Eric_Peterson

"...I mean, EE was actively making the Internet a worse place..."

How so? Besides Mr Atwood picking the only available target and hiding his own ignorance of EE's culture, systems and processes behind hyperbole that can charitably be described as Limbaughesque? I don't mind as long as people recognize it for what it is... but if you consider Mr Atwood's (or Mr Spolsky's, for that matter) characterizations as Gospel, then I have some beachfront property in Topeka, KS I'm willing to sell you.

Evil, in my view, is telling you that you're always going to get to use SO at no charge -- and knowing that it isn't true unless the people telling you that can keep convincing other rich people to give them money (in which case it isn't evil -- it's just a very well-played Ponzi scheme).

peeters,

"I'm not sure if you believe that or not... I have yield an EE result over SO."

Without knowing your username, I can't comment except to say that unlike SO, EE has built systems over the past couple of years -- at the community's insistence -- that allow us to take extraordinary measures to ensure you get responses and, hopefully, answers.

There's no question that today -- indeed, for nearly the last year -- SO's results have ranked higher than EE's. There are a number of possible reasons (and the true nature of why is probably a combination of them): 1. EE's decisions to worry more about SERP than about fixing the issues it had created with its site with the 2007 launch; in short, it was an idea that was founded in a total misunderstanding of the nature of volunteer Experts, people who ask questions, and the evolving nature of Q&A. By building the site it did, and then by trying to "fix" the problem that was created, you can make the case that everything EE did led to the establishment of SO (and any number of other Q&A sites) and -- given the nature of the relationship between SO's founders and Matt Cutts, even the Panda changes to Google's algorithm. 2. SO is free to use, and free trumps paid. Free is also a lot more difficult to pay the bills with (you can't make it up on the volume), but for the initial phase of developing traffic and SERPs, there's no question in my mind that Free will win every time. 3. EE's internal systems didn't really allow for it to quickly respond to an evolving landscape. The 2007 site was almost marketing-centric, and for at least two years, EE attempted to do things by using marketing-type solutions. They didn't work, because they addressed symptoms and not the underlying issues. Once EE realized what the problems really were, it was too late to go back, so it had to start from the ground up; it had to maintain its existing systems (and improve them incrementally) while at the same time rebuild the entire programming and data foundations... and allow for the migration from one system to the other with a minimum of disruption -- and given that EE is now nearly 15 years old, that was no mean feat by any stretch. Oh... and it had to do it on the fly, using only current revenues -- there's no sugar daddy bankrolling EE -- so the option of hiring 250 programmers and developers wasn't viable.

"I think this displays a fundamental difference in how you and I idealize technical research. You seem to follow the "RTFM" doctrine. I subscribe to the view that StackOverflow (and other community forums) is the f'ing manual."

I'm willing to accept that you believe SO is the effing manual. But what I consider EE to be is the place where you go when the effing manual isn't enough -- and in the 40 or so years I've been dealing with electronic data processing technology, I'm met exactly one English-speaking person who can actually "get" a technical manual or reference reading it the first time. That's not to denigrate the people at SO; in my experience, many are well-spoken, capable people who do their best to understand questions and offer solutions. But because of SO's systems, some user who may not be the most technically adept may or may not understand what s/he's being told -- and may or may not be able to formulate his/her question in a manner that can be relatively easily answered.

And THAT, to me, is the fundamental difference between EE and SO. EE's culture is such that any Expert worthy of the designation will try to understand the Asker's issues. It's not about the Experts; it's about finding the solution for the Asker. It's not about coming up with the perfectly written question and pristinely described solution; it's about helping someone who is faced with an issue s/he doesn't know how to resolve.

"If I haven't used Google or SO search within 5 minutes of hitting a library- or framework-related problem I've been wasting my time. I think it's unreasonable of you to call this laziness. To me it has proven very effective."

Apples and oranges. One of the most frequest complaints I see daily at EE is what we call "abandoners" -- people who ask, get the answer and don't even bother to say "thanks", and one of the most frequent complaints I see about SO is essentially the same thing. You don't fit that model. You search, as do most people who are EE members (including paying ones). You do not care to take the time to ask a question and get an answer (because, in your experience, it's inefficient); my experience is that it's inefficient to. But you're not the person I commented on. My comment was in reference to the person who drives by, asks a question, and doesn't say a word -- he just takes. He doesn't want to learn; he just wants it handed to him. And yes, that's lazy.

