Ideas to build a federated StackExchange alternative ( ioc.exchange )

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15471632

Codeberg was asking about this. The linked toot by a commenter points to :

SEqlite

These are CC-BY-SA 4.0 remixes of the Stack Exchange Creative Commons Data Dumps. 100% Unendorsed by Stack Exchange, Inc.

They are minimal. They provide the data you probably care about and the data you need to comply with the original license in SQLite format.

fruitycoder ,

There is a Foss alt already https://www.codidact.com/

Maybe just supporting federation feature for it?

Tiuku ,
@Tiuku@sopuli.xyz avatar

I would prefer this. And even without federation it's a very good Stack Whatever replacement already.

lambalicious ,

People who are looking to start a SE alternative but start with the idea of importing the original SE data dumps are already Doing It Wrong. Much of the issue that has led to the desire to fork SE comes due to the license of the posts and content, which lacks the NC (NonCommercial) component of Creative Commons. Without that component, any attempt to make a Fediverse alternative just ends up in Yet Another Endpoint that can be freely siphoned for data by corporations, for AIs, etc.

fruitycoder ,

Or used by people in any commercial product. Is there really enough people to justify a info exchange of just hobby projects?

lambalicious ,

See here's the thing: Creative Commons is not an exclusionary license. If I want to make commercial use of something that has a CC-NC license, I explicitly can ask the author for a secondary license limited to the usage and scope that I need. The important thing here is that the author still retains control, as well as a data point of who is profiting from their stuff and how.

fruitycoder ,

So if someone wanted to use this for work they would have to have an issue, find an answer, contact a person, and hope they can use the thing they just found to their problem?

Like, who wants that?

Heck I don't want every person on here who found something I said useful to be hounding me about using my code either.

lambalicious ,

Like, who wants that?

Have you literally missed out on the fact that the protest is happening? The protest is certainly not because SO answers are bad.

Miaou ,

They have already access to SO's CC content, why would they get it from the fediverse?

lambalicious ,

They already have it.

I said alternative to SO. As in, likely, a place to post new content (answers, comments). Nothing can really be done with the content OAI already got their hands on other than firing off a few well-placed EMP bombs.

Miaou ,

Yes, but you mentioned importing old content is problematic, and I don't see why?

lambalicious ,

Because to import old content, you have to respect the old license (or get every contributor of back-then to relicense). That would mean having a site with contents under differing licenses depending on date, which is something the corpos can use as an excuse to continue siphoning everything without consequence.

I'm fine with a mirror / archive of SO. But it shoudl very definitively be a different thing than an active SO alternative, and their users and data storages should be also different.

MrSoup ,
@MrSoup@lemmy.zip avatar

Would creating a Lemmy instance with that content be enough? Doing so the already enough large Lemmy community could already interact with it.

lemmyreader OP ,

👍 Interesting idea.

Excrubulent ,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

I think it would make sense to have a specialised forum for it. The question & answer format requires data that Lemmy just isn't able to fully replicate as it is.

Also the community editable nature of stack exchange is really unique and more like a wiki than a standard forum/branching discussion threads, where we're presumed to have sole ownership of all of our posts.

MrSoup ,
@MrSoup@lemmy.zip avatar

The question & answer format requires data that Lemmy just isn't able to fully replicate as it is.

Other than marking the correct answer and having user score/badges, there is anything else?

Also the community editable nature

You're right, I just forgot that people can edit your questions and answers.

frezik ,

Presentation matters. Replies to posts about minor items aren't displayed as prominently. This means the important answers are large and in charge, while debates about the merits of Rust in this situation are pushed away.

dameoutlaw ,
@dameoutlaw@lemmy.ml avatar

Seems like it would be good to request Discourse and NodeBB to offer similar features

xnx ,
@xnx@slrpnk.net avatar

Wait what i didnt know about any community editable aspect, can you share some examples?

Excrubulent ,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

Basically any member is allowed to edit anyone else's question or answer. The changes may go up before or after review by mods depending on the member's trust level. I've had my questions changed before. It can be kind of annoying but I understand they're doing it to maintain some level of quality.

xnx ,
@xnx@slrpnk.net avatar

Is that the only difference? That feature doesn’t seem great tbh. I’d love a wiki on lemmy though especially one that integrated to the point you can one click add a question + answer directly to the communities wiki

Excrubulent ,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

No, there are a number of differences. There's questions & answers under which there are comments, and a bunch of other functionality. It's so different to a standard threaded forum that you may as well build a new system from scratch. I honestly think it would be less work than trying to shoehorn lemmy into this role, and have another fediverse ecosystem built around it.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • [email protected]
  • tech
  • kbinEarth
  • testing
  • interstellar
  • wanderlust
  • All magazines
    •