Stack Exchange site for programmable logic and FPGA design
saar drimer
tl;dr first: I created a proposal for a Stack Exchange site for
"programmable logic and FPGA design"; if you'd like to support it,
(register and then) "follow" it:
I'm a long time comp.arch.fpga lurker (about 10 years) with a grand
track record of very few actual posts. Over the years, and recently,
alternatives to this place on usenet were discussed. I think it is
fair to say that the "community" can do better than what usenet
currently has to offer compared to community-support sites for other
topics. I've spent quite a few cycles thinking and researching what's
the best way to get a vendor-independent community-based-and-moderated
support site that will bring us to modern times.
The best I could come up with will give us what I think we need --
*but*, it will take some patience and a bit of effort.
"Stack Exchange" (SE; http://stackexchange.com/) is a set of sites
that allow users to ask technical questions and receive answers from
experts, whose only rewards is ranking, not money. The idea in the
open source community is that once you achieve a certain status
(rank), you'd convert it into contracting gigs or a better job;
basically, you become more visible to the people who may want to hire
you. I think this can work for the people on comp.arch.fpga quite
well. Here's one of the sites, Stack Overflow:
SE creators have authored a framework that is hard to imitate (there
are OSS clones out there), and they've now chosen an unorthodox usage-
model for it. It's called "area 51":
http://area51.stackexchange.com/
Basically, people propose themes for an SE sites, then in the
"definition" phase people have to "follow" it and define what are good
and bad topics; then in the "commitment" stage people commit to
contribute; then there's a public beta, and then it becomes an
official site that is "forever" hosted by SE. Their FAQ is here:
http://area51.stackexchange.com/faq
I created a proposal for "programmable logic and FPGA design" SE site
here:
I want people's feedback, and support if they think this is a good
idea -- just register if you need to, "follow" and suggest questions
if you feel like it. If you have reputation on the SE network your
commitment will eventually count for more (a slight problem of the
scheme, imo). In presentation, the site appears as "question and
answers" place, though there is no reason not to use it for discussion
as well -- I hope that once the site reaches the final stage it could
be customized a little bit.
Just to be absolutely clear, I have no affiliation with SE, and
frankly I don't care much for their usage model, though as community-
based-and-moderated support sites go, I think they have a pretty good
thing going.
cheers,
saar.
jt_eaton
>
>I'm a long time comp.arch.fpga lurker (about 10 years) with a grand
>track record of very few actual posts. Over the years, and recently,
>alternatives to this place on usenet were discussed. I think it is
>fair to say that the "community" can do better than what usenet
>currently has to offer compared to community-support sites for other
>topics. I've spent quite a few cycles thinking and researching what's
>the best way to get a vendor-independent community-based-and-moderated
>support site that will bring us to modern times.
>
>The best I could come up with will give us what I think we need --
>*but*, it will take some patience and a bit of effort.
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think this could work. My main question is who are these guys and are
they in it for the long haul? Usenet is the ultimate long haul champion and
I wouldn't like it if they flaked out in a couple of years.
The main advantage of usenet is that everyone knows about it and its a
good place for beginners to start. We would need a group effort to boycott
comp.arch.fpga and respond to any question by asking them to repost it on
stack exchange. Assuming that anyone with internet access could join and
that someone would take to time to make sure that everyone gets a good
answer on that forum then we could pull this off.
I have been on usenet since the 80's and it is sad to see the cesspool that
it has become. I'm all for putting it out of it's misery.
John Eaton
---------------------------------------
Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com
Muzaffer Kal
<z3qmtr45@n_o_s_p_a_m.n_o_s_p_a_m.gmail.com> wrote:
> My main question is who are these guys and are
>they in it for the long haul? Usenet is the ultimate long haul champion and
>I wouldn't like it if they flaked out in a couple of years.
My guess would be advertising revenue and/or selling the answers. If
one can convince a competent group of enthusiasts to generate quality
content for free then it's very easy to monetize this. There are many
sites where an internet search hits a question they have listed and to
see the answer someone posted you need to pay and of course the author
of the post was not compensated at all or with "ranking and not
money".
When you post, you transfer a lot of rights to the site and
cumulatively these rights have value which they utilize. Also they get
to keep the collection copyrights so if they go bust in a couple of
years, all of the accumulated posts disappear with them as no one has
the right to copy all of it anymore.
Usenet may have a lot of problems but at least it's still open.
--
Muzaffer Kal
DSPIA INC.
ASIC/FPGA Design Services
jt_eaton
>When you post, you transfer a lot of rights to the site and
>cumulatively these rights have value which they utilize. Also they get
>to keep the collection copyrights so if they go bust in a couple of
>years, all of the accumulated posts disappear with them as no one has
>the right to copy all of it anymore.
>Usenet may have a lot of problems but at least it's still open.
>
>--
>Muzaffer Kal
>
>
The site lists a creative commons copyright for all user supplied input.
That doesn't look bad. My worry is that everything is free until they
build up enough users then they decide to change the rules.
jt_eaton
disappear?
I checked google groups and the last piece I saw was dated 10 Aug. I was
sure that there were some more recent stuff.
HT-Lab
"saar drimer" <saard...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f6ceec28-a5c9-4dea...@g18g2000vbn.googlegroups.com...