"Furthermore, if you want to disincentivise passers-by why is it so imperitive that your site be indexed by Google? After all, your community seems to know where to look already."

I may be passionate in my defense of Experts Exchange (they'll tell you I'm equally passionate in my criticism of them as well) -- but I'm not stupid. EE got brutalized by Google's algorithm update after brutalizing itself by some structural design decisions that were ... ummm ... let's call them "misguided". Like everyone else in the web world, with the possible exceptions of Facebook, Amazon, eBay and a few others, being visible in Google's index is important; it's where new customers come from.

I spent most of my life in a subscription-based business -- and what's true is that you lose customers every day, and you have to replace them, plus pick up a few more, just to stay even. When Panda was implemented, EE had been back where it had been prior to the 2007 launch in terms of traffic for a relatively short period of time; that means that what sustained EE for the better part of five years was solely its ability to perform for its existing customer base, because its SOURCE of new subscribers was reduced to a comparative trickle. If you ask me, that is a far more eloquent explanation of why EE is going to be around for the long haul than anything else: it works.

ep

No, it wasn't my decision; it was a series of decisions the other Admins and I adamantly opposed that were taken in the misguided belief that EE's problems were strictly SEO-related (with the 2007 launch), and that those problems could be mitigated by doing literally everything Google said to do without actually addressing the core problem. In 2009, the internal landscape at EE changed -- in large part because the Admins were exceedingly concerned about EE's future -- which led to a wholesale change in almost every aspect of the company internally and led to the recently completed rewrite of the entire site.

But since you're more interested in griping about news five years old, you don't care, won't look at the new Freemium model (another community contribution to EE), and will continue to parrot the kind of misinformation Mr Spolsky has made almost a career of promulgating.

ep

Senior Administrator at Experts Exchange, here.

A lot of the people who are involved in some way in Stack Overflow don't know s--t from apple butter about Experts Exchange.

"In that equation there's one person asking a question and one person writing an answer"

Citation needed. As others have noted, never let facts get in the way of a good sound bite -- or blog post. There's no evidence I've seen -- and I'm pretty sure I've spent more time looking at Experts Exchange than Mr Spolsky has -- that indicates this is remotely true, any more than it is at Stack Overflow.

"Stack Overflow recognizes that for every person who asks a question, 100 - 10,000 people will type that same question into Google and find an answer that has already been written."

Usually at Experts Exchange, if only because it's been around a lot longer than most others... and if only because it takes steps to ensure that people get THEIR question answered (as opposed to what someone with a "rep" thinks of the question).

"In our equation, we are a community of people writing answers that will be read by hundreds or thousands of people."

Citation needed. You have 204,851 questions, as of this writing, that don't have any answers, let alone ones worthy of being read by hundreds or thousands of people.

"Ours is a project more like wikipedia -- collaboratively creating a resource for the Internet at large."

Explains why you don't have anything other than advertising (that's what your job board is) and a few partnerships as a revenue model -- a model that failed in the last century. You're sure not going to ask the people who use your site to pay for it -- even though that's what Wikipedia does -- because then all the promises Mr Atwood made would be ... untruths.

"Because that resource is provided by the community, it belongs to the community."

Animal Farm was a community too. We'll see how much it belongs to the community when someone tries to take it away from you.

"That's why our data is freely available and licensed under creative commons. We did this specifically because of the negative experience we had with EE taking a community-generated resource and deciding to slap a paywall around it."

Straw man, but I'll grant that it was the perfect rallying cry. Experts Exchange disclaims any and all ownership of content (which is all the creative commons license deals with) -- and that has been consistent since 1996. But... EE is also honest. It expects people who receive a benefit of its service to pay for it, either by paying or by contributing. The guy passing by once a year to get a quick and dirty answer to a programming question he's too lazy to figure out on his own is not, by any definition, a member of a community; he's a tourist. If SO wants to consider itself the Disneyland of Q&A sites -- a fantasyland in which everything is perfect and good -- then so be it, but you'd better be a lot more diligent about who actually provides your content. Hint: your question-answerers aren't the whole equation.

