Stack Exchange Question & Answer platform
Have you ever been stuck when trying to get a hydrological model to work, not able to find the solution in a manual or from colleagues, and struggling to contact an expert with time to assist?
Are you an advanced model user who wishes they could help others more, but don’t have much spare time for added meetings or troubleshooting via email?
Are you an instructor who spends a lot of time answering the same modelling questions from your students many times over?
The Stack Exchange platform is a readily available resource that can easily be used as a support system for hydrological modelling. It is a well-known, free, question-and-answer (Q&A) website. Anyone can create a log-in and ask or answer a question, tagging it for specific themes. Questions and answers on the site are then easy to search for and find. For hydrological modelling questions, we advocate use of the Earth Science Stack Exchange.
By using such a platform, we can:
- make support for hydrological modelling more accessible and transparent online, and
- become more efficient in providing one another with support by documenting questions and answers on an easily searchable website, such that advanced users do not need to answer the same common questions multiple times over.
Researchers, students and practitioners are encouraged to add their modelling questions to the platform and answer each other's questions, starting a critical mass of activity on the site. This will strengthen the modelling community locally and can allow for interaction with users of these tools overseas as well.
Lecturers, instructors, advanced users:
Consider transitioning from answering questions via email to answering them on Stack Exchange. Request that the person asking puts their question on the site and sends you the link it. You can also post common Q&A’s to the site in advance (you can answer your own question) and direct people to look there first before coming to you with questions.
Students, newer model users:
Try asking your questions on Stack Exchange rather than via email. With time there will be more and more Q&As on the site so you can search existing posts for help first, before posting a new question. When you’ve posted a new question, you can send the link to a lecturer or advanced user who you think can answer it and ask them if they can answer via the site.
Everyone:
If you’ve worked through a problem on your own, with a group, or with an instructor, do the community a favour and post it as a Q&A on Stack Exchange. One person can post the question and another can answer, or one can post both Q&A. This allows anyone in the world to find the Q&A, and you may even get suggestions of other even more efficient solutions.
Below you'll find more background information on how Stack Exchange works and a step-by-step guide for getting started with using it. This information is also available as a PDF document you can download and share with your colleagues, students, or instructors: Download PDF guide here
How does Stack Exchange work?
Stack Exchange is a network of question-and-answer (Q&A) websites each with a different focus topic, such as computer programming, mathematics, or earth science (see all sites: https://stackexchange.com/sites). The initial site, called Stack Overflow, is a Q&A site for computer programming created by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky in 2008. The usefulness of this site generated demand for similar sites for other topics. There is no site specifically for hydrological modelling at this time, but the Earth Science site (https://earthscience.stackexchange.com) hosts both hydrology and modelling questions. If and when there are enough users asking and answering hydrology and hydrological modelling questions, a more specific site(s) could be launched in the future.
Stack Exchange sites have features that allow them to be moderated by their user community:
- Anyone can search for and view existing Q&A strings on the site - no log-in is required.
- Create an account/log-in to post: One needs to create an account and log in to the site to post a question or an answer or to add votes, edits, or comments. Profile names are shown alongside all posts for accountability.
- Tags: Tags are simple keywords or search terms which users assign to their questions to help people find them. If you are looking to find out if a question has been asked and answered already, a simple Google Search on the question will usually find related Stack Exchange Q&A posts. It is also possible to search within Stack Exchange sites using tags. This is one way to look for questions you may wish to answer (e.g., search unanswered questions with a specific tag, like ‘hydrology’). Only more advanced users (see below) can add new words to the tags list for a site. If a tag does not receive sufficient use, it will be removed from the list.
- Reputation points: Any logged-in user can post questions and answers, ‘accept’ an answer to their question, and propose edits to posts (to be reviewed by authors). Users also build up “reputation points”. Points allow a user to access more site functions, such as ‘upvoting’ posts, proposing new keywords for tagging, commenting, putting oneself up for election to be a moderator, etc. Points are gained by posting questions and answers, having your answer be ‘accepted’ by the user who asked the question, having your answer be upvoted, etc. More advanced use can result in ‘badges’ (bronze, silver, gold) that show up on the user’s profile and when they post. https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/help/whats-reputation
- Upvoting: Logged-in users with 15 or more reputation points can ‘upvote’ questions and answers that they find to be useful and appropriate. There may be many answers posted for a single question. When an answer has been formally ‘accepted’ by the user who asked the question, this answer will be shown at the top of the list. The asker can change which is the ‘accepted’ answer as new answers are posted. Other answers are listed in order of the number of votes they have received. Not all askers ‘accept’ an answer. In this case, the number of votes determines which is listed first. Upvotes may prompt the asker to review which answer they ‘accept’. Each user has a limited number of votes they can cast per day. https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/vote-up
- Moderation & disputes: Elected moderators are responsible for managing the site, through activities such as following up on flagged posts, locking and protecting posts, suspending users, and deleting the worst posts on the site. Stack Exchange aims for moderators to be minimally involved, respect users, and lead by example. Each Stack Exchange site has a "meta" section where users can ask questions about the site itself and also settle disputes in a separate forum to the Q&A strings.