> Hello comp.arch.fpga,
>
> tl;dr first: I created a proposal for a Stack Exchange site for
> "programmable logic and FPGA design"; if you'd like to support it,
> (register and then) "follow" it:
>
>
> http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/20632/programmable-logic-and-fpga-design?referrer=YmxhQ2OJUo-FAaI1gMp5oQ2
>
> I'm a long time comp.arch.fpga lurker (about 10 years) with a grand
> track record of very few actual posts. Over the years, and recently,
> alternatives to this place on usenet were discussed. I think it is
> fair to say that the "community" can do better than what usenet
> currently has to offer
No they can't. There has been many attempts to lure users away to EDA vendor
specific newsgroups, Twitter streams, Linkin Groups, blogger sites etc etc but
the simple matter is that Usenet works and is not controlled by somebody with an
interest.
If you get lots of spam, changes news server, if you get annoyed by somebody get
a proper newsreader and block them out.
Long live usenet!
Hans
www.ht-lab.com
saar drimer
> No they can't. There has been many attempts to lure users away to EDA vendor
> specific newsgroups, Twitter streams, Linkin Groups, blogger sites etc etc but
> the simple matter is that Usenet works and is not controlled by somebody with an
> interest.
> If you get lots of spam, changes news server, if you get annoyed by somebody get
> a proper newsreader and block them out.
Let's not make this a religious war -- usenet is good for what it is,
but there are other/more efficient ways of sharing information within
a community of people (for me, this isn't about the spam).
> Long live usenet!
It will live long, with or without an SE site.
Some other points that came up:
The content of the SE sites is licensed under the creative commons
with attribution required
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/attribution-required/
which means that content can be re-hosted, but it has to say where it
came from. They also provide the a data dump of the content
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/stack-overflow-creative-commons-data-dump/
Here's the history of the framework:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_Exchange
They have funding and promise to have all sites run for free; I saw
some ads on stackoverflow.com (after disabling ad-block), but not on
the beta sites. And yes, there's always a chance that they will
vaporize in a while, or they turn evil.
cheers,
saar.
Ed McGettigan
I think that there are a number of people using Google Groups that are
now reporting posts as SPAM. In another thread someone has posted
that it takes about 40 total abuse reports from at least two different
IP addresses for the Google routines to punt a post.
So if everyone does a little community service and clicks the "Report
spam" link 5-10 times each time these show up they will disappear
quickly. Sometimes I only get 2 or 3 clicks and the post is gone so I
know there are others out there doing the same.
Ed McGettigan
--
Xilinx Inc.
jt_eaton
><z3qmtr45@n_o_s_p_a_m.n_o_s_p_a_m.gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is it my imagination of did all the spam on this newsgroup suddenly
>> disappear?
>> I checked google groups and the last piece I saw was dated 10 Aug. I
was
>> sure that there were some more recent stuff.
>>
>> Posted throughhttp://www.FPGARelated.com
>
>I think that there are a number of people using Google Groups that are
>now reporting posts as SPAM. In another thread someone has posted
>that it takes about 40 total abuse reports from at least two different
>IP addresses for the Google routines to punt a post.
>
>So if everyone does a little community service and clicks the "Report
>spam" link 5-10 times each time these show up they will disappear
>quickly. Sometimes I only get 2 or 3 clicks and the post is gone so I
>know there are others out there doing the same.
>
>Ed McGettigan
>--
>Xilinx Inc.
>
That could work if we had enough users to make it happen. What I've seen
today is spam shows up and I click 10 or more times and maybe a few hours
later it will disappear.
I am not going to sit here like a trained monkey clicking away on spam
because google refuses to address the problem. They know dammed well that
this crap is spam and they still dump it on us.
I'm sad because I really like it when some newbie asks a question that I
can help them with but I have had it with google groups. They really are
evil.
I am out of here.
Usenet. You are dead to me.
Goodbye
John Eaton
steve ravet
> Hello comp.arch.fpga,
>
> tl;dr first: I created a proposal for a Stack Exchange site for
> "programmable logic and FPGA design"; if you'd like to support it,
> (register and then) "follow" it:
>
>
> I want people's feedback, and support if they think this is a good
> idea -- just register if you need to, "follow" and suggest questions
> if you feel like it. If you have reputation on the SE network your
> commitment will eventually count for more (a slight problem of the
> scheme, imo). In presentation, the site appears as "question and
> answers" place, though there is no reason not to use it for discussion
> as well -- I hope that once the site reaches the final stage it could
> be customized a little bit.
>
> Just to be absolutely clear, I have no affiliation with SE, and
> frankly I don't care much for their usage model, though as community-
> based-and-moderated support sites go, I think they have a pretty good
> thing going.
>
> cheers,
> saar.
>
> http://www.saardrimer.com
I think it's a good idea, I just signed up.
--steve
saar drimer
The proposal for the "programmable logic and FPGA design" StackEchange site has now moved to the "commitment" stage (after having nearly 100 followers and over 50 suggested questions). In order to keep this proposal going, people need to commit to participating -- post or answer 10 questions -- when the site goes to beta. Go to
then register/login, and press commit.
cheers,
saar.