On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 8:42 PM, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 8:02 AM, Kannappan Sampath <kntri...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > I don't agree that we may not make a successful proposal. > > > > * Firstly, this site, if it ever becomes a reality, will subsume > > ask.sagemath.com alright, but not just that. This will help the entire > > community of GAP, PARI, Maxima, Singular, Sympy (probably also R, but > > cross-validated already handles quite a bit...) users... I have not > written > > to their sites just yet but certainly this proposal is meant as a Q&A for > > computing in the Python ecosystem rather than just Sage. In light of > this, I > > In fact, as you suggest above, go one further: Python --> > "mathematical software" > > Having such a site, which is like mathoverflow, but for open source > math software, sounds attractive (if such a thing does not already > exist). > > At the moment, from my understanding, the way any open source math software seems to work is that, if you're stuck on a point, you write to their mailing list... So having a central Q&A is certainly helpful and I am more or less certain, it does not exist... PS. I have seen a few questions about sage on math.se, stackoverflow and mathoverflow; so already, there are too many sites one has to follow or look into before being sure that a post to the mailing list is warranted. > am willing to believe that conservative estimates of KCrisman would > probably > > go up; probably more than the threshold too... > > > > So, in my opinion, instead of being too conservative about the possible > > failure, we could try and support the proposal and see if we could make > > headway into getting this site created. > > > > -- Kannappan. > > > > > > On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 6:37 PM, kcrisman <kcris...@gmail.com> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> > Hello Sage Users: > >>>> > > >>>> > I proposed a Sage Stack Exchange site for Sage. Please go and follow > >>>> > it; > >>>> > add example questions and vote up (down) questions that you think > >>>> > should be > >>>> > on-topic (resp. off-topic) for the upcoming site. > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>> > > http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/70511/sage?referrer=8adE6ec0VyqQCyB1kFgF7g2 > >>>> > > >>>> > Looking forward to your support and cooperation for the success of > >>>> > this > >>>> > adventure on Stack Exchange. > >>>> > > >>>> > /p/s/ I would be soon adding my quota of 5 questions... > >>>> > >>>> Does one really need an SE site for Sage? What's wrong with > >>>> http://ask.sagemath.org/ in your opinion then? > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> The only real problem with ask.sagemath, as Kannappan says, is the > >> spammers. > >> > >> Advantages: > >> * Many people already have SE (e.g., mathoverflow) accounts, and these > >> would be connected > >> * They handle spam etc. for you > >> * Could migrate questions on other SE products to this, or vice versa > >> Disadvantage (for some): > >> * platform itself not open-source > >> Disadvantages: > >> * Not connected to previous rep mechanism for ask.sagemath > >> * Not connected to previous answers/questions (harder to work on dups, > >> etc) > >> * Admin privileges etc are not up to Sage > >> * "If the site does not get used, it will be deleted." > >> * Do we own the data? There is a CC license but is it exportable? > >> * Unclear and hard (for us) to reach standards of business. > >> > >> To me, the last one is the real problem. For instance, at one time "15 > >> questions per day on average is a healthy beta" but we definitely did > not > >> always hit that even in the most halcyon days of ask.sagemath. I'll > note > >> that http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq seems to have gotten rid of > any > >> formal requirements, but there are definitely still standards to make > it TO > >> beta, much less out. Compare the graduated versus not proposals, e.g. > >> http://area51.stackexchange.com/?tab=launched > >> > >> Let's see what it says. Remember, SE is a *business* that wants to > drive > >> traffic. Not first and foremost to simply have quality Q&A sites. Sage > >> doesn't (yet), in my view, have enough traffic to drive this. It could! > >> But it doesn't yet. > >> > >> * 15 questions per day on average is a healthy beta, 5 questions or > fewer > >> per day needs some work. A healthy site generates lots of good content > to > >> make sure users keep coming back. > >> > >> Probably we would need to increase our regular traffic (I mean compared > to > >> when we didn't have the anti-spam measures in place) by at least 50%. > >> > >> * 2.5 answers per question is good, only 1 answer per question needs > some > >> work. On a healthy site, questions receive multiple answers and the best > >> answer is voted to the top. > >> > >> I would argue that with most ask.sagemath questions, we really don't > need > >> more than one answer per question. But SE doesn't probably care about > that. > >> And I will also point out that MANY of our questions are quite > technical or > >> don't ever get answers - see > >> http://ask.sagemath.org/questions/?sort=answers-asc&page=6 (though to > be > >> fair, many of the answers to these are in comments, which SE would > strongly > >> discourage). > >> > >> * We recommend: > >> 150 users with 200+ rep > >> 10 users with 2,000+ rep > >> 5 users with 3,000+ rep > >> > >> Even on the CURRENT ask.sagemath we have about 50 with 200+ rep. We do > >> have the requisite number of very-high-rep users, and are likely to > continue > >> to have. This is mainly because we don't have the critical mass yet - > in > >> order to really rack up reputation, you either need to answer a LOT of > >> questions, or be one of the few people who answers questions > interesting to > >> a lot of people in the (as yet, smallish) Sage community. Most people > who > >> answer a question get only one or two up votes, even if the answer is > >> correct. > >> > >> * 90% answered is a healthy beta, 80% answered needs some work. In the > >> beta it's especially important that when new visitors ask questions they > >> usually get a good answer. > >> > >> I believe I've already touched on this. We are not currently going to > be > >> there. > >> > >> * 1,500 visits per day is good, 500 visits per day needs some work. A > >> great site benefits people outside the community. Eventually, 90% of a > >> site's traffic should come from search engines. > >> > >> I don't know anything about this. But based on # of views, which is > easy > >> to see, it looks like we get between 20 and 50 views for a given > question. > >> (Older ones get more, of course). Let's say we get 50 views per 10 > >> questions - that is 500 visits per day, assuming that's what they mean > by > >> visits. > >> > >> On ALL metrics, Sage is not ready for a SE proposal to go anywhere, and > >> that would be worse. > >> > >> Instead, all the people who just committed to the proposal should put on > >> their thinking caps to get us a sensible anti-spam measure for our > current > >> site. > >> > >> I am not saying this because I am a curmudgeon; I am saying this > because I > >> just spent the last hour reading through all the many complaints of > proposal > >> which aren't going to make it out of beta and will have to start from > >> scratch, and I don't want that to happen to us. It would only lead to > >> confusion for those who actually want help. > >> > >> - kcrisman > >> > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups > >> "sage-devel" group. > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an > >> email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. > >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. > >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "sage-devel" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. > > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > > -- > William Stein > Professor of Mathematics > University of Washington > http://wstein.org > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sage-devel" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. 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