\n\n(\u003Cem>\u003Ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seersucker#/media/File:Seersucker01.jpg\">image via wikipedia\u003C/a>\u003C/em>)\n\nWe've got two exciting things to talk about. First up: \u003Cstrong>Stack Overflow has 10 MILLION QUESTIONS!\u003C/strong> We made \u003Ca href=\"http://stackoverflow.com/10m\">a web page\u003C/a> to celebrate, because that's what geeky web companies do. If you're too lazy click on that link don't worry because Jay eventually just starts describing the page to you. (Predictably, the conversation quickly devolves from celebration to discussion of how we can actually measure activity and helpfulness. Views? Sessions? Answers?) To celebrate, we asked folks to share their Stack Overflow stories \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SOreadytohelp\">on Twitter with #SOreadytohelp\u003C/a>. Tons of people have shared so far (which may have something to do with the fact that you could win a t-shirt).\n\nSome of Jay's favorite selections:\n\n\u003Cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">StackOverflow is the definition of all what's noble about this field: knowledge, sharing, rigor and dorky jokes. \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/SOreadytohelp?src=hash\">#SOreadytohelp\u003C/a>\u003C/p>\n-- Ahmed (@halflings) \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/halflings/status/634481409349013505\">August 20, 2015\u003C/a>\u003C/blockquote>\n\n\u003Cscript async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\">\u003C/script>\n\n(The dorkier, the better.)\n\n\u003Cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/stackoverflow?src=hash\">#stackoverflow\u003C/a> in Nairobi helped me skip condescending librarians,unreliable Internet to stream tuts,limited dev community \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/SOreadytohelp?src=hash\">#SOreadytohelp\u003C/a>.\u003C/p>\n-- Geoffrey Cimani (@asgardjotunheim) \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/asgardjotunheim/status/634433014081191936\">August 20, 2015\u003C/a>\u003C/blockquote>\n\n\u003Cscript async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\">\u003C/script>\n\n(Take \u003Cem>that\u003C/em>, librarians.)\n\n\u003Cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n\u003Cp dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/SOreadytohelp?src=hash\">#SOreadytohelp\u003C/a>\nOf all the \"world changing startups\" I think SO secretly is the most impactful one in the world.\n\u003Ca href=\"http://t.co/rXSuON6Vsq\">http://t.co/rXSuON6Vsq\u003C/a>\u003C/p>\n-- Goktug Yilmaz (@Esqarrouth) \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Esqarrouth/status/634477715320631296\">August 20, 2015\u003C/a>\u003C/blockquote>\n\n\u003Cscript async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\">\u003C/script>\n\n(Oh no! Our secret's out!)\n\nOkay, enough of that boring celebratory stuff. Our next topic is so big and exciting that I think it warrants a horizontal rule:\n\n\u003Chr />\n\nWelcome to life \u003Cem>below the fold\u003C/em>.\n\nSo! It's time to talk about what Stack Overflow could do next. It was just about a year ago that we thought to ourselves: \"we need more things besides questions and answers!\" At least that's how Joel remembers it. To make a long story short, we're talking about a possible new content type: \u003Cstrong>Documentation\u003C/strong>. If you haven't read \u003Ca href=\"http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/303865/865899\">the meta post\u003C/a> yet, you might want to skim it while you listen to this part. (I'll wait right here.)\n\nDone skimming? Welcome back. We're still talking about documentation. As it currently stands all around the internet, documentation is frequently:\n\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>Poorly written or included as an afterthought\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Out of date\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Incomplete\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>Lacking in clear examples\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\nWe're thinking the Stack Overflow community can help improve the situation the way it did with Q&A, and we think that's the next thing we can do to serve developers. Here's what it \u003Cem>could\u003C/em> look like:\n\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/M0bqw.png\" alt=\"i believe the docs are our future\" />\n(\u003Cem>image via \u003Ca href=\"http://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/303865/865899\">kevin's meta post\u003C/a>, seriously, go read it\u003C/em>)\n\nDocumentation is a really early-stage project, which is why we went to the community for feedback. We're still figuring out what level the docs will be at (but we already know there will be NO \u003Ccode>toString()\u003C/code> DOCS ALLOWED).