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Stackoverflow rolls out "Chat with an expert"

78 points by aSig 13y ago

pbiggar 13y ago
Oh FFS! This looked like a great product that seemed a natural monetization of their platform, that I would actually use and pay for. But its a fucking april fools joke connected to an eliza bot. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470437
- wting 13y ago
  Flask started out as an April Fool's joke that eventually became a real product, there's no reason why the same can't happen with this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flask_(programming)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flask_(programming)#History
Zolomon 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day
- est 13y ago
  The S.O. experts always responds: Your question is off-topic and will be closed.
hsmyers 13y ago
More properly, towards the bottom, it should say "You must log in to LOOK at this question"...
wilhelm 13y ago
Disregarding the current date, this is actually a great idea. Instant gratification for a fee. Yes, I'd pay for that. They could recruit their experts from the community itself, limited to those over a certain karma threshold, adding further incentive to participate.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  Sounds like what Quora is/was doing with their currency system (are they still doing this?)
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  I'd definitely find it useful, and would pay for it. The trick is figuring out how to recruit/pay the "experts" who would need to be fairly high-value people but who would nevertheless have to make themselves available on a moment's notice. And it had better not be implemented as one of those stupid unsolicited pop-up chat windows.
- gav 13y ago
  The question I always have is: is a high karma a meaningful measurement of somebody's abilities?
  - wilhelm 13y ago
    No, but it is a meaningful measurement of participation.
    - frou_dh 13y ago
      ...and in a lot of cases, account age. I haven't participated in Stack Overflow for years, but there's still a steady trickle of points accumulating from my mediocre questions and answers of old.
      - matchu 13y ago
        I still visit the site regularly just to see how many new rep points I've gotten from old answers. What is my life?
  - Mahn 13y ago
    Nope. On SO at least there are lots of folks who amassed hundreds of thousands of reputation merely for being on the site early enough to be able to answer simple and common questions like "how I can remove an array member" and the like.
guiomie 13y ago
This product would make Jon Skeet millionnaire.
darkxanthos 13y ago
This would make a great feature but as an April Fool's joke it seems to fall a bit flat. On that link a couple users are being upset by it. Maybe don't April Fool's your users with terrible service?
fidz 13y ago
Could i have my own robot in my own favor without setting up high performance server?
greggman 13y ago
If it means people posting their random code and asking others to debug it disappears from stackoverflow I'm all for it. While their at it it would be nice if questions marked as duplicate were either deleted or at least had a pointer to the duplicate
- mediumdeviation 13y ago
  Uh, duplicates always have the question that they are a duplicate of linked - http://i.imgur.com/1lata16.png http://i.imgur.com/1lata16.png. In fact, if you don't see this it's probably a bug and you should report it http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/ask?tags=bug http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/ask?tags=bug
simonsarris 13y ago
How funny: Just yesterday my friend (whom I met on StackOverflow months ago) mentioned that someone in the JavaScript chat channel was asking about some canvas tutorial, one that I just so happened to write. He summoned me so that the questioner could in fact, chat with an expert. (Or at least the author.) The (none-too-interesting) transcript as proof: http://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/8574110#8574110 http://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/8574110#857... Unfortunately the question wasn't particularly interesting and concerned an old tutorial. But I love SO because it really does let you chat with experts (Skeet being the most obvious), if not always in real time.
Selfcommit 13y ago
This seems relevant, http://adviza.stackexchange.com/transcript/3H7fYEZJI0KJ http://adviza.stackexchange.com/transcript/3H7fYEZJI0KJ

78 points by aSig 13y ago

Oh FFS! This looked like a great product that seemed a natural monetization of their platform, that I would actually use and pay for. But its a fucking april fools joke connected to an eliza bot. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470437

wting 13y ago
Flask started out as an April Fool's joke that eventually became a real product, there's no reason why the same can't happen with this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flask_(programming)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flask_(programming)#History

Zolomon 13y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day

est 13y ago
The S.O. experts always responds: Your question is off-topic and will be closed.

hsmyers 13y ago

More properly, towards the bottom, it should say "You must log in to LOOK at this question"...

wilhelm 13y ago

Disregarding the current date, this is actually a great idea. Instant gratification for a fee. Yes, I'd pay for that. They could recruit their experts from the community itself, limited to those over a certain karma threshold, adding further incentive to participate.

hkmurakami 13y ago
Sounds like what Quora is/was doing with their currency system (are they still doing this?)
CamperBob2 13y ago
I'd definitely find it useful, and would pay for it. The trick is figuring out how to recruit/pay the "experts" who would need to be fairly high-value people but who would nevertheless have to make themselves available on a moment's notice. And it had better not be implemented as one of those stupid unsolicited pop-up chat windows.
gav 13y ago
The question I always have is: is a high karma a meaningful measurement of somebody's abilities?
- wilhelm 13y ago
  No, but it is a meaningful measurement of participation.
  - frou_dh 13y ago
    ...and in a lot of cases, account age. I haven't participated in Stack Overflow for years, but there's still a steady trickle of points accumulating from my mediocre questions and answers of old.
    - matchu 13y ago
      I still visit the site regularly just to see how many new rep points I've gotten from old answers. What is my life?
- Mahn 13y ago
  Nope. On SO at least there are lots of folks who amassed hundreds of thousands of reputation merely for being on the site early enough to be able to answer simple and common questions like "how I can remove an array member" and the like.

guiomie 13y ago

This product would make Jon Skeet millionnaire.

darkxanthos 13y ago

This would make a great feature but as an April Fool's joke it seems to fall a bit flat. On that link a couple users are being upset by it. Maybe don't April Fool's your users with terrible service?

fidz 13y ago

Could i have my own robot in my own favor without setting up high performance server?

greggman 13y ago

If it means people posting their random code and asking others to debug it disappears from stackoverflow I'm all for it. While their at it it would be nice if questions marked as duplicate were either deleted or at least had a pointer to the duplicate

mediumdeviation 13y ago
Uh, duplicates always have the question that they are a duplicate of linked - http://i.imgur.com/1lata16.png http://i.imgur.com/1lata16.png. In fact, if you don't see this it's probably a bug and you should report it http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/ask?tags=bug http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/ask?tags=bug

simonsarris 13y ago

How funny: Just yesterday my friend (whom I met on StackOverflow months ago) mentioned that someone in the JavaScript chat channel was asking about some canvas tutorial, one that I just so happened to write. He summoned me so that the questioner could in fact, chat with an expert. (Or at least the author.) The (none-too-interesting) transcript as proof: http://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/8574110#8574110 http://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/8574110#857... Unfortunately the question wasn't particularly interesting and concerned an old tutorial. But I love SO because it really does let you chat with experts (Skeet being the most obvious), if not always in real time.

Selfcommit 13y ago

This seems relevant, http://adviza.stackexchange.com/transcript/3H7fYEZJI0KJ http://adviza.stackexchange.com/transcript/3H7fYEZJI0KJ