Humans aren't APIs. If observing Stack and a whole heap of other sites (even apps and gadgets) have ever taught me anything, it's that your creation is what your users take it to be. Not what you originally intended.
I mean sure, the "nudge" method works by locking, deleting even outright banning, but in the end, people will do what comes naturally. It's like trying to make water flow upwards on a waterfall. The natural direction of interraction is toward discussion, not just question-in-answer-out.
No, what I meant was that University of Reddit is not an alternative to StackExchange. University of Reddit is for learning new skills, kind of like Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, or a real University. StackExchange sites are for solving problems, I very much doubt they will ever become anything like that regardless of natural evolution. I have seen plenty of interesting discussions closed on StackExchange and whether or not that's a good thing is besides the point. The fundamental purpose of the two services is not comparable.
It's called the StackExchange Network by the way, not Stack.
> I mean sure, the "nudge" method works by locking, deleting even outright banning, but in the end, people will do what comes naturally.
Alternatively, you can just give people a place to do what comes naturally, so that it doesn't clutter their "productive effort." Talk pages on wikis, for example.
That's true. And I guess that's what "Meta" was supposed to be, but there's still a lot of the same handicaps applied there and "polling" questions (whatever that means today vs. tomorrow) get voted down to obvlivion. E.G : http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/138411/why-are-const...
So even in a place that's talk "of" the place still isn't safe to talk of.
I think the problem there, is that meta.stackoverflow is still considered by the StackOverflow guys to be an instance of type QuestionAnswerSite. Which means that it's a place to ask objective questions about StackOverflow, not really a place to "talk about things."
What they really need is forum.stackoverflow.com. Or, more likely, given the leadership, discourse.stackoverflow.com.
I mean sure, the "nudge" method works by locking, deleting even outright banning, but in the end, people will do what comes naturally. It's like trying to make water flow upwards on a waterfall. The natural direction of interraction is toward discussion, not just question-in-answer-out.