How relevant is Arduino SE?

Question

I know this may seem as a troll, while the beta is going on and the community is building up, but I'm sincerely wondering how relevant is a site such as Arduino SE (same question applies to the Raspberry Pi Q&A site). The SE network has begun with Q&A sites oriented by "concerns" not by technologies: SO is all about programing problems, SU is about computer/application usage problems, SF is about system/networking problems.

Then you got a Q&A about apple iStuff questions, another about Unix questions (but no MS/Windows Q&A, though). And now, we've got a RPi Q&A and an Arduino Q&A community... So in my point of view the whole Knowledge Base aspect of SO is being diluated and redundant.

So let's get to my point, most of the questions I saw on the site could be moved elsewhere:

• Why can I not use pointers instead of array with PROGMEM is a perfect example of a SO question (and is actually a duplicate of that answer) ;
• Digital IO pin as ground is a good example of a EE question
• What are the FLASH_ARRAY/FLASH_TABLE macros in this code?, SO again
• How can I sense very high temperatures with Arduino? is again a topic for EE SE
• How to trigger an alarm when toilet paper is low? would be a good question for EE SE, or maybe it could be a good example of the need of a "DIY"/"hacking" Q&A community site. Somehow the "opposite" of the reverse engineering site.

In the end, when I get through the list of all the questions I see no questions that are really 100% pure arduino topics. The questions could have been asked either on stackoverflow, on electrical engineering, on programming, and if we were closing the beta, I'm pretty sure we could move 99% of the questions on the other existing sites...

Maybe the only Q&A community site that's missing is a general abstract "DIY/hacking" community that given a problematic suggests a hardware and software solution to solve it, giving the best options to solve this problem.

In the end, Arduino is a nice prototyping tool, but it's far from being the only one, and it's not good at doing everything. The ST, PIC or MSP boards have their strong points as well, and shouldn't be excluded by the name of the Q&A forum. The only way I'd consider an arduino Q&A site, would be to turn into an arduino-tag aggregator from the other existing sites.

Reading this topic, makes me feel that SE/EE has a problem in the way it is working (when they downvote/offtopic arduino questions), where actually the tag system can be used for filtering out or favoriting the newbies/arduino questions. And I've been answering questions on SO about arduinos, and saw no real problems over there.

And the shopping questions gap should not be filled by a product-oriented site (because the problem stays with the ST, PIC or MSP prototyping boards which also have their own environment of shield-like/accessories), but with a "DIY/hacking" community that would actually fill the void between EE and SO, and be a good place for the "varied" audience a site such as this one here would get. And in the same time I fear that questions for embedded design will be made offtopic on SO or EE to be moved on other product sites, whereas questions about 100% alternative hardwares to arduino or RPi will still be offtopic on those sites, while not gathering a community big enough to build a product Q&A community.

And with new Arduino board like the Due, the Yun, or Intel's Galileo, the gap between Arduino and RPi/cubie/beaglebone boards is getting more and more blurry.

So, here am I asking your opinion:

• how relevant do you think is Arduino SE?
• don't you think it'd be a better idea to create a "hacking/DIY/inventing" community to talk about ideas and suggest paths to build a solution to a problem and fill the gap that product-oriented sites like RPi and Arduino do?
• how to deal with alternatives platforms, like MSP/STM/PIC for MCUs or Beaglebone/Cubieboard/Gooseberry/OlinuXino... boards?

In the end, I'm here to share my knowledge, and that's my main motivation in participating to whatever Q&A site, the hackerspaces ML I'm on, or even on IRC. But I strongly believe that a concern-oriented Q&A site is way better than a product-oriented Q&A site. If the arduino community want to build a support forum, they can make their own Q&A site like the Jolla community did using AskBot.

Answer 1

Posting this as an answer as it is too long for a comment, and I don't feel like re-iterating the same points again. A fair part of this debate occurred on the previous proposal page and has been going on for a year.

• https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9084/whats-wrong-with-ee
• Will a site proposal that covers a subset of Stack Overflow work?
• https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2656/what-will-be-the-benefits-in-having-a-separate-arduino-site
• https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9112/what-should-be-the-scope-of-the-arduino-site
• https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9969/differences-with-ee
• https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9218/if-this-isnt-a-duplicate-of-ee-might-want-to-consider-elevating-fewer-electron
• https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12390/why-not-just-combine-the-arduino-proposal-with-the-existing-raspberry-pi-site
• https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12432/why-is-arduino-a-proposal-separate-from-embedded-programming-and-design
• https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12891/allowing-general-avr-microcontroller-questions-on-arduino-site

Answer 2

I completely disagree with you. There are plenty of questions that wouldn't fit on any other site:

• Arduino Lego Robot Shopping question!

• Serial data showing up weird

  Serial data showing up weird is not a real question, even though I do not deny it could be useful, I'm not sure the way it is being asked will actually help people looking for answers: this is an example of "serial data showing up weird" question on another topic which shows how differently things can be asked. ~zmo

  This question was asked a while ago and it seems like it was to set good examples for good formatted questions. By the way, there is no problem with answering your own question, it is even encouraged.

• Where can I find a central repository of all available Arduino libraries?

  is totally borderline imho, and even on arduino.SE I would tag that question as "too broad". And btw, there's the new library format being worked on that will lead into a pypi/apt-like registry for arduino libraries. This is being discussed and will be ultimately solved ~zmo

  Borderline where? Not here... you must mean on SO. Exactly my point. We have a little corner of the web that we shape, we don't need to follow the typical site pattern. Also, it's not solved now, which is when users need it.

