Another possibility: Answers module

Posted by rfay on May 24, 2011 at 1:52pm

The Answers module and its related modules seem like they could be useful. They're not as fancy as stackexchange or shapado, but they're Drupal and could be quite useful.

Comments

I didn't know about this

Posted by davidhernandez on May 24, 2011 at 2:24pm

I didn't know about this module. It looks extremely relevant. Thanks, Randy!

http://engineeredweb.com/blog

Posted by giorgio79 on May 24, 2011 at 6:39pm

http://engineeredweb.com/blog/09/11/building-stack-overflow-clone-drupal...

http://drupal.org/project/arrayshift

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Arrayshift might be something to learn from...

Posted by rfay on May 25, 2011 at 1:52pm

I took a look at arrayshift. It's an install profile. It's been unmaintained since it was posted, and mostly doesn't work. Although I think it was a beautiful start, and there are things to learn from it, I don't think it's a very useful piece of code. Also, many, many pieces of Drupal have come so far since then (we have things like views_attach/evo).

When Susan started this at

Posted by davidhernandez on May 25, 2011 at 2:18pm

When Susan started this at DrupalCon, it was based on Eaton's ArrayShift. There was no intention to use it out of the box, but to use it as an example and harvest some code from it. We are still early enough in development that we are not committed to any one approach, and some of these other modules and ideas look very interesting.

Thanks for bringing up the Answers module!

Posted by chipcleary on May 26, 2011 at 2:20am

I see one of the objectives of this group is "Creation of a new question-and-answer support venue on Drupal.org".

So, over the past few months, I've started to help maintain/extend Answers. I think Randy's description is spot on ... Answers is not nearly as evolved as stackexchange. At the same time, I do hope it has gotten to a useful level at this point. And I also hope to help it grow as time marches forward. (As one example, stackexchange has a much more evolved system of user levels and awards ... and a whole thread of development lies in front of Answers to integrate with userpoints to get some of the same functionality.)

Since I've started maintaining Answers, I've noticed that there have been a number of question/answer modules created over time in varying states of maintenance. Now, I'm a big fan of stackexchange, but if the group decides to try to improve the question-and-answer support venue inside d.o. using drupal:
1) I would be happy to help extend Answers to be the basis for it (Such usage would be a big step forward for the module)
2) If a different module is selected as the basis, I would also be happy to recommend shutting down Answers and moving to whatever was selected (why have several such things around?)

Am curious to see how this conversation evolves!

Interested in comparison

Posted by rfay on May 26, 2011 at 2:51am

I'd really be interested in a comparison of answers-related modules (and other solutions). Would you be willing to write one or start one on http://groups.drupal.org/similar-module-review ? It would sure be useful both to this group and to others evaluating your module set. Then all those modules could link to the comparison from the project page.

I too would be interested in

Posted by davidhernandez on May 26, 2011 at 2:57am

I too would be interested in seeing this. If chip already has a wealth of knowledge in this area, and can provide such a comparison sheet, that would be awesome!

Would be happy to ...

Posted by chipcleary on May 26, 2011 at 3:16am

As I went to research this, I found something has already been started (although it looks a little incomplete and a little out of date):

http://drupal.org/node/778368

Now, this is interesting. I didn't know such a resource existed before. Could I ask your advice on the best way to move forward? Should I, for example, edit what is there or start a thread on the similar-module-review and note it on the documentation page or ....

Please update the content and put it in similar module review

Posted by rfay on May 26, 2011 at 3:35am

I think people expect this to show up in Similar Module Review, so if you'd update it and put it there it would be great. Then update this node to just point to the other one, and file an issue in the documentation queue asking for it to be archived or deprecated or whatever they call it.

Thanks!

Edit: Looks to me like there's not a lot of usefulness in that article (except perhaps that it points to three modules). All the links to the README files were broken by the git migration. You'd be as well to start from scratch, IMO.

I'll take your advice ...

Posted by chipcleary on May 27, 2011 at 3:35am

Sounds good. I have one extra desire here too ... I'd like to define a wish list for the Answers module out of this effort too.

My plan is to go in these steps:
a) Review stackexchange and shapado and write a list of features I see in them. Maybe write a little story explaining the feature
b) Add to the list the features I saw in the SupportDO project
c) Review the modules listed in the existing article and see which features they offer, adding unique features that they offer
d) Post this on Similar Module Review and point to it from the existing article (per your suggestion)

What I expect is that many features won't be implemented anywhere. That said, my thought is that this would provide a good hit list to pick from as Answers evolves (and who knows, may point up a more thoroughly developed alternative to jump to).

Since this group has made the suggestion, how would that help with your interests? Sound reasonable? I expect I can put some time into it next week.

Progress so far ...

Posted by chipcleary on May 30, 2011 at 11:05pm

Just a heads up, I've gotten through steps a & b above. I used the same approach you did for SupportDO and used a sandbox project (http://drupal.org/project/issues/1090740). (Note: This sandbox project is repurposed from when I had upgraded the Answers module before becoming a maintainer and mainstreaming what I had done).

I've looked at stackexchange, yahoo answers, and SupportDO. Shapado is a straight clone so no new news after stackexchange.

Next, I'll start reviewing the modules as indicated above and create a summary of what I find....

Interesting, chipclearly. I

Posted by Fidelix on May 31, 2011 at 12:05am

Interesting, chipclearly.

I believe it will be quite a task building this project upon project/answers. It just seems more viable to build a product out of many different modules and simply use Answers as glue code/integration between those modules (like advanced forum does for forums). If that is your intention, ignore my last words.

This is a really good effort, and I hope it goes well. I'll help in whatever ways I can.

