

Stack Overflow's new Gaming site is in public beta - mwsherman
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/

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jmatt
We'll see how many gamers actually jump through the hoops and confusion that
is openid. It's one thing to get programmers or IT to use it and adopt it.
It's a whole different story to get an average gamer to use it. These are the
same distrustful stubborn people who have been getting hacked for decades by
giving up too much personal information. In addition many gamers don't want
their game identity anywhere near their real identity. This is compounded by
those same gamers being the most active participants and most ardent in their
attempt to separate game and real identities.

Now - even though technically they should prefer openid over normal login -
that doesn't mean they'll roll with it. There is a lot more involved in making
a decision when it breaks convention like their login.

Clearly I prefer the direction that HN and most other startups are going -
away from openid. I don't like or agree with limiting users to openid for
years old 'industry politicking' reasons. But in the end I use the content and
don't give back, so the loss is on the community and site not me. On most
stackexchange sites that don't have critical mass, simple decisions like this
can still cause a huge problem.

EDIT: Grammar Syntax ...

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michaelbuckbee
The UI surrounding OpenID has gotten better in the last year. In the vast
majority of cases it's not you pasting some URL, you just pick the provider
you are already using to login with and go.

Jeff has posted some stats (kinda dated now) about the utter dominance of
people using their existing Google ID to log in with:

[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/31021/what-openid-
pr...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/31021/what-openid-providers-
should-we-feature-on-the-login-page)

~~~
k7d
in such case, from usability standpoint, why not design login screen with
Google ID in epicenter and other login options as secondary. would be less
confusing to average non-techie

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wheaties
The best part about this site is that people coming to it will understand that
they aren't getting access to the developers (unless they come to visit.) That
should rule out half the trolls. The other half will be down-voted.

~~~
jmatt
Excellent point. Nothing is more frustrating than forum posts that are clearly
trolling for dev responses or to make statements they hope devs will see.

Ironically most of these questions should be directed at producers and
designers not developers. Yet the catch-all name sticks.

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mattmaroon
Very cool. I was just wondering where to post a game design job opening.

~~~
dieterrams
If I'm not mistaken, you'll want to wait for the Game Dev version instead:

[http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2825/game-
developm...](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2825/game-development)

~~~
Keyframe
Private Beta is underway <http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/> Will open for
business on July 21st.

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Dilpil
Funny how about 1 out of 10 posts is about dwarf fortress.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
If ever there was a game that could really benefit from a strong and vibrant
question and answer community it would be DF.

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k7d
the niche has potential, but what's the deal with domain name? it could use
some imagination and 24 characters is just little too much

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barmstrong
Great CSS design.

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pinksoda
It's incredible how he keeps expanding into viable markets. Has he opened any
"stack" sites that didn't get immediate traction?

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spolsky
it's not incredible, it's by design :) We only open the sites that we know
will get traction (through the "Area51" process, see
<http://area51.stackexchange.com>). Right now it looks like we've got about 10
sites that are pretty much guaranteed to work, then we'll probably take a
couple of weeks to study the data in detail to see what the real success
factors are.

~~~
edanm
As someone also working on building a community site, I hope you or Jeff could
one day write down some thoughts on creating a community from scratch.
Considering your IMO truly amazing successes, I'm sure you have a lot to offer
people like me.

~~~
johns
Step 1: Get popular. Step 2: Turn followers into early adopters. Step 3:
Profit.

~~~
edanm
I was hoping for something a mere mortal like me might have a chance at. If
the first step is "Get popular"... :)

