Stack overflow is tying its innovative QA format to its subject matter in a way that results in both lost opportunities and dillution of their initial mission.
Instead of encouraging the qa format use in different subject areas by either segmenting the current website or creating a network of websites, they are insisting on this 'programmer-only' mindset which necessarily expands the amount of 'allowable' material to anything that could conceivably be thought of as a programming question, including 'programmer jokes' and what not.
A good idea would be to spawn different sections for application-related questions and maybe humour as well as anythng else they see as a viable section and then let the users decide which question goes where. That way you have both increased focus for each section and wider coverage.
To be fair, that team has tried to do this with tags. If you want to see a sub view, you can.
I think it's a typical programmer fallacy to look at the technology behind SO and say, "Hey, that could be used to answer anything, like plumbing related questions!". The only reason SO is successful is because of the community that it was incubated with. Much in the same way that this reddit is completely different from reddit.com, and why a lot of the subreddits never have any posts on them.
Instead of encouraging the qa format use in different subject areas by either segmenting the current website or creating a network of websites, they are insisting on this 'programmer-only' mindset which necessarily expands the amount of 'allowable' material to anything that could conceivably be thought of as a programming question, including 'programmer jokes' and what not.
A good idea would be to spawn different sections for application-related questions and maybe humour as well as anythng else they see as a viable section and then let the users decide which question goes where. That way you have both increased focus for each section and wider coverage.