[ resolved - won't do] ESP32 on Stack Overflow

[edmund-huber]

TLDR: please help put "ESP32" on Stack Overflow by going here and adding (and answering) common questions.

I proposed an ESP32 site for Stack Overflow, which I think would help condense a lot of the knowledge (especially common questions like - "how to use light sleep?", "how much available RAM?") that is spread out between GitHub issues and ESP32.com forum posts. It's evident that people find these simple answers hard to find, because they keep asking the same questions! (Myself included.)

I think using Stack Overflow for this would be smart. It doesn't supplant the forum or GitHub issues, but it would (in time) reduce the burden of repetitive topics / questions. An individual Stack Overflow answer also has the advantage that it can be updated to reflect the best answer, if things change in the future, rather than becoming forgotten and stale.

If you're not familiar (I wasn't) "area51.stackexchange.com" is where new Stack Exchange sites are proposed, and either become full sites after they prove to be useful, or die out of inactivity. The link to the proposed ESP32 site is: https://area51.stackexchange.com/propos ... 6dsqoBONg2.

The way this works is that in order to become a full and supported Stack Overflow site, we have to show that we would use the site. Right now the site proposal is in the "definition" phase. This is where we decide what the "ESP32" topic means, by posting 40 questions representative of what "ESP32" is about. I propose that we stick mostly to the software side of things, but of course it's really up to all of you to decide that, by posting questions.

I am especially hoping to get some contributors to ESP-IDF and even Espressif employees to help out.

After the "definition" phase, there is "commit" and "beta". We will worry about those when we get there, but it basically boils down to having enough people be interested, and having enough questions be answered.

I really hope we can get this going, please help by adding questions. Thank you for reading.

[kolban]

Howdy Edmund,
I'm not at all sure there is a need for this yet. Looking at the ESP8266 forum found here:

http://www.esp8266.com/

It has tens of thousands of posts but yet there hasn't been the need for a Stack Overflow style forum.

While I too am very much a fan of the Stack Overflow Q&A style and the new modern forum styles (Discourse - https://www.discourse.org/ for example). I don't think a dilution of expertise to the Stack Overflow framework is where I would want to go.

If there are features of this web site and forum software that we either dislike or would like to see replaced with an alternate, I think that could be cogently discussed. Obviously this forum works (by virtue of the fact that I read your own post) so I think we need to think about what features beyond the basics are being requested. The common ones I hear about would be:

* Better searching
* Suggested answers based on the question entered so far
* Tagging
* Socialization (thumbs up)
* Gameification (points, badges, ranking)

However, all of these pale against the core function ... "I have a question, do you have an answer?" ... and that seems to be accommodated ... from my perspective, all else is gravy.

[madscientist_42]

However, all of these pale against the core function ... "I have a question, do you have an answer?" ... and that seems to be accommodated ... from my perspective, all else is gravy.

Seconded. Right now, we're doing good. Could be "better", but it's debatable as to what that is. And while probably ought to eventually have that discussion, the problem is...the IDF isn't even fully gelled yet. I can't QUITE do my little pet project I really want to do with it yet.

[edmund-huber]

Well, I couldn't disagree more with either of you. I must see the "how to put stuff const stuff in Flash?" question every time I reload the forum.

Nonetheless, the StackOverflow admins decided that since "IoT" already exists, you can't also have "esp32". They have made the decision for us and don't seem open to discussing it.

[kolban]

OOOh ... great news that there is an IoT Stack Exchange. It too seems to be beta ... see:

https://iot.stackexchange.com/