Agreed on the approach ...

Posted by chipcleary on May 31, 2011 at 10:26pm

Thanks, @Fidelix.

I agree with your suggestion ... I would like to have the minimum possible code in the Answers module itself and leverage existing modules extensively. I've tried to start down this path with a recent rebuild using Features. This pretty dramatically reduced the amount of custom code required.

I think one piece of good news is that stackexchange and others have thought through pretty deeply just what features are useful for a technical community of practice, including how to attract and motivate particicpants.

I think another piece of good news is that existing modules, once configured for Answers, could go a long way. For example, Userpoints for the "reputation" bit and Rules for the "privileges" bit.

That said, I also think that there will be plenty of effort required to create the glue!

If you would like to help, please feel free to choose a feature and have at it! (Or you may want to wait a week or so for me to finish the review. I may end up coming back with the notion that some existing drupal module is a better starting place). A final alternative is that @rfay asked for theming guidance. If you have thoughts on how to theme Answers, that would be a great place to dig in too.

All in all, thanks for the thoughts and wishes!

I agree with waiting until

Posted by davidhernandez on May 31, 2011 at 10:36pm

I agree with waiting until you've finished the review. Planning is preferred over wasted effort. Fidelix, if you are itching to do something right now, why not do your own review of module alternatives? This is something I also need to do. I think the more educated opinions we have, the better. Everything we do will be based on whatever QA module is chosen as the base (existing or custom), so it is worth putting effort into making the right choice.

Good point. I'm more good at

Posted by Fidelix on June 1, 2011 at 12:25am

Good point.

I'm more good at architecting stuff, so I'll go here: http://drupal.org/project/issues/1090740 and suggest how each of these functions can be built, and if there is more than one way of building it, the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Is this going to help?

Every bit helps. If any of

Posted by davidhernandez on June 1, 2011 at 1:07am

Every bit helps. If any of those you comment on are duplicates of issues in the SupportDO project queue, please comment there as well. http://drupal.org/sandbox/HedgeMage/1088372

Latest update on progress

Posted by chipcleary on June 11, 2011 at 1:09pm

So far, I've been through 3 modules and have id'ed 2 more to check. However, on quick glance, they do not look as if they will have very broad feature sets.

My takeaways are:

Several modules have been built
There is a distinction between those built to support "Ask the Expert" versus "Ask the Community"
None of the "Ask the Community" modules I've seen yet are very very mature yet (I'd put Answers in that group too, fwiw)

As a heads up, I will email the module maintainers so they can take a look and, if desired, comment on the reviews. I hope to finish this by a week from now, at which point I'll post the results as @rfay suggests.

Finished the review...

Posted by chipcleary on June 19, 2011 at 1:22am

You can find the comparison at http://groups.drupal.org/node/156669 .

My headlines:

A number of modules have been started ... nothing has reached a great level of maturity yet
Much of the functionality that is not yet in Answers can be created by using and configuring other modules (particularly userpoints)
Of the modules, it looks like only ArrayShift has spent significant effort on theming ... and such effort is well worth it

Hope this helps as you determine where to go with the infrastructure. One potential outcome of this effort for me was the possibility of stopping work on Answers and trying to pitch in on some other approach. At this point, I don't see a good option for that and so will keep pushing ahead, trying to borrow some of the ideas from ArrayShift in particular. If you'd like to push ahead with Answers for the infrastructure effort, I'm happy to try to pitch in to be helpful. Just let me know....

Thanks so very much for

Posted by rfay on June 19, 2011 at 1:58am

Thanks so very much for taking this on! And for all your work in this area.

Thanks for all this, Chip.

Posted by davidhernandez on June 20, 2011 at 1:59pm

Thanks for all this, Chip. I'll try to review it all this week, and I'll definitely let you know if I have any questions.

Possible next step ...

Posted by chipcleary on June 1, 2011 at 4:07am

Hi @Fidelix,

I think @davidhernandez has a good suggestion about waiting for a little bit. If the group decides to use a different module as the base for the drupal support QA infrastructure (and if, separately, the people involved in Answers end up thinking that a different module would also be a better base), then your efforts would be go for naught.

That said, if we do go ahead with Answers (either for drupal support infrastructure specifically or, outside of that usage, for its other users), your insights into architecting would be very helpful. Maybe the way we could think about that would be to pick the top few priorities and think about how to build out those.

The drupal infrastructure group will need to make the call on what to use for the drupal support QA infrastructure (I'm happy to offer my two bits but also inevitably bring some bias). On whether more generally to keep maintaining Answers or jump ship to another module that might be a better base, I can make a call on whether I think it's the right place to invest my time. If I think not, I can then make a recommendation to other folks who use or contribute to it giving my thoughts and getting theirs. (Note: not too many other contributors at this point).

I suppose I can't help much

Posted by Fidelix on June 1, 2011 at 12:40pm

I suppose I can't help much on your research, since you are the one with experience and knowledge about those modules.

Anyway, I'll wait for the results of your research.

Sure you can. Install the

Posted by davidhernandez on June 1, 2011 at 1:01pm

Sure you can. Install the modules yourself and test them out. See how they line up with our needs, and jot down your own opinions.

A new Drupal Q&A project: Commons Answers feature

Posted by juan_g on January 19, 2012 at 10:58pm

In addition to the Drupal Q&A projects discussed here (Answers module, ArrayShift distribution, SupportDO and Answers Alternative sandboxes, among others), there is now a new Q&A project, the Commons Answers feature.

For details, see the Commons distribution issue Create/Add a question and answers (Q&A) feature to Commons, and the sandbox.