Jeff’s Justice League

I want to introduce a few very good Q&A sites for web development and design today. Of course, within the programming community, these sites are already well known. But since there are more designers reading this blog, I figure they definitely need a mention, just in case.

From the About Page of Stackoverflow:

Stack Overflow is a programming Q & A site that’s free. Free to ask questions, free to answer questions, free to read, free to index, built with plain old HTML, no fake rot13 text on the home page, no scammy google-cloaking tactics, no salespeople, no JavaScript windows dropping down in front of the answer asking for $12.95 to go away. You can register if you want to collect karma and win valuable flair that will appear next to your name, but otherwise, it’s just free. And fast. Very, very fast.

We don’t run Stack Overflow. You do. Stack Overflow is collaboratively built and maintained by your fellow programmers. Once the system learns to trust you, you’ll be able to edit anything, much like Wikipedia. With your help, we can build good answers to every imaginable programming question together. No matter what programming language you use, or what operating system you call home — better programming is our goal.

• Stack Overflow – for all programming questions
• Server Fault – for server related questions
• Super User – any other computer related questions.

These sites are the labor of love by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky. Jeff, Jarrod Dixon and Geoff Dalgas did most of the programming work.

Stack Overflow launched a little over a year ago, now it’s getting close to one million pageviews daily and 87k registered users. The other two sites launched recently, both are gaining momentum in popularity. The success of Jeff’s sites definitely have to do with the solid fan base from both his blog and Joel’s. I worked with Jeff before he started his popular blog Coding Horror. I can think of some other factors why these sites are popular:

• Passion. If you ever meet Jeff in person, you’ll realize he genuinely loves programming, and all things techy. In fact, as I mentioned before, he had a huge influence on me to start my own blog. When you do what you love, work, either in a cubicle or the comfort of your own house becomes fun instead of obligation.
• The MMORPG factor. There are many other programming Q&A sites out there. I think one reason why Stack Overflow draws so much user involvement is how the “game mechanic” is set up. Users gain “reputation” points and badges as they provide more useful answers. This gives people a sense of accomplishment among their peers on the site. Also as more reputation points are earned, users can unlock new abilities on the site. This is very similar to how most MMORPGs are set up. When Jeff nerfed how the reputation points were calculated, the users threw a big fit. This reminded me of my own reaction when Blizzard nerfed my Shadow Priest… Such level of engagement is fun and it’s a win-win situation for both the answer seeker and the answerer. You’d be amazed how fast your questions get answered from all the rep thirsty people camping the front-page questions.
• Ease of use. I had the pleasure of working with Jeff on some minor front-end stuff for the sites. I was impressed that as a programmer, how keen he was about user experience. The SO family sites get a lot of returning users, doing repetitive things. The interface needs to be minimal and clean. In fact, the best interface for a site of this nature is one that’s barely noticeable in the long run. It’s what I call the “Bokeh effect.” This also helps new users to get used to the UI with ease. It’s always a treat when working with a programmer who has a taste for design.
• It just works. No amount of marketing and advertising can save a product that sucks. Stack Overflow is built for programmers, by programmers. The core of its success is because of its users’ contributions and Jeff and team’s constant improvement of the site. In fact, Jeff did very little promotion for the sites. Word of mouth is still the best marketing.

After completing the “Trilogy” sites, Jeff announced the new members of his “Justice League” of Q&A sites. I urge all designers give Doctype.com a try. It’s like Stack Overflow, but geared towards web designers. It runs on its own platform, but shares similarities with Stack Overflow.

The Stack Overflow engine will be available as hosted version soon, on stackexchange.com. It will definitely open up tons more helpful sites, not just limited to techies.