Server Fault Answers Your IT Questions!

The guys who gave us Stack Overflow have recently begun the private beta of their new site: Server Fault. If you've got an account on Stack Overflow with a reputation above 100 points, then you're eligible to try it out.

For those not in the know, Stack Overflow is a place for asking and answering computer programming questions. Unlike traditional web forums, the Stack Overflow community enforces a strict question and answer policy that allows very little room for back and forth discussion. Along with a very game-like reputation system and wiki-ethic, this results in fairly solid questions with very firm answers.

What makes Stack Overflow so special is that it's fun. Because it's fun, questions get answered fast. Very fast. Really, it's changed the way I think about interacting online when trying to solve a problem. In a traditional forum one might expect an answer to question in a few hours, maybe a few days, and maybe not at all. On Stack Overflow I'm typically seeing my questions answered within 15 minutes. If the question is particularly obscure, maybe an hour or two. The quality of the answers is excellent because your "thread" doesn't die out with people asking questions about your question or taking guesses at the solution.

Anyhow, the Stack Overflow people are bringing this resource to the IT community and man do we need it. The IT community is scattered all over the web with only a few horrible sites like Experts Exchange trying to serve as a catch-all. Hopefully Server Fault will become the one-stop resource that we so badly need.