• Are there any signal smoothing libraries for Arduino?

• Are there any good and maintained libraries for using DS2482 I2C to 1-Wire bridge?

  well I would tag that as too broad/primarly opinion based… Because in the end the answer to the question is where the OP went: update other's code or write it yourself. ~zmo

  There's no harm in the user wanting a library that he/she can't find and then, after finding out there's none, writing their own and posting it. You don't close a question because they solved it themselves.

These are some borderline ones that may be acceptable if they're worded correctly, but they wouldn't get nearly as much attention as here:

• What are the steps involved in porting an Arduino library? (Borderline)

• What are (or how do I use) the power saving options of the Arduino to extend battery life? (Borderline)

  that one would be a perfect fit on SO, or maybe because it may need some datasheet reading, on the embedded developers Q&A site still in proposal ~zmo

  On any other site it'd probably be downvoted until the question falls to the center of the earth. One more comment... You expect a new user to be able to read a datasheet? I'm not saying everyone couldn't, but many can't. Sure, a datasheet is easy to read when you get used to it, but there's no reason that users should be left in the dark because they don't know how to read a datasheet.

• What are the steps involved in porting an Arduino library? (Borderline)

---

A couple more responses:

but I don't see the coherence of multiplying product sites on Stack Exchange, whereas we're not addressing all the concerns.

SO it getting so big that it's surprising it hasn't turned into a wasteland yet. Even some SE folks have said so. Our network needs to expand and attract new users.

But the Arduino stack [exchange] is full of overhead and boilerplate, to make it nicer, but that in the end makes it difficult to move from the "funny hack" to something used more "seriously". There are other frameworks that are worth being included in the Q&A realm the same way you guys do for Arduino, and there are other platforms on which you can run the Arduino framework that are not 1:1 copycats of the Arduino.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. There are other frameworks that are worth being included in the Q&A realm the same way you guys do for Arduino Why don't you propose some on Area 51? Are you saying that this should be expanded? It's hard to create a focused site with so many broad topics included: especially with many different levels of users (i.e. beginner vs advanced).

[Edited 4/4/14 to update questions and add new content]

Another note, there was a lot of decision making at SE whether to allow this or not. Last Arduino beta, it failed for a reason you're proposing. We would've gotten shut down way before this if there wasn't unique territory here. Of course, there's going to be overlap on other sites... EE and SO have some overlap. That's inevitable. A better question would be how can we avoid overlap.

[Comment by me earlier.]

Answer 3

ok, let's answer to your opinions and elaborate on my point:

@AnnonomusPerson: I can't disagree more with you when you say There are plenty of questions that wouldn't fit on any other site:

• Webserver On Arduino Even though this question includes the keyword « Arduino » which makes it specific to that platform, it could be asked on a non existing Q&A about hardware and software hacking that would be a balance to the proposal of the "embedded dev" proposal ;
• How can I communicate Ardunio to Matlab that question could have perfectly been asked on SO, even though it would have been closed by lack of reseach of the OP and because there are dupes:
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5003548/interfacing-arduino-with-matlab-for-image-processing/5004931
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18795171/matlab-and-arduino-does-anyone-know-how-to-establish-a-connection
• Serial data showing up weird is not a real question, even though I do not deny it could be useful, I'm not sure the way it is being asked will actually help people looking for answers: this is an example of "serial data showing up weird" question on another topic which shows how differently things can be asked ;
• Where can I find a central repository of all available Arduino libraries? is totally borderline imho, and even on arduino.SE I would tag that question as "too broad". And btw, there's the new library format being worked on that will lead into a pypi/apt-like registry for arduino libraries. This is being discussed and will be ultimately solved ;
• Are there any good and maintained libraries for using DS2482 I2C to 1-Wire bridge? well I would tag that as too broad/primarly opinion based… Because in the end the answer to the question is where the OP went: update other's code or write it yourself.
• What are the steps involved in porting an Arduino library? it would be, imho, a borderline but acceptable question on SO ;
• How can I adapt the DallasTemperature library to accept another 1-Wire class? that one would be a perfect fit on SO, or maybe because it may need some datasheet reading, on the embedded developers Q&A site still in proposal ;
• What are (or how do I use) the power saving options of the Arduino to extend battery life? basically, this question is laziness of reading the datasheet where all that is well explained, though it could be asked on the non existing hardware and software hacking Q&A, or the embedded dev Q&A that is to come, or even on EE.SE.

it took me more than two minutes to get to the point, and yes, it can be fun to create an arduino Q&A, but I don't see the coherence of multiplying product sites on Stack Exchange, whereas we're not addressing all the concerns.

@AsheeshR, I hope that you will be able to build a community here, and maybe become the official Q&A of Arduino, I'm not trying to mine your project, guys… But I think that Arduino is just a trendy and nice brigde between hardware and software world.

But the Arduino stack is full of overhead and boilerplate, to make it nicer, but that in the end makes it difficult to move from the "funny hack" to something used more "seriously". There are other frameworks that are worth being included in the Q&A realm the same way you guys do for Arduino, and there are other platforms on which you can run the Arduino framework that are not 1:1 copycats of the Arduino.