MATLAB Stack Exchange

What do people think of the MATLAB Stack Exchange proposal?

[Makrim]

interesting :)

[Hans Scharler]

Check out our MATLAB Communities page: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/content/communities.html

Answer 1

[Jan]

When I open your link, I see a page and do not get any idea of what I should or could click on. E.g.:

 How to read and save variable(s) from/to a file in MATLAB(/Octave)?

This is only a very general question. I assume an answer will be either too general to be helpful, or to long to be interesting. I'd understand what I should vote for, if the questions are combined with answers.

Of course an insider will know the purpose of this page. But without any explanations or instructions, I cannot identify the use of it and treat it as junk. In consequence I do not consider the commands "Follow it" and "Share This".

I'm in doubt that a proposal page with such a low usability level will result in a proper FAQ page.

I'm convinced that you, Daniel, have a different impression, because you have raised the question. I'm curious to understand if I had overseen or misunderstood something.

[Daniel Shub]

Stack exchange has a history of creating strong Q&A sites (e.g., stackoverflow and TeX SX). They have a relatively well defined system of creating new sites which is explained at Area 51. Basically sites go through a number of stages, the first being a proposal. The MATLAB site is currently in the proposal stage.

The purpose of the proposal stage is to define the topic, relevant questions and identify users interested in the topic. One of the hardest parts of defining the proposal is identifying questions. Instead of providing full questions, only the subject line is given. So, if you saw a question with the "subject" "How to read and save variable(s) from/to a file in MATLAB(/Octave)?", would you want to read the full question, answers and possibly provide an answer.

At this stage what is needed is people who are willing to follow the proposal (i.e., the follow link) and propose and vote for questions that sound like they would belong on a MATLAB Q&A site.

[Jan]

Thanks for this explanations, Daniel! I still find Area51 daunting and not open for newcomers. It is obvious that I do not belong to the group of experts they are talking of in the FAQ. Further details would be off-topic here.

Answer 2

[Hans Scharler]

There are a lot of MATLAB questions on Stack Overflow. Here's a link to different MATLAB Communities: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/content/communities.html