[Deploying Sakai] Stack Exchange: a new way for Sakai to manage questions and answers

[Steve Swinsburg]

Hi all,

At the recent Apereo conference, the Sakai PMC agreed to trial the use of a
Stack Exchange site where we can keep QandA type material that often
appears on the mailing lists. A lot of useful questions and answers are
posted every day that benefit the wider community, but are lost in the
sheer amount of email traffic that the lists generate.

This would not replace the mailing lists. Rather it would be a source where
we can distil the most useful questions and answers, keep them up to date
and refer people to them when the same question arises down the track.

Yes, we could use Confluence. However the content on Confluence gets dated
quickly and can be hard to find. This would be a dedicated site for QandA.
We also get more public exposure - something which Sakai really needs.

You might be asking, 'what is a Stack Exchange site?' This is the software
that runs the popular Stack Overflow site which you may be familiar with.
There are dozens of other communities that have their own dedicated spaces,
built on the same software, which is what we are trying to achieve.

But there is a catch. To get a Stack Exchange site, the process is
rigorous. We need to meet a certain number of contributors and have a
certain number of quality questions before we even get to the next phase.

So to help with this effort we are trialling joining forces with uPortal,
CAS and Bedework (the other large Apereo projects) to create a central
space for all Apereo questions.

*WHAT YOU NEED TO DO*

1. We need you to signup to the Stack Exchange sites we have setup and
follow them. *There are two sites.* At the end of the trial we will see
which one has the most traction. There is a Sakai only one, and an Apereo
wide one.

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/70749/sakai
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/71959/apereo-projects

2. You get 5 votes per site. Vote up the questions you like to at least 10.
We need to get 40 questions with a +10 vote. Going higher than 10 is ok but
means we need more questions to fulfill this quota, so stick to 10.

3. Post your own questions. You get 5 per site. You might have posted
something to the list recently or have seen a great question. Copy and
paste it. Note that at this time you do not need to answer any questions.
That comes at a later stage.

4. Do the same on the other site. Use up all of your votes and your
questions!

Your assistance here is very much appreciated. This should only take around
10 minutes to do, so we hope you will find the time to help us out! If you
can do this before the end of July, that would be tops.

regards,
Steve
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