I can’t count how many times I’ve googled a programming-related question and found myself at Stack Overflow, the question and answer site for programmers. MetaOptimize is like a Stack Overflow for data geeks:
You and other data geeks can ask and answer questions on machine learning, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, text analysis, information retrieval, search, data mining, statistical modeling, and data visualization.
Here you can ask and answer questions, comment and vote for the questions of others and their answers. Both questions and answers can be revised and improved. Questions can be tagged with the relevant keywords to simplify future access and organize the accumulated material.
Those with some data munging under their belt might find MetaOptimize useful. If you’re a n00b, you might want to stick to the FD forums.
[Thanks, John]
Assembly FTW!!!
There’s also a potential statistical analysis stack overflow brewing here:
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/33/statistical-analysis
Madelaine,
The main reason I launched my Q+A site is because, if Area 51 had their druthers, they would have fragmented the community into five niches:
machine learning (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/7607/machine-learn…)
NLP (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2761/natural-langu…)
statistical analysis (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/33/statistical-ana…)
data mining (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/4229/data-mining)
AI (http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/6607/artificial-in…)
This niching is completely wrongheaded. The last thing we need is for ML people, NLP practitioners, and statisticians to communicate less. The fact that these groups attend different conferences is a BUG not a feature. My site was designed so that these adjacent fields can crosspolinate information.
As we’ve learned from StackOverflow, it’s better to pick a broad topic and have a lot of experts in one place, communicating and helping with each other’s problems.
I’m a SE user, and participate on Area51.
I created a proposal for “Infographics and Data Visualization” on Area51. See here:
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/11508/infographics-and-data-visualization
I created this proposal before reading about MetaOptimize. My attitude on these things is to wait and see if the area51 community likes my proposal.
Stefan,
Why don’t you try posting your question on MetaOptimize, and seeing if you get a good response? That’s a good way to give MetaOptimize a try too.