Is stackexchange really the right platform for meta?

Question

I'm inclined to think that it's not, given my experiences here and on MO. meta.MO is, rather surprisingly, pretty laid back. There is no voting on topics, and it gives us a place shielded from the competitiveness of votes and closure.

Contrast this with meta.math.SE. It's been said countless times by Jeff et. al. that stackexchange is not designed for discussions, and this is clear because discussions are not threaded, and the comment boxes are specifically designed so it's painful to have discussions in them. meta is, almost by definition a place created specifically to discuss site policy and the community. Why are we using stackexchange for one of the things it was specifically designed to suppress?

I propose that we create a forum using vanilla like MO and give it a shot instead of this meta.

Edit: Since the community has "spoken", so to speak, how do we take actions to get this implemented? There is absolutely no problem getting a vanilla test-forum up and running, the only issue is how to get a link to it up on the top of the page. If we want to have a fair test, there should be a link to this alternative meta up at the top.

I'm reasonably certain that I can convince Andrew Stacey to host it on the same server as the nForum (the forum attached to the nLab), but if the administrators would rather host it on their own servers, that would be fine too. The main issue is, as I said before, convincing the administrators to link it for us or create the forum themselves.

Answer 1

Based on our unqualified success (despite our initial trepidation) with Meta Stack Overflow, I now believe that our engine works very well for this. The community agrees.

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/18811/two-months-on-is-meta-working-as-a-replacement-to-uservoice

Joke aside, the Q&A also works for this site.

It's not ideal, especially for discussions, but it motivates them to be more concise and less aimless. You can't fall into a 10 page discussion that nobody wants to read from the beginning, because the only way to "chat" is through comments. The fact that this is limited actually helps people avoid slipping into useless and endless arguments in my opinion.

Also, you don't need to post "I agree with you". You can just vote to express the fact that you agree (or disagree).

Not perfectly, mind you, but it's more than sufficient for discussion and feedback -- and its very design tends to produce more focused, readable discussions.

After over a year, there are no credible, backed-by-evidence arguments being raised that Meta Stack Overflow is "not working".

(Note that voting here on meta does not affect reputation. That's by design, and documented in the meta FAQ.)

Answer 2

In certain cases, a threaded forum may be a better tool for meta discussions. But you still have the problem that forums tend to become noisier and noisier until the "signal" is lost in all the "noise." I suspect this community wouldn't have as much of that problem as other sites.

I prefer to think of meta site "debates" as a form of deliberative assembly:

• A question is posed;
• You weigh in with a carefully-thought-out response;
• Then a short comment session;
• Followed by voting.

Meta.math.SE doesn't work exactly like that but the goal is to get to a reasonable answer quickly without branching into different discussions.

The design of Meta.math.SE doesn't welcome (or even support) inter-answer debates. If a subject under discussion demands that type of interaction, I imagine the soon-to-released chat.math rooms will work nicely.

Many discussion benefit from open debate; Question… Answer… "What do you think of that?" Back and forth, many-to-many, until all facets are thoroughly explored to its natural conclusion. Then the key points — or even the final outcome — of the debate could be posted to meta for those that come after.