Podcast? No thanks. 46 minutes? Really, no thanks.
How about transcripts? I can process information by reading a whole
helluva lot faster than I can by listening to it.
Cliton on April 16, 2008 06:09 PM
Agreed. What about accessibility? You have your CAPTCHA “orange” accessible for the visually impaired, but make no effort to make your stackoverflow.com preview/promo accessible to the hearing impaired. I’m disappointed - I always thought you were better than that.
I hope stackoverflow.com doesn’t use audio too much when it’s finished. Coding is a typed activity. It doesn’t need audio description, and in most cases it doesn’t even need diagrams. Good old fashioned text is the way to go with this project as far as I can see.
(Maybe you just recorded an MP3 because it saves typing, but for a programmer that seems a pretty lame excuse).
Serious question: what’s wrong with codeproject.com? I’ve been active there for five years and this year got an MVP award for answering questions in many of the forums.
The problem we have over there is that users often aren’t rewarded for answering questions correctly - in fact often the best answers are voted down because they involve a lot of work, the all-time classic ‘I wouldn’t start from here’, or even ‘I wouldn’t do that at all.’ I can’t really see that your site wouldn’t suffer from the same problem. We already have a system where votes by people with greater reputation are weighted higher, the problem is that these people don’t necessarily vote up a response (or article) that’s been voted down incorrectly.
I don’t know how to do RSS audio off the top of my head, but I wrote my own (text based) rss feed handler in an evening, and googling for “rss audio spec” gives me a good idea on how to implement that. And I’m no rockstar developer.
How about a compromise? You want us to listen to the podcast, I want to know what content to expect before I do that. How about putting up a few “teaser” quotes from it on the page, or a couple of small 30 seconds “highlights” for people to try out quickly, to entice them into the main event?
I have to wonder if trying to take questions in the form of audio recordings is simply a front for raising the quality barrier, since the amount of effort to ask it is so much higher.
audio messages is nice way to build such a “dialog” with developers for sure (ha-ha), but it will be even better if you release your blah-blah as an uncompressed video…
Good luck on the new site. We all need what EE promised but has only delivered clumsily.
And regarding your use of bold to highlight key points, I approve. John Dvorak was infamous for that back in the 80s, but it served its purpose very well: when the reader’s too busy to read the whole damn thing, they can pick up the key points in a few seconds without wading through all of the author’s ranting and raving. Not that your ranting and raving isn’t entertaining, but some days are a lot busier than others.
I love the idea of stackoverflow.com. So many programmers Google for answers that it would be nice if there were some sort of quality control on the results they get. No obtrusive ads is also a plus.
I look forward to listening to the podcast while doing the dishes. I like podcasts for when I have to do something boring or mindless. What’s the license on it? Would somebody be allowed to make and publish a transcript?
re: ExpertS-exChange.com - you do NOT have to click the ‘cache’ link, disable javascript, or any other ‘tricks’. All you have to do is scroll ALL the way down, past what looks like the end of the page. The answers are there in plain text.
Not that it doesn’t suck, of course. I’m looking forward to this new site Jeff (and Joel)!
I know some of you might find this hard to believe, but occasionally I am away from my computer. A podcast, allows me to follow tech. stuff when I am at the gym or in the car. Also, podcast implies iPod, not computer audio file.
There is a UI lesson involved: It doesn’t matter how good your content is, if the user can’t find it or access it EASILY, it may as well just not exist.
I find it confusing experts exchange is still in business.
When I go googling for an answer for something I need assistance with, if I inadvertantly click on an expertsexchange link, as soon as I see the, “LOGIN PLEASE!” screen, I click back, and inevitably find exactly what I’m looking for elsewhere.
Jeff, I’m anxious to see how stackoverflow will develop, but PLEASE FIX THE SOUND QUALITY! 32Kbps really sucks, why don’t you make it at least 128Kbps VBR? And while Joel sounds terrible, Jeff’s voice is so garbled that it’s totally unrecognizable.
While podcasts may add a whole new dimension (voice), text transcripts also add whole new dimensions (ability to skim rapidly, ability to index for searching, access by the hard-of-hearing, probably a few others). Seems to me like providing BOTH is an absolute benefit… then the listener/reader has a choice.
Speaking of which, if you are looking for volunteers to help transcribe it, let me know. (I WON’T do so without invitation - doesn’t quite seem polite.) In keeping with the open source ethos, I’m not complaining about what you’re sharing for free, I’m just offering to help improve it!
I third/fourth the request for transcripts, not all of us are native english speakers.
Also, if we’re discussing any sort of community based system, tagging is a must. Not because it’s a buzz word feature, but because no single answer or question deals with one category of coding. Some questions span all languages, other deal with odds and ends of one language, some deal with networking, you see what I mean.
