

Facebook Partners with Stack Overflow - ssclafani
http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/545/

======
pkteison
I don't see the stack overflow model as being a great fit for what facebook
api developers need. The main problem I saw with facebook api was that the
right way to do things kept changing, and the docs and forum didn't keep up
well. You basically needed to begin facebook API work by reading the entire
blog in chronological order and then keep on scanning the dev blog daily,
which may work ok if you're a fulltime facebook API developer but it is not a
good fit for contract or part-time or hobby development.

I think changing APIs is begging for a wiki much more than a Q&A site.
Facebook used to have a wiki for their api, but they went and deleted it,
which I considered basically unforgiveable and proceeded to do my best to
avoid having to touch the API after that.

In short, bringing back <http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/> and focusing on
keeping it current would be a much better start than a Q&A site, even a really
good Q&A site. You'd still have the need-to-keep-with-changes problem, but at
least you'd have somewhere to start from, and wouldn't keep getting referred
to out of date information when googling answers.

Yes I know Stack Overflow has community editable wiki question styles, but
then you just compound the problem and now need to update 100 different 'how
do I [x]' questions every time the API changes.

~~~
mrtron
I disagree - I find the stack overflow model much better than a wiki. In
practice the search on SO is much better than a wiki because of how the
questions are phrased. Using your how do I (x) example that is how the SO
title would be phrased and that is how a developer searches for a solution.

Facebooks API docs are improving too - so this combination of quality docs and
SO could be great.

~~~
pavel_lishin
The SO model works better is the API never changes - but since it does, a Wiki
would probably be best.

~~~
colinsidoti
I've both responded to SO questions with updates, as well as had one of my top
answers be replaced by a newer, better solution. In browsing questions, I've
also seen a number of updates to existing answers.

I guess the point is, if you've spent a lot of time figuring something out,
and you've proved that a number of solutions on the internet are now wrong,
you're tempted to make it easier for the next guy. I think this is true
regardless of the medium, but SO seems to have done well at creating an
environment where it happens.

------
ary
Should I feel better about Facebook trying to crowd-source their developer
support? This doesn't address any of the _real_ concerns with usable
documentation or proper API deprecation. I get the impression that this is an
attempt to spin past bad behavior into acceptable future bad behavior.

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Sidnicious
I don't love that facebook.stackoverflow.com looks exactly like
stackoverflow.com — there’s no easy way to tell where you are, or to get back
to the main stack overflow.

Even more confusing, you can get to un-Facebook-related questions on
facebook.stackoverflow.com (e.g. from your inbox, or from a user page). Since
there are no redirects between regular and Facebook SO, this means that every
question on Stack Overflow now has two URLs, and you might see links to both.

~~~
Simucal
At first I figured they just created a separate SE site specific to Facebook
development but it appears to just be a filter on all questions which have a
tag that contains "facebook" while hiding all others.

~~~
andypants
Yeah, that's what I thought.

Why not just create another stack exchange just for facebook? I mean, they've
already got that system working for other topics.

Putting a filter on all SO questions and slapping a subdomain on it feels like
it's a solution they created in 30 seconds.

~~~
icebraining
Well, first off Facebook API questions are still on-topic on SO, so they will
have more eyeballs and therefore a greater probability of being answered.

Second, programmers can keep their existing reputation, while a new SE site
would put everyone back to 100. Since the topic is a subset, keeping it makes
sense.

I don't really see what problems this solution brings that can't be solved
with a custom logo.

~~~
click170
I agree with your second point, but your first point goes against established
precedent at Stackexchange.

I mean, if it was about getting more eyeballs then I think the best way to go
would have been to use tagging, so that questions would be posted to
'stackexchange' and would then be tagged with 'programming', 'codereview',
'superuser' etc and as they were tagged they would show up on the
programming.stackexchange.com (and other) sites. IIUC the current way is that
if I post a programming question to stackoverflow, it will get 'migrated' to
programming.stackexchange. That works, but it detracts from the total number
of eyes because it is removed from stackoverflow.

That design decision is something that has always kind of confused me about
the Stackexchange sites.

~~~
icebraining
It's about the topic of the site. FB API questions are on-topic with SO,
others aren't. The Code Review is debatable since it's arguably a subset of
SO, but other SE sites (like Programmers) don't really intersect that much.

