[OSM-talk] our Q&A site help.openstreetmap.org is dying

[Tom Hughes]

Where on earth do you get the idea that they're using the same software?

They're not.

In fact OSQA and all the other similar open source projects are attempts
to recreate the Stack Overflow experience and they're basically all dead
or, if still on life support, then very poor clones.

Personally my preference would be to close help.osm.org and move to a
proper SO site via the Area 51 process which should be no problem for a
community of our size.

I imagine that will be unpopular with a subset of our users however.

The alternative if it's going to stay alive is that somebody needs to
find a way to migrate the data to something like Askbot that is at least
semi-conscious.

Tom

On 20/05/2020 13:52, Andreas Vilén wrote:
> Stack overflow seems to use the same software and is highly active. This 
> seems to be updated? Can't we update as they do?
> 
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions
> 
> /Andreas
> 
> On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 9:34 AM Tobias Wrede <list at tobias-wrede.de 
> <mailto:list at tobias-wrede.de>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi,
> 
>     we have several channels in OSM to facilitate discussions and support.
>     First touch point for new users is often help.openstreetmap.org
>     <http://help.openstreetmap.org>.
>     Questions relating to mapping in general, tagging, editors,
>     development,
>     OSM based applications are asked there and get answered in most cases.
> 
>     The site is based on OSQA, a software which has not been maintained in
>     some time. Some application errors have surface in the past but had to
>     be ignored since no fixes are coming from OSQA any more. Until now we
>     could live with that. They were annoying but not critical. There are
>     open tickets on OSM github to move the help site to some other
>     framework
>     (https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/149,
>     https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations/issues/377) but there isn't
>     exactly an abundance of volunteers to take care of that.
> 
>     Usability of help.openstreetmap.org <http://help.openstreetmap.org>
>     has now seriously worsened over the
>     past few days with some js error popping up for longer and longer times
>     (https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/74831/why-does-the-add-a-new-comment-button-sometimes-not-work).
> 
>     Buttons to support formatting questions and answers are gone, comments
>     cannot be added and moderation functions (reporting, converting
>     questions to comments etc.) are not working anymore.
> 
>     If this continuous we can shut down the site soon. Even if this problem
>     got resolved somehow it's only a matter of time until a new problem
>     arises. The site provides a low entry hurdles place to ask questions
>     that can be solved by simple answers. I'd hate so see it gone.
> 
>     I'm neither a programmer who could help out on the technical side
>     nor am
>     I involved in OSM organization and politics to have an idea on how this
>     could be sorted out. Question around: Can we find someone to take care
>     of the technical side? Can we involve any of the OSM organizations to
>     find, maybe pay, someone? Does the community even find it worthwhile
>     keeping the site?
> 
>     cheers,
> 
>     Tobias
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     _______________________________________________
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>     talk at openstreetmap.org <mailto:talk at openstreetmap.org>
>     https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
> 
> 
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> 


-- 
Tom Hughes (tom at compton.nu)
http://compton.nu/