Silex, in or out

Question

I am lead developer of Silex, a community free and open source website builder, which integrates well in adobe suite. It targets designers (print mostly) to let them create website with zero code. It is a ~10 years old project.

Following a discussion with several people on the chat (The Ink Spot) and another discussion on MetaStackoverflow, my team and me were thinking about redirecting our community Q&A here. And the talking and support would stay on the social networks and our old forums.

So before making it official, I started a first Q&A here, Silex bug report, how to. The answers have truly offended me. Maybe the subject was not well chosen for a start, or maybe I do not understand the expected question on the SE network (and believe me, I tried).

I do not want to troll or start something virulent, so please be moderate and comprehensive here. It is not a problem if we can not come and join your community here, really. But I would be sad if designers are ok with adobe's products related questions, and reject our free and positive initiative. Because our software, and Silex Labs non profit org. is all about opening free software to other people than the casual geek.

So I guess the question is simply: should we stay or should we go? And if we stay, what questions are welcome? (please note that I have read the "What types of questions should I avoid asking?")

Answer 1

I was one of the people present in the chat conversation. We talked a little about Silex, and you wondered if we could have a Silex tag. The tag was created, and the question edited to add it. I don't remember a conversation about moving the community to GD.SE, if I was there I might have misunderstood. In any case, a community would be great, I think it's the particular question that's a bit 'problematic'.

As Matt and Scott have mentioned, it's not the tag itself, or even the fact that it's software 'related', as we have a lot of Adobe ones. The thing is, I think, that the question would be considered off-topic according to our rules even if it were about any other program. "How do I report bugs to Photoshop?" is design-related, yes, but it's not part of our scope.

Questions about how to create things in Silex would be on-topic, and having a Silex community creating content around it would be a very positive thing. So we are not dis-encouraging the software or the subject, we are just saying that particular question doesn't fit on our scope.

Now, scope has changed quite a bit since we started our Beta, so it's perfectly valid to start a new discussion on this subject. Why do you think g GD.SE would be a good place for this? Do you think tech support questions should be on-topic? GD.SE is a community-driven site, if you feel your question should be part of the scope, then I suggest you open the discussion more, so it's not about this particular program, but any future similar cases.

Answer 2

As psubsee2003 answered in your other meta thread, emphasis mine:

That's completely up to you but you still have to be on-topic. You can't just create a tag, say "go ask questions here", and expect the SE community to accept those questions. Questions that are off-topic or don't otherwise fit within the asking guidelines of that site are going to be downvoted, closed, and you are going to have some upset users.

Did you honestly think telling people how to file a bug report was design related? honestly?

If you also view that other thread there was discussion about the tag which was essentially ignored.

SE sites are not designed to be software support forums, nor advertising venues for software. While it is true we get a great deal of Adobe related software questions, they generally are related to how projects can be completed. I've seen no such content from your project. Adobe related questions about troubleshooting software performance are off-topic and closed as such. So your example of Adobe questions falls flat.

You need to actually read psubsee2003's answer to the previous question. There are some clear answers in the links to additional questions he/she posted. Specifically, Is it okay to use Stack Overflow as the support forum for a product or project?

Just my opinion, but it would appear that you are continually asking until you get the answers you want when this has been clearly answered before. You weren't thrilled with the meta answer so you picked a site.. narrowed focus and attempted to get things through on a more site-specific basis. But all the rules still apply.

Answer 3

Plus a little more into what Scott said. GD is a design and artistic based board that supports artistic questions with the hopes it will help some in the future. That said, you posted a bug report how to (Silex bug report, how to) how does a bug report how to fall under a design related question? We do not allow technical questions. We have no problem with you posting design related questions but you must follow the guidelines so I would suggest you read the Help Center.

Also some great point to the previous quection:

Well, it's a question and answer site. If your users have concrete programming questions, SO is great. If they want to have extended discussions about the framework, it's not (and they're likely to leave frustrated after having questions closed and downvoted)

from Wooble

Just an idea: why not having a "silex.stackexchange.com" dedicated to the project community? If all the Q&A goes from the forum to SO it could be worth having your own.

from NorTicUs

So to purpose a Silex board you go to Create a board on Area51.