Mailing list vs. Stack Overflow

[Kevin Bourrillion]

On rough examination, about 50% of threads started on this mailing list are to ask specific "how to" questions.  Lately, we've been less vigilant about reminding users that these questions should be posted to Stack Overflow, not here.

I think that's because it's no fun to be the jerk who says "go somewhere else."  And it's easier to just answer and move on.  But the fact of the matter is that posting to S.O. is better for everyone.  You'll get well-crafted answers, and if you get a bad answer it'll be voted down.  You'll see which users have built more credibility over time.  You will often be shown that your question was in fact already answered before (win-win!).  And most importantly, the question and answer will be preserved in a useful, findable way for the whole community.  The site becomes our FAQ organically.

It's worth seeming like a jerk if it makes users' lives better in the long run!

Non-questions, and open-ended questions that don't have a specific "correct" answer, are what this mailing list is for.

Please help me to remind newcomers to this list when their question doesn't belong here.  Thanks!

--
Kevin Bourrillion @ Google

Java Core Libraries Team
http://guava-libraries.googlecode.com

[Thomas Jung]

It could help to change the link in the navigation "Groups >
Discussion group" to a wiki page containing the policy for new users.

Thomas

> --
> guava-...@googlegroups.com
> Project site: http://guava-libraries.googlecode.com
> This group: http://groups.google.com/group/guava-discuss
>
> This list is for general discussion.
> To report an issue: http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/issues/entry
> To get help: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/ask (use the tag "guava")
>

[Colin Decker]

Too bad you can't vote to close an email as "belongs on stackoverflow" and have it moved automatically!

-- 

Colin

[Kevin Bourrillion]

Good idea -- I just dumped this stuff straight on the main project page.  Feedback welcome.  It would be nice if there weren't so many different ways to communicate, but each really works best for its particular case, so it's worth it.

[Fred Faber]

My email is my processing queue i.e., without a mail, it didn't happen to me.

Is there a method to have SO mail out new questions for a given tag?  

Or what do other folks do?  Pump into reader?

[Colin Decker]

I subscribe to the guava tag feed (http://stackoverflow.com/feeds/tag/guava) in reader. You can also have SO email you about new questions by mousing over the tag and clicking "subscribe" on the on the tooltip that pops up, but the emails seem to only come once a day so it isn't as fast as subscribing to the feed.

-- 

Colin

[Sam Berlin]

I guess it's about time to finally sign up for StackOverflow or Reader...  please don't tell me I have to succumb to Twitter, though.
 sam

[Thomas Jung]

You don't have to:

http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23guava

but #guava is burned.

Thomas

[Thomas Jung]

Maybe it is partly a search problem. New users (like me) won't know
all places to look for information regarding Guava. This could also
help to prevent some redundant posts on different sites.

I've setup a custom search for Guava:

http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=007553351208685979713:5cllhpp9vxc

Maybe this could help.

Thomas

[Kevin Bourrillion]

Ooh, custom searches -- what a nifty feature!

I think it might not be set up right yet:

Your search - multimap site:stackoverflow.com - did not match any documents. 

[Thomas Jung]

I've added:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/guava/*
http://guava-libraries.googlecode.com/svn/
http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/
http://groups.google.com/group/guava-discuss*

I've already seen that SO does not work. I just did not want to put
too much effort in it unless someone's interested. The guava tag is
not indexed and the http://stackoverflow.com/* produces to much noise.
Maybe someone knows how to setup the search for SO properly.

Refinements (http://code.google.com/intl/en/apis/customsearch/docs/refinements.html)
could be useful, too.

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Wed, 4 May 2011 23:44:27 -0400 Sam Berlin <sbe...@gmail.com> wrote:

SB> I guess it's about time to finally sign up for StackOverflow or Reader...
SB> please don't tell me I have to succumb to Twitter, though.

If you like NNTP, you can read the SO RSS feed through Gwene:

nntp+news.gwene.org:gwene.com.stackoverflow.feeds.tag.guava

(Gwene serves many, many other RSS feeds too :)

Ted

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 05 May 2011 11:07:33 -0500 Ted Zlatanov <t...@lifelogs.com> wrote:

TZ> On Wed, 4 May 2011 23:44:27 -0400 Sam Berlin <sbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
SB> I guess it's about time to finally sign up for StackOverflow or Reader...
SB> please don't tell me I have to succumb to Twitter, though.

TZ> If you like NNTP, you can read the SO RSS feed through Gwene:

TZ> nntp+news.gwene.org:gwene.com.stackoverflow.feeds.tag.guava

TZ> (Gwene serves many, many other RSS feeds too :)

I forgot to mention the other useful Guava-related RSS feed I read
through Gwene, the Guava issues feed:

nntp+news.gwene.org:gwene.com.google.code.feeds.p.guava-librarie.updates.basic

I hope that's helpful.

Ted

[Thomas Jung]

Hi Kevin,

The search (http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=007553351208685979713:5cllhpp9vxc)
works now okay for Stackoverflow content. Reading the documentation
helps.

I've added the refinements Project, Source, Discussion, Issues,
Stackoverflow that can be selected after the initial search.

The index pages:
http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/source/browse Source
http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/issues/ Issues
http://stackoverflow.com Stackoverflow
http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/ Project
http://guava-libraries.googlecode.com/svn/ Source
http://groups.google.com/group/guava-discuss* Discussion
http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/ [extract linked partial
sites] Project

Thomas

On 5 May 2011 09:20, Kevin Bourrillion <kev...@google.com> wrote:

[Kevin Bourrillion]

Very nice!  Sadly my first few attempts to embed it in a googlecode.com wiki page didn't work.  Maybe the magical answer is in here somewhere.

http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/WorkingWithGoogleGadgets

[Thomas Jung]

A link in the "How to communicate with us" section is probably good enough.