8

GIS.stackexchange is making its first year. (since private beta)

I just got a yearling badge and since I'm the one that proposed this website, that means the website is having its first birthday (I might be wrong on the actual date :P - I'm assuming that this is our first birthday), which brings a few questions:

  • What are your thoughts on the website?

  • Did it grow?

  • Is the website helpful?

  • How can we improve it?

  • What characteristics do you like better on the website? What you do not like?

Congratulations to all of us and to stackexchange!

2
  • 1
    congratulations! Though to be 100% technically accurate, this would be 1 year since the private beta began and not 1 year since the site graduated to a full-blown public site. Still an important milestone, regardless. :)
    – Jeff Atwood
    Jul 24, 2011 at 9:25
  • thanks for the clarification Jeff. I was looking for this information. Thanks for sharing with us!
    – George Silva
    Jul 24, 2011 at 19:30

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
4

What are your thoughts on the website?
This site is extraordinary. We can discuss even further about our problems. Kudos SE. I love you guys!

Did it grow?
Of course. Dearly, this community appends each day.

Is the website helpful?
I stand 100% to this site.

How can we improve it?
Promotion for fresh GIS specialist/programmer. Maybe administrator can do something about this bright idea.

What characteristic do you like better on the website?
What you do not like?

Advantages:

  1. Clear presentation.
  2. No advertisement.
  3. Professional guides.

Disadvantages:

  1. Sometimes each person like to bash others. This is unpractical. Please respect one respond's.
2
  • it's unclear to me why this post was downvoted without comment. It doesn't appear that different from the other upvoted answers. I changed the overly emphasized bold formatting.
    – matt wilkie
    Jul 25, 2011 at 20:26
  • Thanks @matt, I really appreciate it. Long Live Meta GIS!
    – zearth
    Jul 26, 2011 at 2:28
3

First of all: I think this site is succesful. The fact that after one year I'm still visiting this site is the best proof.

What I like most about the site is that is not about one program/technology, and in fact exactly that is what I would still like to improve: I hope to read more questions which are open to different technologies. Not: how do I do xxx in arcgis, but rather how do I do ... (The question may still contain a note that an implementation in xxx is prefered) A nice example would be this question: How to calculate Topographic Ruggedness Index in ArcGIS Desktop? Both answers are actually useful outside arcgis.

1
  • 2
    +1 We are looking for great answers on this site, not just good ones. One thing is certain about ArcGIS-specific answers: they will be outmoded within a few years when the software changes again. Therefore, a great answer will be framed in a way that is general and timeless, outliving whatever software was popular at the time it was written.
    – whuber
    Aug 31, 2011 at 2:44
2

• What are your thoughts on the website?

It's great to have a QA site to post questions on, used a lot of forums to try to find information before and GIS SE makes it much easier find/get great answers.

• Did it grow?

The broad support from different GIS communities and products makes it very interesting to read questions and answers on the site. I've learned a lot by visiting this site this year.

• Is the website helpful?

YES!

• How can we improve it?

There needs to be more work done on writing FAQ and in-depth answers on subjects that are frequently asked.

• What characteristic do you like better on the website? What you do not like?

The search functionality should somehow be highlighted more, it's very easy to start asking questions without searching the site first.

1

What are your thoughts on the website?

Overall well laid out and to the point - Questions to be answered.

Did it grow?

Yes, have done some social media (twitter/blog) to promote it and gather gis and non-gis users. 2500+ registers users is a good growth for the first year.

Is the website helpful?

Yes for answering questions fast.

How can we improve it?

To be able to message other users directly (like twitter) A place for questions that will lead to debate and subjective. more incentive for users to sign up. (a guest mode?)

What characteristic do you like better on the website? What you do not like?

Clean layout - but some tools with rep are not obvious. The consecutive days thing needs to accommodate weekends and vacation 'timeout' or at least have an overlap of 36 hours.

Overall impressed with the users and interesting projects that lead to question on GISse.

3
  • The only problem I see with being able to message users directly is its social networking aspect. I remember it being mentioned that the creators didn't want to make this site about social networking in their podcast and I think they were talking about a similar feature. That surprised me since they added a chat feature. I would love to see a guest mode though.
    – dkroy
    Jul 23, 2011 at 20:20
  • Chat is okay - but we cover many time zones and its not really used that much - messaging is less informal communication. Moderators can contact users but it usually more forceful (disputes with other users)...
    – Mapperz Mod
    Jul 25, 2011 at 18:22
  • I understand where you are coming from, and don't get me wrong I personally think this feature would be useful.
    – dkroy
    Jul 25, 2011 at 21:53

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .