you do, though, don't go around answering Meta questions that raise a specific complaint about the Stack Exchange platform with a, "This place totally sucks; you should drop it and try Codidact instead!". That will not only get deleted, but may earn you a stern talking-to by a Stack Exchange moderator. I think we can all agree that that would just be in bad taste.
a simple SO meta post explaining the work we have done ... What is the problem with that?
The problem with it is that Stack Overflow won't allow it. From their perspective, what we're doing here is potential competition, and allowing the competition to advertise on your site is generally not the done thing, because it's bad for business.
Marketing is something we need to look at, yes. We have a platform that's capable of hosting sites, even if it's not quite where we want it to be yet. We're looking at getting a couple more communities started in the near future, once we have a couple of critical features developed for them, and with any luck more communities should also mean more spreading the word.
There's also some work on SEO to be done, which is currently taking a back seat to actual feature development. Once we get some time for that, again, that should start to help publicise what we're doing.
Ultimately, though, any serious marketing does need to wait a bit - sure, we can publicise before launch, but we do need to have something that's reasonably close to our intended platform before we do so, which we currently don't have.
Edit in response to an edit on the question.
We're building a network with a goal, in part, to do better by our communities than SO has done. Part of that is maintaining our own professionalism. Launching jibes at SO simply because we think it's "bad" or we're "better" somehow simply isn't professional, and it's not something we're going to do as an organisation.
We do already have a community advert running on Stack Overflow. That's a recognised platform that they provide for advertising open-source projects, so advertising there is entirely above-board. Writing a meta post that effectively says "SO is bad: join us, we're better" doesn't paint SO in a bad light, it paints us as bad losers.
As for what we have to lose -- I'm still a moderator over on Stack Exchange, and I'm now also a member of the advisory moderator council. I have a presence there that I'm unwilling to give up, because I recognise that it's possible to be a part of both communities while still believing in our goals here.
In short, the small gains we might stand to make by a meta post would be entirely erased by the bad rep it would get us. This is not something we're going to do.
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