{"id":780,"date":"2018-11-12T22:00:49","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T22:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commtech.nyuadim.com\/homework\/?p=780"},"modified":"2018-11-13T19:10:04","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T19:10:04","slug":"stack-exchange-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commtech.nyuadim.com\/homework\/2018\/11\/12\/stack-exchange-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Stack Exchange"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My only interaction with Stack Exchange prior to this\nassignment were the questions that would pop up whenever I googled an engineering\nproblem that I was stuck on. For that purpose, the website has always been\nuseless to me since most questions are extremely specific and irrelevant to my own\ninquiries. I never thought of posting in fear of asking something too trivial for\nsuch a knowledgeable community. Basically, I didn\u2019t know much about the\nwebsite, and I was a bit intimidated by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I already knew going in that the answers provided would be\nincredibly well-researched, complex, and detailed compared to many other\nQ&A platforms. On top of that, the questions are rarely easy to answer, as\nthey are often obscure or require someone with expertise. I spent some time\ngoing through the different communities, which to my surprise included more\nthan just engineering, coding, and math. The communities varied in their levels\nof user interactions and even strictness, but all followed the general rule of \u201cjust\nquestions and answers\u201d as well as the same voting process (most voted answer goes\nto top). I think it\u2019s a very interesting take on eliminating distractions and\noff-topic discussions that appear in any other forum, as both the person asking\nthe question and future readers can directly access the answers they want.\nAlso, some light discussion can occur in a non-distracting manner as comments. I\nended up joining the Woodworking, Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and French\nLanguage communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know very little about Woodworking, but there was a\ngenuine question that Raitis and I had during our work on SDME (building a\nhouse): is this expensive power tool going to blow up? I rephrased that into a\nproper question and initially got a comment telling me to add more information\non the tool, which I provided to the best of my ability. That same person then\nprovided a detailed answer complete with technical jargon and concepts that I\nnever even knew existed. Needless to say, after some googling to clarify the\nanswer\u2019s terminology, I ended up learning a lot about saw blades from a\ncomplete stranger who had no incentive other than an urge to help other\nstrangers on the Internet (and maybe earn some fake pixel points). I ended up\nselecting that answer as the best one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edit: the post ended up attracting more attention than I thought, with more than just one solution to my issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n