[billybob]

1) I don't think they're trying to model 'the complexity of human relationships.' That's what Facebook tries to do. The trust metrics are crude, but the real goal seems to be to get credible upvotes for answers.

I use SO all the time, have great success, and haven't made any friends there. Because that's not what it's for.

2) Maybe this model won't work for EnthusiasticCatBreeders.com, but it will probably work for a lot of sites. Maybe it will self-select for topics where the people interested are a bit nerdy.

That's OK. There is still a lot of room for nerdy growth. I can imagine sites about cell phones, economics, geomapping, and lots of other topics where the audience is a bit nerdy, there are right and wrong answers, and this will probably work.

[marbletiles]

Just to expand a bit -- when I talk about modelling the complexity of human relationships I don't mean making friends, I mean how they try to turn the complicated ways we have of judging and trusting other people into a number.

You can do that on eBay, because the metric is really simple -- "did this user deliver, or did they rip you off?" But when it comes to judging the value of technical advice, it's much muddier.

We have thousands of years of experience at these sorts of judgements though, and can size people up in the blink of an eye. It's much more difficult online, but we're learning -- and numbers aren't really a part of it. Certainly not the morass of numbers of StackOverflow.

[spolsky]

Still, when you look at how answers are ranked on Stack Overflow, it really seems to work. The top ranked answers really are the best... far more than on a traditional PHPBB type site.

[bmm6o]

I think most people here agree that SO is head-and-shoulders above its competition. I can point to specific things about it that I don't like, but in the end I come back and I appreciate the content. What I am curious to see (and I think this is roughly what bonaldi is talking about) is how well the SX software supports other less-technical communities.

My main concern is that SO had such a large and willing user community from day 1, that you could survive problems in converting visitors into active participants just through sheer numbers. For a nascent community, there are the karmic barriers to entry (e.g. I've been a casual SO user for over a year, and am still not able to fix someone else's spelling mistake!). Also, the question domain of SO lends itself to being able to ask a fairly concise question and getting a decent answer with a minimum of back-and-forth. This is important, because SX handles discussion so poorly (and I realize that's by design).

Anyway, I hope it works out for you - I do admire your goals and ambition. I just hope you keep an open mind about what the software needs to do to best serve the new communities, and adjust it accordingly.

[blasdel]

Applying your magic sort() encourages replies by users who want to play a game. That only works if those users exist and actually have useful contributions to make — both of those properties are much diminished outside the SO population.

You don't to rank answers unless you have unproductive bullshit in the replies. While programmers might love the karma stuff, everyone else prefers it if the bullshit was just not tolerated by the community and deleted by moderators.