[Neuroimaging] When to use neurostars, and when not to

[Matthew Brett]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 6:49 PM, Michael Hanke <michael.hanke at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 7:44 PM, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> > We (NeuroDebian) have to balance the goals of not "stealing community",
>> > and
>> > not "flooding upstream with
>> > Debian-specific  bugs".
>>
>> The question for me is not about stealing community - but about what
>> kind of community results from the different interfaces.
>> Unfortunately we (tech) people don't often consider "soft" questions
>> like this - or reject them from consideration as being in poor taste.
>
>
> I tend to agree. However, the "community stealing" issue did come up in the
> past, and
> we cannot afford to ignore it from our side. Some projects want all
> communication, some
> don't want to technical Debian-related bits. User just want the answers
> quick, with as little
> ping-pong as possible. Some, though, want to become an active part of a
> community.

Sure - but the problem arises when we give the users a wrong
impression and a wrong start by giving them what they want.  When we
are teaching for example, the student may well just want the answer
the question in the exam, but it would be a bad teacher that gave them
that answer, rather than teaching them how to work out the answer for
themselves.

For the communities - it's surely reasonable to refer questions to the
chosen forum of the project - for example, I think I'm right in saying
there's no controversy that nipype wants user questions to neurostars.
  I guess it's more complex to direct people who have more general
neuroimaging questions.

See you,

Matthew