

Stack Overflow's "Food and Cooking" site is in public beta - mwsherman
http://cooking.stackexchange.com/

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jbail
Could we please have less Stack Overflow submissions? That is unless you
actually have something new to show us. This site is no different than the
Gaming site that was submitted to HN about a dozen times last week. They look
the same. They function the same. Like the Gaming site, the Food and Cooking
site is lonely and branded poorly. Nothing about the UI says food --- except
bland.

~~~
billybob
Joel Spolsky has blogged about the process for launching these sites, and
there is a sort of trial period to see whether it will fly or be closed. He
has also said that each site will have its own logo, branding, etc. Maybe this
one hasn't gotten it yet because it hasn't proved itself to be viable yet? It
does say "beta."

I'm not saying this is a unique submission, but the UI may not be final.

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petercooper
It's a classic programmer fallacy to think "Ah, I have some technology, let's
change the logos and roll out the same code for 101 different sites!" without
investing serious time into branding or community building.

It feels like a firehose of users - mostly from the developer community - is
being aimed at cookie cutter sites and a lot of wishing for the best is going
on behind the scenes.

~~~
farmerbuzz
They're at least trying to address this issue by requiring substantial
commitment up front before building out a site:
<http://area51.stackexchange.com/> . Whether the thresholds they've chosen
will work remains to be seen but they at least know about the issue.

~~~
petercooper
You're right. I just don't think that's a healthy way to build a community. It
reminds me of those high end "planned communities" in places like Florida,
Dubai, and around the Med. You get interest and deposits, build a "perfect"
environment, and people come in and enjoy their holiday homes without really
forming a "community."

Most good communities, online or off, build organically and over time. See HN,
Reddit, MetaFilter, Digg, or even Stack Overflow itself (in its original
form). Getting hundreds of users to "commit" to forming a community on day one
is a recipe for disaster and will end up in a place people dip in and out of
rather than truly care for.

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swilliams
I am curious about how many NON-programmers are using these StackExchange
sites. Are they attracting new users or just the subset of StackOverflow users
that also like X (cooking, gaming, etc)?

~~~
farmerbuzz
The end goal is probably to get into google results. There may be an advantage
against something like Yahoo Answers by having a committed community for a
particular topic and drawing experts to that community (haven't seen much
expertise on Yahoo Answers beyond what you could find with basic google
skills).

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swirlee
There's already a Stack Exchange-based site for this: Recipe Labs.
<http://ask.recipelabs.com/>

I'm partial to it because it has a cheeky alternate URL:
<http://steakoverflow.com/>

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ujeezy
How do they market these sites? I'm sure the idea is that SEO will kick in as
their content gets deeper, but I don't see how they'll get any content at all
without promotion by people as prominent in the Gaming/Foodie/etc. communities
as Joel and Jeff are in the software engineering world.

~~~
lwhi
I'm very sceptical whether the site will appeal to foodies.

SO is a great place, and a completely amazing resource - but people who code
are generally quite unique in their ability to rise through the ranks of
pedantry. The ability to see things logically, and keep things on topic is
essential for software development .. but I don't think it's wise to translate
these requirements to a food site.

I think debates over 'is this a question' and 'shouldn't this be closed' and
'move it to community wiki' are all ridiculous. I believe cookery is very much
an art - not a science. There's aren't correct single answers for a lot of
things - because different things work for different people.

I honestly think putting a bunch of coders in charge is a huge mistake.

~~~
thentic
Would love to ask you a few questions about that in private but there's no
contact info on your profile. Mind a few questions? If not, please email me:
david@thentic.com

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isamuel
I eagerly await the public beta of Stack Overflow's "What Should I Start a
Stack Overflow Clone Site About?" site. Seriously, this is getting silly. Some
forms of knowledge are not best organized in a sprawling question-and-answer
format.

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lwhi
I've already witnessed the classic 'is it a question' debate. Brilliant.