For more information about how Stack Exchange and the Earth Science site work follow the links below:
https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/tour
https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/help
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_Exchange
Step by step guide to using Stack Exchange for hydrological modelling support
Getting started - create an account
- Go to the Earth Sciences Stack Exchange site: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/
- Create an account (display name, email, password) if you don’t already have one.
- Go through the site tour (should appear when you create your account): https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/tour
- Access & edit your profile: Once your profile exists you can edit things like your display name, profile icon or image, and specify your email preferences. You can control if and how you want to be contacted by email by the site (e.g., can be notified if someone answers your question, posts a question with a ‘tag’ that you are following, etc). When you are logged in, you can open your profile by clicking on your profile image on the top bar at the right. Here you can also see a log of the questions you’ve asked, those you’ve answered, your reputation points, etc.
Asking questions
- Log-in to your profile on the Earth Sciences Stack Exchange site: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/
- Before posting a question, do a search to see if the question has already been asked. If it has been asked and answered, and you find the posts helpful and you have 15+ reputation points, you can ‘upvote’ questions and answers using the arrows at the side of the posts.
- To post: Click on “Ask Question”
- Add a title, body text and tags for your question. Please tag with “hydrology” and “modelling”, plus any other relevant tags of your choice. Tags must come from the list of tags for the Earth Sciences site. Users with 150 reputation points or more can propose new tags. Other relevant tags available include: hydrogeology, water, groundwater, water-vapour, water-table, watershed. Full tags list: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/tags
- Review & post: After drafting your question you get to review it; see how it will appear on the site and proofread it one more time. When satisfied, hit “Post.”
- If you already know an expert or advanced model user who is likely to be able to answer your question, you may wish to contact them with a link to your question on Stack Exchange and encourage them to answer it on the site so that everyone can access it.
- Editing after posting: After you’ve posted a question, if you realise that you want to change the phrasing, add a detail, etc, perhaps prompted by the answers and comments coming in, you can edit your question.
- Review the answers, accept, vote: Once people have posted answers and you’ve tried some of them out, you can “accept” an answer that has worked for you. If you have 15+ reputation points you can also “upvote” other useful answers.
Answering questions
- Log-in to your profile on the Earth Sciences Stack Exchange site: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/
- Find a question to answer: Someone may have contacted you to answer a question that they’ve asked on the site and sent a link. Otherwise, you can search using keywords of your choice in the normal search bar or use the panel on the left to find questions with one or more specified tags (e.g. “hydrology” and “modelling”), look for unanswered questions only, etc. Using “My tags” will find posts related to tags you have elected to follow and ones you have used when posting. You can add a new answer to a question that already have an answer posted if you have a different approach or a refinement to share that may be helpful. Answering your own question: A user can post an answer to their own question. There is no harm in doing this. The user will not receive points for this answer, or for it being upvoted.
- At the bottom of each question post you will find a box titled “Your Answer” where you can enter your answer and post it. This entry box will be located below any previously posted answers to the question. After posting, your answer can move higher in the list of answers if it gets 'upvoted.'
Tips for asking a good question
Before you post a question, search the site to make sure your question hasn’t been answered already.
When you decide to write a question:
- Summarize the problem
- Provide details: When appropriate, describe what you’ve already tried in an effort to solve a problem on your own and what happened. This can include describing research you’ve done to try to find the answer (can include citations, links, etc) and why this was insufficient to resolve the issue.
- Be specific: Avoid very broad or open-ended questions that are likely to have many answers or primarily illicit opinions. If necessary, break up your query into multiple more specific questions. These can be linked to one another, i.e. you can include a weblink to a previous question in the body of a new question when it is a follow-on issue.
More guidance:
https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/help/asking