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I'd also like to point out that Stack Overflow's database is available to the public under the creative commons license. Quora's database is not.

by kqueue 16y ago

gojomo 16y ago
Quora's terms ostensibly do allow republishing, but not by any standard license, and with a number of custom conditions, such as: • not if the original contributor ticked 'not for reproduction' • no modifications • pledge to remove an author's name, or update or delete content to match Quora, upon receiving a request I can understand what motivates such conditions; I recall writing similar ones into a homemade license a decade ago. But they do prevent the easy and wide reuse a standard/CC license allows. (Quora also has this perplexing statement: "[C]rawling the Service is permissible in accordance with these Terms, but scraping the Service without the prior consent of Quora except as permitted by these Terms is expressly prohibited." In common parlance, 'crawling' and 'scraping' overlap so much as to be nearly synonyms. So this statement makes these terms, like many others on the net, seem engineered to be vague enough that Quora can object to anything they don't like after-the-fact.)
ergo98 16y ago
SO made available a CC'd database during a period when many -- including many on here -- were arguing that there should be an open-source, wikipedia-like alternative, coupled with a lot of nonsensical "I could make that on a weekend" claims. That movement disappeared once SO started making the DB available for download.
- spolsky 16y ago
  Historically untrue. Stack Overflow promised that its data would belong to the users from the very beginning. The data was created by its users and belongs to its users. We saw what happens when a commercial entity starts to try charging for content generated by its users (mostly experts-exchange, but also imdb and cddb) and wanted to ensure that could never happen. Our creative commons data dump is a promise to the community that the content they've created can never be locked behind a paywall.
  - ergo98 16y ago
    Historically untrue. What's untrue about it? While SO had a CC policy since the early days, the actual CC database, which was the subject of my post, was made available well over a year later, coinciding with a outpouring of foolish developers claiming that they could recreate the site on the weekend. I recall the timing simply because it was interesting seeing how that momentum disappeared.

I'd also like to point out that Stack Overflow's database is available to the public under the creative commons license. Quora's database is not.

by kqueue 16y ago

I'd also like to point out that Stack Overflow's database is available to the public under the creative commons license. Quora's database is not.

gojomo 16y ago

Quora's terms ostensibly do allow republishing, but not by any standard license, and with a number of custom conditions, such as: • not if the original contributor ticked 'not for reproduction' • no modifications • pledge to remove an author's name, or update or delete content to match Quora, upon receiving a request I can understand what motivates such conditions; I recall writing similar ones into a homemade license a decade ago. But they do prevent the easy and wide reuse a standard/CC license allows. (Quora also has this perplexing statement: "[C]rawling the Service is permissible in accordance with these Terms, but scraping the Service without the prior consent of Quora except as permitted by these Terms is expressly prohibited." In common parlance, 'crawling' and 'scraping' overlap so much as to be nearly synonyms. So this statement makes these terms, like many others on the net, seem engineered to be vague enough that Quora can object to anything they don't like after-the-fact.)

ergo98 16y ago

SO made available a CC'd database during a period when many -- including many on here -- were arguing that there should be an open-source, wikipedia-like alternative, coupled with a lot of nonsensical "I could make that on a weekend" claims. That movement disappeared once SO started making the DB available for download.

spolsky 16y ago
Historically untrue. Stack Overflow promised that its data would belong to the users from the very beginning. The data was created by its users and belongs to its users. We saw what happens when a commercial entity starts to try charging for content generated by its users (mostly experts-exchange, but also imdb and cddb) and wanted to ensure that could never happen. Our creative commons data dump is a promise to the community that the content they've created can never be locked behind a paywall.
- ergo98 16y ago
  Historically untrue. What's untrue about it? While SO had a CC policy since the early days, the actual CC database, which was the subject of my post, was made available well over a year later, coinciding with a outpouring of foolish developers claiming that they could recreate the site on the weekend. I recall the timing simply because it was interesting seeing how that momentum disappeared.