There's no question EE made some amazingly stupid mistakes -- against the advice of people who have been around EE, the tech industry and subscription/advertising/membership businesses a lot longer than those making the decisions. In doing so, it opened the door for you and Mr Atwood to go FUD on it, and build yourself a lot of traffic, but not a business. But that also opened the door for EE to recognize the value of its community -- as opposed to the Del Webb-esque agglomeration you've assembled -- and include it into the planning and development of not just the site's features, but its agenda and planning for the future. And since it actually has a viable business model, it can do that.

"The attitude of many EE contributors, like Greg Young who calculates that he "worked" for half a year for free, is not shared by the 60,000 people who write answers on SO every month."

You're probably right. Then again, you're also taking what he said out of context. For the record (and for those too lazy to actually read Greg's post), he said

"Let’s do some quick math assuming 5 minutes per post thats 50,000 minutes of my time. Or roughly a half year full time weeks of work. I think the time is actually higher than that though."

I can promise that when Greg posted, he did so thoughtfully, while doing his best to help the people he was responding to. I can also guarantee that he learned a lot at EE; if nothing else, he learned how to write, and speak to groups, and take criticism of his efforts. He learned that he was valued for something other than his ability to write code. He learned that there were a lot of people he had never met concerned with his well-being in the days, weeks and months following Hurricane Katrina.

However, he was never compelled by anyone to do anything, and like most people who do volunteer work (there's that word again), it's usually a labor of love. You're welcome to make things up as you go along about EE-The-Company... but do not put words in the mouths of EE's members, and especially those who answer questions. You aren't worthy.

"We did this specifically because of the negative experience we had with EE taking a community-generated resource and deciding to slap a paywall around it."

Neither you nor your partner has any experience to speak of with Experts Exchange. At least I've posted a few times at SO. At least I've taken the time to figure out how your site works, as has the Managing Director at EE and at least two of the other site administrators. I won't call you a liar, Mr Spolsky... but I will say you're playing fast and loose with the truth when you say you have "experience with EE"... because you have NONE.

The emperor has no clothes, but Napoleon did.

http://beta.experts-exchange.com

It took us a while to convince EE to change its strategy, but with some help from a giant Panda, EE has been convinced to implement a "Freemium" model at the end of the month when it launches a completely rebuilt site.

Take a look...

Eric / Netminder Senior Admin Experts Exchange

FrejNorling,

Thanks for posting this. If you want to see what's coming, visit http://beta.experts-exchange.com for a sneak preview.

ep

New? EE started in 1996. If anyone's a copycat, it's SO, and they weren't even the first.

EE went the venture capital route in the last century, and did exactly what SO is doing now: burning through money trying to build eyeballs with no business plan other than taking venture capital money. It failed then, and it will fail now because the revenue stream doesn't support the increased costs.

EE tried the advertising model in the early 2000s: get lots of eyes, sell ads and pay the bills with that. It failed then, and it will fail now; only a few companies have sufficient traffic to be profitable (Google and Facebook lead the list, but everyone else needs some other revenue, or needs to share content (like the NYTimes does) to help offset costs.

The only business model that works AND SCALES is to charge for services rendered, like your cable company does. like your ISP does and like your plumber does.

Did EE implement it in the best possible way? Nope. Instead it followed Google's rules for SEO, and got punished for it because it was better at it than anyone else. So it's rebuilding itself: http://beta.experts-exchange.com . Did its members like it? Nope, but that didn't stop the company from doing it, and now they're listening to their members more because it turns out the members' warnings were right -- because they've been there before.

When SO starts putting all kinds of ads in your face and you start complaining like frightened banshees and nothing happens, you can cash in your reputation points and find another site that will have the same magic bullet SO does. When Quora starts tracking every little thing you do to "personalize the experience" just remember that its roots are in Facebook -- and the goal is to turn you into the product, because that's what advertising based sites do; they can't sell ads without it.

EE is honest. You're not the product; you're the customer, even if -- especially if -- you're the one answering questions.