How can we keep GIS.se from getting the axe? [closed]

Question

I read on the blog today that http://gadgets.stackexchange.com/ will be shutdown due to low traffic.

Joel wrote in the blog post that sites which do not reach critical mass might be shutdown in the future. If you look at our stats and the Gadgets.SE, you won't find much difference. some of the points against Gadgets.SE can be used against GIS.se as well

I'm sure that if we know the criteria for shutting down of SE sites in more detail, we'll be able to prevent it from happening.

This is Important, because none of us want to invest time and efforts on something which might not be given enough time to grow and mature.

Answer 1

I disagree that the stats for Gadgets.se are close to GIS.se. Sure they have, at present, more users and more questions, however the ratios are quite dissimilar. For example they have almost a 2:1 ratio for answers to questions, whereas ours our nearly 3:1. So fewer questions, but more active participation on each. We also have more than 90% questions marked as answered. GIS.se is ranked 21 out of 28 at http://stackexchange.com/sites. Interestingly, it's only 2 ahead of gadgets but there are 5 below gadgets not getting the axe (right now).

The essence of the article is summarized in "So, essentially, a site needs either traffic or good answers, but if it has neither, we don’t think it will work.". Admittedly at this point we don't have so much traffic, but we do have good answers. Off course it's not my opinion that counts. :) The yellow flag you raise is well taken and we should heed it. More visitors, more eyeballs, more contributions well help. In my opinion more important though is great answers.

So what does that mean? Time. Don't worry about beating the "other guy" to answering the question. Spend the time to proof read your own contributions. Explicate, add examples, link to source material. A one or two sentence answer may be correct, but that doesn't mean it's good.

When you see a great answer, vote it up and add a comment about what in particular makes it good. This will encourage more of the same.

As for gathering traffic: when you discover a solution here to one of your problems, write about it somewhere else! Tell them how much of a time saver it was or how it expanded your understanding.

If there isn't anything to write about except "hey come help build this great thing" then the site really isn't working.

Answer 2

GIS.se is by far the most active technically related GIS forum I've been to or used that isn't on ESRI's page.

It's far more active and useful than GISCafe or GISLounge. I hope to keep this place active and useful for all for a very long time.

Answer 3

The GIS culture is partly to blame, in my opinion. This site is better than the ESRI forums, and I hype it as much as I can, but I don't get the same energy from visiting that I do from SO or the various open source communities out there. Many of the questions are pretty mundane, mine included.

This blog post pertains to the .NET community, but much of it applies to the GIS (esp. ESRI) community, maybe more so. In short, the community does not collaborate much and relies too heavily on commercial vendors rather than independent innovation and problem-solving.

I'm hopeful that GIS.se will change the GIS culture, but it will take time.

Answer 4

A lot of technical folks, myself included, became interested in blogging a couple of years ago. Since then, there's been a decline in the number of people blogging about technical tips and tricks. The motivation of these bloggers is to establish a reputation. Just go through the Contributor list at Planet Geospatial to examine the trend for last two years. Generally you will see a gradual decline in activity.

We need to show how SE provides bloggers a better (or at least complimenting) way to establish reputation. One of the hardest things about blogging is picking subjects that are relevant to readers. SE solves that by letting users vote on questions.

Answer 5

One thing that I can think of (and that I actually felt was missing at the last FOSS4G) is to advertise for the site on conferences and GIS events. Leaving a few flyers captioned "Any questions?" on the one side and "invalidgeometry.com" on the other might attract more of the puzzled masses. Or just mention it in a lightning talk. And I am quite certain that quality is distilled out of quantity in this type of sites.

Answer 6

Just my two cents but I feel GIS SE is dominated by a small group of dedicated (and technically excellent) experts and we need a much broader base answering and voting on questions to survive. This small but strong group was also active on the ESRI forums and that died. We have enough GIS users but not a big enough base.