\n\nAlso, the Power Glove used to be a thing:\n\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/uAhTh.jpg\" alt=\"who knows why we're talking about this\" />\n\n(\u003Cem>\u003Ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Glove\">image via wikipedia\u003C/a>\u003C/em>)\n\nAfter a bunch of discussion, David has determined that we're about halfway through the Documentation project: we're 6-8 weeks in, and \u003Ca href=\"http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/19514/165581\">we've got 6-8 weeks to go\u003C/a>. Perfect!\n\nQuestions from the audience:\n\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>\u003Ca href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/23817346#23817346\">Is SO inadvertently going to make projects stop writing their own docs?\u003C/a> Maybe, but we doubt it. Other Q&A sites and forums still exist elsewhere on the internet, and documentation will too.\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>\u003Ca href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/23817350#23817350\">How \u003Cspan style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">did you\u003C/span> do you plan to solve the issue of distributing reputation for a collaboratively edited page of documentation?\u003C/a> The short answer is we aren't sure yet, and we have to observe how people actually use docs in the private beta. One thing we've kind of decided is that we don't think it makes sense to take rep away from you when someone else adds to something you wrote. (If you want to help solve this problem, \u003Ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13ynCK-DEy0osod8VIENajnbFJNZxXm1jyeupBrl5v44/viewform\">sign up for the beta\u003C/a>!)\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>(paraphrased) \u003Ca href=\"http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/23817342#23817342\">Why are you working on a Stack Overflow-specific new content type instead of something more applicable network-wide?\u003C/a> The short answer is that it's really hard to solve problems or develop tools for hundreds of diverse needs, and you'll probably be bad at most of them if you try. If we'd set out to solve Q&A for the internet at large (instead of just programming) we wouldn't have ended up with Stack Overflow and it probably would have been worse for everyone. But something like documentation could be useful for a lot of sites, once we figure out how it will work for developers. Also, we have to very aggressively constrain so we can iterate as quickly as humanly possible.\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\nJay wants to talk about some other stuff, so here's another horizontal rule so nobody gets confused.\n\n\u003Chr />\n\nWe haven't talked about new sites in a while, so here's a very brief rundown:\n\n\u003Cul>\n\u003Cli>We have a \u003Ca href=\"http://law.stackexchange.com\">Law\u003C/a> site now\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>We have an \u003Ca href=\"http://opensource.stackexchange.com\">Open Source\u003C/a> site, which deals with open source software and also other things that are not software\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>We have a \u003Ca href=\"http://portuguese.stackexchange.com\">Portuguese Language\u003C/a> site\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>We have a \u003Ca href=\"http://computergraphics.stackexchange.com\">Computer Graphics\u003C/a> site\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>We had an Arabic site at time of recording, but it's closing due to low activity levels\u003C/li>\n\u003Cli>For more, have a look at \u003Ca href=\"http://stackexchange.com/sites#newest\">the list of newest Stack Exchange sites\u003C/a>\u003C/li>\n\u003C/ul>\n\nThanks for joining us!","html","2015-09-14T16:00:00.000Z",{"current":615},"stack-exchange-podcast-68-a-badger-a-horse-and-a-dik-dik-the-documentation-episode",[617],{"_createdAt":618,"_id":619,"_rev":620,"_type":621,"_updatedAt":618,"slug":622,"title":624},"2023-05-23T16:43:21Z","wp-tagcat-podcast","9HpbCsT2tq0xwozQfkc4ih","blogTag",{"current":623},"podcast","The Stack Overflow Podcast","Podcast #68 - A Badger, A Horse, and a Dik-dik (The Documentation Episode)",[627,633,639,645],{"_id":628,"publishedAt":629,"slug":630,"sponsored":12,"title":632},"65472515-0b62-40d1-8b79-a62bdd2f508a","2025-08-25T16:00:00.000Z",{"_type":10,"current":631},"making-continuous-learning-work-at-work","Making continuous learning work at work",{"_id":634,"publishedAt":635,"slug":636,"sponsored":12,"title":638},"1b0bdf8c-5558-4631-80ca-40cb8e54b571","2025-08-21T14:00:25.054Z",{"_type":10,"current":637},"research-roadmap-update-august-2025","Research roadmap update, August 2025",{"_id":640,"publishedAt":641,"slug":642,"sponsored":12,"title":644},"5ff6f77f-c459-4080-b0fa-4091583af1ac","2025-08-20T14:00:00.000Z",{"_type":10,"current":643},"documents-the-architect-s-programming-language","Documents: The architect’s programming language",{"_id":16,"publishedAt":17,"slug":646,"sponsored":12,"title":20},{"_type":10,"current":19},{"count":648,"lastTimestamp":12},0,["Reactive",650],{"$sarticleModal":609},["Set"],["ShallowReactive",653],{"sanity-3DRLOWuQ2wAwUaEMfvWeBdOBDpGg3tZWJl5KLaCzYL4":-1,"sanity-comment-wp-post-5153-1756167462576":-1},"/2015/09/14/stack-exchange-podcast-68-a-badger-a-horse-and-a-dik-dik-the-documentation-episode"]