I tried really hard to participate in and help seed the SE site, but I
really didn't have any "questions" in the way that SE would have liked, so
I never posted anything. I'm all for a library forum, though, and don't see
how it wouldn't do what the SE sites do while still allowing open
discussion. Couldn't we just do something simple like this SMF forum? This
would be easy to set up and go, and I feel like it fulfills most of the
things we were looking for in SE.

http://libforum.sanselephants.com/index.php

The only downside is the lack of ranking for replies, which I like about SE
but again really propagates the "question with one right answer" type of
discussion, which I don't think we have that often.


On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Becky Yoose <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Sorry for the late entry in the conversation (server fires. server
> fires everywhere)... just adding two cents in the thread: one cent
> technical, and the other on a higher level.
>
> The technical cent:
> I've set up an OSQA instance on my personal server for
> http://www.libcatcode.org and have had mixed results with the software
> itself. There is really no good way of stopping spam accounts from
> registering. Since I moved to a new server the spam accounts have
> lessened, but hasn't stopped totally.
>
> There's also the issue that OSQA is pretty much not well maintained
> anymore. The latest version on osqa.net is from 2011. However, there
> seems to be some blips of recent activity on the github repo at
> https://github.com/OSQA/osqa/commits/master.
>
> The cent on the higher level:
> Libcatcode was fairly narrow in its focus (cataloging/metadata folks
> and library-type programmers), and it was trying to ride on the
> enthusiasm that the Code Year push generated. So, when the initial
> enthusiasm died down a few months later, the site went dormant (I also
> had a pretty slow server to start with, so that probably didn't help
> at all either). A broader focus would help with a broader audience,
> but this broader audience brings a whole lot of mess. This is where
> listservs usually win over broad sites like LIS SE, since, going back
> an earlier example, asking a cataloging question in AUTOCAT guaranteed
> that other catalogers were going to see that question, instead of
> posting a cataloging question on SE where there might be little to no
> folks with cataloging knowledge there.
>
> As you've probably seen with Libcatcode, I've been pretty flexible on
> what was included in the traditional Q&A structure. I'm not sure if
> that type of site management would have worked in the long run, but
> for the brief run we had so far, it did fine. It was the rules
> lawyering at the LIS SE which drove me away from that site, so I tried
> not to have that happen at libcatcode.
>
> I've spent all my spare change for now. Feel free to pick my brain if
> needed.
>
> Thanks,
> Becky
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Becky Yoose
> Discovery and Integrated Systems Librarian
> Assistant Professor
> Grinnell College
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 1:46 PM, Galen Charlton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Matt Jones <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Have you considered putting up a Q&A site outside of the SE network,
> where
> >> you can control the set of policies employed better?
> >
> >
> > Indeed, that suggestion has been made, implicitly or explicitly, by
> several
> > participants in this thread, and I think that hosting our own instance of
> > OSQA (or the like) is probably necessary to get the cultural fit right.
> >
> > Assuming that there's enough interest such that somebody feels inspired
> to
> > set one up and host it, under the C4L aegis or not, one question I have
> is
> > whether it is better off being comprehensive (e.g., all the libraries,
> all
> > the archives, all the musuems, etc.) to have as large a pool as possible,
> > or whether having a bunch of more focused fora (e.g., the potential
> digital
> > preservation one mentioned by Trevor) is the way to go.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Galen
> > --
> > Galen Charlton
> > Manager of Implementation
> > Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
> > email:  [log in to unmask]
> > direct: +1 770-709-5581
> > cell:   +1 404-984-4366
> > skype:  gmcharlt
> > web:    http://www.esilibrary.com/
> > Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org &
> > http://evergreen-ils.org
>