------
alanh
"We have been ignoring you developers a bit much on the existing forums, so,
how about a do-over where you guys help yourselves?"

Accurate or no?

~~~
dreamdu5t
Very accurate. Facebook makes it clear that they don't give two shits about
developers because they're top dog and they don't have to. This just
solidifies that impression.

They should improve the clarity of their the documentation and add more
examples, in addition to keeping them updated... or pay a couple people to
answer questions. God knows they have the money.

------
reemrevnivek
See also the blog.stackoverflow.com side of the partnership here:

[http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/facebook-
stackoverflow...](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/facebook-
stackoverflow/)

Basically, it's a siloed version of stackoverflow.com containing only the tags
relevant to Facebook. They're thinking about creating mini-sites for other
major subdomains (see also
[http://meta.webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/913/is-
this-...](http://meta.webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/913/is-this-site-
not-running-as-well-as-it-deserves/915#915)).

~~~
darklajid
Hate the idea. SO's search is decent. This is just the kind of fragmentation
that I already don't like about programmers. _, unix._ etc.. You can easily
filter your lists by tags, you can easily search by tag.

Where's the benefit?

~~~
bhudman
Facebook will likely benefit a lot more.. They had a crappy forum, and they
can let the rest of the folks actually do their support work I think :)

Well, come to think of it, I think google's support forums suck even more. You
can post a problem on google support forums, and pray and hope for an answer
from their developers.

------
mgrouchy
I would imagine that facebook actually writing non-terrible documentation for
their API would be a better strategy then integrating with stack overflow.

This can't hurt, but hopefully they don't see it as an replacement for real
documentation.

------
unohoo
I dont think there was anything missing from the existing FB developer forums
except for the main missing ingredient - active participation from FB itself.

If they are going to be unresponsive on SO as well, migrating to the SO
platform doesnt make sense at all.

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kirillzubovsky
Omg, this is pretty awesome. Facebook API is terrible, and having one, unified
and usable channel to bounce questions would be great. Given that we are all
used to Stack model, this should really help at speeding things up.

------
mingyeow
This is awesome. I develop quite a bit on facebook, but turn to SO for most of
my needs. The forum is terrible, but it really does not make sense for them to
build a new system from scratch.

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mwsherman
It’s really just a view into Stack O. A set of filters and customizations
under a subdomain. (It took quite a bit of work under the covers, natch.)

If you’re already a Stack O user, this will hopefully provide a focused
experience if you’re also a Facebook dev. Or not. In which case it’s
ignorable.

If you’re a Facebook dev who isn’t involved with Stack O, it’s a curated
experience and hopefully better than what existed previous.

------
ianterrell
I would love to see companies with APIs and active developer communities
provide rewards to high reputation developers.

e.g. Facebook offers devs with over X reputation access to alpha APIs, devs
with over Y reputation direct email support, devs with over Z reputation are
recommended on the Facebook.com site as developers to hire for freelance work,
etc.

~~~
d0m
Yeah, right. But still, better to have help from ourselves than no help at
all.

------
smackfu
I like the documentation model of API pages with comments allowed, plus a
semi-protected wiki model to edit the API pages. This allows the API
maintainer to easily update, provides change history, plus allows the
community to step in and provide corrections or code examples without the
burden of rewriting the article.

------
nvictor
damn..

Joel and friends, Google+? ;(

------
aneth
This is a huge improvement over their developer forums, which are a mess of
unanswered duplicate questions, terrible search, and didn't even support
Facebook login.

------
paulnelligan
I'm not sure I like the way that my personal and professional life are
suddenly becoming intertwined ... I want a few online identities dammit, not
one!

~~~
DrCatbox
Im sure I dont want that.

Does this mean stackoverflow will share their user data with facebook? If so,
thats a disaster.

~~~
JeremyBanks
Of course it doesn't mean that, but even if it did, what user data are you
talking about? The only non-public info that Stack Overflow has from (some)
users is their email address and real name, which Facebook already knows.

~~~
true_religion
But facebook can't associate Real Names with questions asked on stackoverflow.

If they had data-sharing in place, they could.

~~~
svnk
Oh my god, Facebook will know that you asked a question on how to write Hello
World in lisp!

