Doom stackexchange site

[fraggle]

Hi,

If you're a programmer, you may have used Stack Overflow, which is a site where users can pose questions to experts. It's very useful and the developers of the site have extended the format to other sites such as Server Fault and a host of other sites.

They've now set up a site called Area 51, where people can propose new sites to be created. If a proposal gets enough people supporting it, it may get made into a proper site.

To this end I've created a proposal for a site for Doom-related questions. I think this might be useful as there are a lot of questions that are regularly asked here on the forums, and it would be useful to document the answers to these sort of questions so it isn't necessary to keep on answering them over and over.

If you think this is a good idea, here's what to do:

• Go to the proposal page. Create an account (top right of the page) and then click "follow" to follow the proposal. The more followers that a proposal has, the more chance that it has of being made into a real site.
  
  
• Propose some example questions. I've added five example questions to the proposal. Ideally it would be nice to get questions on as many Doom-related subjects as possible (different source ports, etc). Questions can be both on-topic or off-topic.
  
  
• Check back on the site regularly and vote on the questions that other people have posted.
  

More information can be found in the FAQ. Bear in mind that this isn't supposed to be an actual site yet; it's just a proposal that exists in order to gauge support for the site.

[EarthQuake]

I think it's a great idea. I've already created an account, added some questions, and voted on several. Assuming you can drum up enough support from the community, this might actually work out. Honestly, I think I would enjoy answering peoples' questions a bit too much, so this might not be such a great idea for me after all, haha.

[Reisal]

Followed and contributing.

[boris]

fraggle said:

I think this might be useful as there are a lot of questions that are regularly asked here on the forums, and it would be useful to document the answers to these sort of questions so it isn't necessary to keep on answering them over and over.

You're assuming that people withough a clue would search that site. This is obviously not the case, because they could have searched this forum (or other Doom related forums/wikis/whatever) instead of asking the question for a lolzillionth time.

[boris]

Here's a perfect example: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/51500-rain-in-doom-2-effect/

Simply searching the editing forum for "rain" would have turned up the solution. But that guy obviously didn't search. When he doesn't even search this forum, why would he search another site?

The idea of that site is pretty cool, but it'll miss the intended audience. Creating a page that people who don't search can search is pretty futile.

[Maes]

While I support such an initiative, boris nailed the problem on the head: none would use such services as their primary source of info, unless properly educated/advertised.

Hell, even pinned stuff like how to play Doom on Windows or how to upload stuff to idgames/ still gets a lot of questions!

Then there's stuff about OpenGL on integrated video cards gets asked a lot too, as well as sound questions which quickly stray away from pure Doom and become effectively tech support questions.

[boris]

Aaaaand another example: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/51502-how-do-you-record-demos/

Seriously, "can't figure it out"? Google for "doom record demos", and the very first entry is an extensive guide on how to record demos. People like that are hopeless.

[boris]

And they just come pouring in: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-general/51503-alice-in-chains-song-intro-in-doom2/

[Quasar]

Maes said:

Hell, even pinned stuff like how to play Doom on Windows or how to upload stuff to idgames/ still gets a lot of questions!

To be fair, part of the reason for that is that stickied threads on this ancient vBulletin version are practically invisible in relation to other threads. One's eye can skip right over them quite easily.

[Jodwin]

Quasar said:

To be fair, part of the reason for that is that stickied threads on this ancient vBulletin version are practically invisible in relation to other threads. One's eye can skip right over them quite easily.

Then again, stickied threads always get ignored. It's like a natural law of the Internet, tested on any forum out there.

Yeah, there's no way this website would work as an information source the way some expect, however it could become a mostly complete knowledge base that people could be linked to whenever a commonplace question appears, instead of having to address each question personally.

[LexiMax]

Well, they unveiled the new stackexchange site.

http://gaming.stackexchange.com/

It's not doom, but I think a general gaming stackexchange is actually better and serves a wider audience.

[Xaser]

It might be harder to get an answer, though, since the frequency of Doom experts is significantly less dense. Still, better than nothing and a really neat idea.