User/Application Questions

Question

This is a statement-y Meta question.

When I initiated the Magento SE proposal I was contacted by Stack and warned that the proposal might get closed. This was due to the large number of Magento questions being serviced under StackOverflow.

One of the reasons why the Magento SE proposal was "allowed" to go forward by the Stack team was because I and we made a case for a place to allow more than just developer questions. Whereas Magento is both a framework and an application, and due to experts in the former often being able to help answer questions regarding the latter, the proposal moved forward. If Magento SE is to be a viable alternative to the now-defunct Magento forums, these user questions must have a welcome home here.

It's not entirely clear that Magento SE will be the ultimate Magento forum, but the above must be borne out to even entertain the notion.

Answer 1

I've noticed that considerable chunk of questions should receive "DON'T DO THAT!" as correct answer. Sometimes it's because it's bad practice, sometimes because it causes considerable overhead, but usually because there is already a similar functionality implemented to the platform. The problem is that developers quite often are not familiar with Magento features and because of that want to do everything in code.

I think that even more important than teaching newcomers how to code Magento is to teach people how to USE Magento instead.

PS. I've just finished fixing a store where I found that front page was hardcoded and product view was full of product specific code. People nowadays seem to be unable to understand what presentation layer is for. Can I kick somebody?

Answer 2

If they add something to the site then I am happy for the challenge!

There is room for none code based questions and to be honest often these questions will add more value than very specific coding questions.

Answer 3

Jawohl!

This type of questions were and are always welcomed and never closed.

Keep them coming.

Answer 4

I will admit, it does get tiresome seeing so many questions that require the user to have a certain level of competency in Magento in order for them to comprehend the answer. I don't mind putting in effort to provide a solid answer for someone that makes use of that answer, but it would bother me to know I put that effort in only to have the person not understand any of it.

Other times, questions assume a number of truths about prospective answerers. For example, this question - https://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/25527/order-proceed-error-dpd-module - The asker is assuming everyone just knows what a "DPD module" is. To the person capable of answering this question, it is only obvious that it is some sort of shipping module that is having trouble connecting with some webservice.

On top of that, the asker is assuming there is some definite answer that will send him on his way when in fact, someone may have to ask a number of diagnostic questions and/or perform their own research to provide an answer. What is the DPD module? What sort of configuration options are provided in the back end? Is this a known bug in an older version of the module? Has the offending webservice recently changed or been deprecated?

One question should not spawn 20 additional questions.

Answer 5

Ben, you're in a good position now to help this along, no offense. :)

If you can lobby to put the Magento forums in read-only mode and inject in an interstitial informing the users to ask new questions here, chances are you also get more people to answer and help questions along.

As for the comment by @pspahn, unless you guide people through a not too complex yet thorough form to ask a question, you will always get questions that need additional information. This is even more true for Magento as it has a user base with very different skill sets and backgrounds.

Answer 6

It's not entirely clear that Magento SE will be the ultimate Magento forum, but the above must be borne out to even entertain the notion.

A working Q&A site can not function as a forum.

And I think it's a very bad idea to think that it can fill the gap. As Magento is a community project on it's own, the Magento Community itself needs to have their own venues for day-to-day support just "asking" support. Magento is far a too big project with too many needs for it's users that this community could deal with the swamp that will be coming over you if you open up the gates.