Such a bad idea. The format of StackOverflow is very tightly defined. I bet all support questions don't fit that format. Then what?
StackOverflow should speak up against companies doing this.
StackOverflow should speak up against companies doing this.
Now moving to a dedicated Stack Exchange site would be fine (like AskUbuntu). The software is OK, it's just the idiotic mods and hostile users that make SO suck.
I asked a question on Server Fault, and 5 years later someone added a helpful, perfect answer (a new library was available that did exactly what I needed). That answer was down voted, and then the user was chastised by someone, telling them off for answering an old question. Bizarre.
One of the problems with these types of questions is that they attract "lists of things" answers which are mostly only backed up by links to external sites. Eventually these links rot away and the answers never get any proper love to keep things fresh.
Early on SO/SF/SU tried to combat this:
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/qa-is-hard-lets-go-sho...
The chastisement was probably unfair because John Ranger did attempt to summarise the linked landing page content, however the question probably should have been closed according to [0] to deter more link-only answers:
[0[: http://serverfault.com/help/on-topic
and it is not about…
Product, service, or learning material recommendations
YMMV whether you think this is fair nor not, but it's the site/network rules.
I find this hard to believe. Link?
There are a lot of people on Stack Exchange. There's a surprisingly strict adherence to the rules, but it doesn't mean everyone thinks and acts to the same way. Nothing should come as a surprise!
We do have fairly strict guidelines for companies that want to do this however: http://stackoverflow.com/help/product-support
I wasn't happy with the lack of response from their support team so I posted a message saying "What the heck do I have to do to get an answer from you guys on your product?". What do you think the response from SO was? People yelled "it's volunteers here choosing to answer questions on their own time! You aren't allowed to demand a response on SO, who do yo think you are?". Or something to that effect anyway.
Corporate support channels do not belong on a site that is rigorously and outspokenly community driven.
If such a thing is to be allowed then there must be formal escalation procedures to be able to push questions up the line the the company that has offloaded its support to SO.
The whole thing just doesn't fit.
As such, SO is the best support you're ever going to get for Google products.
(Thanks for the down votes - am I wrong? I doubt it ;) )
The precise inverse of my experience trying to get support from them.
MS has realized that they can save money and provide effectively the same support (since nobody used their support anyway) by recognizing the third party tool.
1: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/30187/what-do-icons-...
If you want to go further than that, there are various levels of sponsorship possible for a tag, and [internet-explorer] has been sponsored at some level for at least a year. These grant you various advertising and branding privileges, but do not otherwise affect how questions are asked/answered within that tag.
Disclaimer: I work for Stack Exchange but am not involved in the sales or marketing side of things.