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Site Reliability Engineering ( SRE ) is a subset of web development that encompasses principles and practices that integrate software engineering with IT infrastructure and operations to enhance system reliability. SRE shares some similarities with DevOps , which focuses on software development and operational practices.

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39-467: Stack Exchange is a network of question-and-answer (Q&A) websites on topics in diverse fields, each site covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process. The reputation system allows the sites to be self-moderating. As of March 2023, the three most actively viewed sites in the network are Stack Overflow (which focuses on computer programming ), Unix & Linux, and Mathematics. All sites in

78-629: A beta version of the Stack Exchange 1.0 platform as a way for third parties to create their own communities based on the software behind Stack Overflow, with monthly fees. This white label service was not successful, with few customers and slow growing communities. In May 2010, Stack Overflow (as its own new company) raised US$ 6 million in venture capital from Union Square Ventures and other investors, and it switched its focus to developing new sites for answering questions on specific subjects, Stack Exchange 2.0. Users vote on new site topics in

117-459: A question-and-answer format . The list contains only websites for which an article exists, dedicated either wholly or at least partly to the websites. For the humor "Q&A site" format first popularized by Forum 2000 and The Conversatron, see Q&A comedy website . Site Reliability Engineering The field of SRE originated at Google with Ben Treynor Sloss, who founded a site reliability team in 2003. The concept expanded within

156-530: A community manager, to depart within the next few months. On September 2, 2019, the terms of service (and the footer of every page served) changed to referencing the "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike" (CC BY-SA) license's 4.0 version instead of its 3.0 version. Users were puzzled as to how Stack Overflow acquired the rights for this relicensing of their past contributions, with some users explicitly stating that they did not intend their contributions to be licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Users were concerned that, if

195-583: A company may eventually hire specialists and engineers specifically for the job. SRE is considered a specific implementation of DevOps ; SRE focuses specifically on building reliable systems, whereas DevOps covers a broad scope. Despite having different focuses, some companies have re-branded their operations teams to SRE teams. There have been multiple attempts to define a canonical list of site reliability engineering principles. The following characteristics are included in most definitions: The site reliability engineering practices also vary widely, but

234-594: A fork of the Stack ;Overflow code base). Blogs formerly used WordPress , but they have been discontinued. The team also uses Redis , HAProxy and Elasticsearch . Stack Exchange tries to stay up to date with the newest technologies from Microsoft , usually using the latest releases of any given framework. The code is primarily written in C# ASP.NET MVC using the Razor View Engine . The preferred IDE

273-516: A grace period of 24 hours. The minimum bounty is set at 50 reputation, except if the user has already answered the question or has offered a previous bounty on the question. Bounties cannot be cancelled, and reputation cannot be refunded from a bounty, even if the question did not receive an answer. Stack Exchange uses IIS , SQL Server , and the ASP.NET framework, all from a single code base for every Stack Exchange site (except Area 51, which runs off

312-478: A hybrid model is common . This model includes various implementations, such as multiple Product/Application SRE teams dedicated to addressing the unique reliability needs of different products. An Infrastructure SRE team may collaborate with a Platform engineering group to achieve shared reliability goals for a unified platform that supports all products and applications. Since 2014, the USENIX organization has hosted

351-678: A job role may be performed by individual contributors or organized in teams. Site reliability engineers are responsible for a combination of the following within a broader engineering organization: system availability , latency , performance , efficiency, change management , monitoring , emergency response , and capacity planning . Site reliability engineers often have backgrounds in software engineering , system engineering , or system administration . Focuses of SRE include automation , system design , and improvements to system resilience . The set of principles and practices in site reliability engineering can be performed by regular workers, but

390-417: A policy posted to moderators on May 29 stating that the use of AI-detection tools were not permitted to be used as part of moderation. In a statement, Stack Exchange confirmed that 11% of moderators had ceased content moderation in response to this policy. This would grow to more than 23% of all moderators on the network by June 22, including more than 70% of all Stack Overflow moderators. The strike began with

429-592: A post to Meta Stack Exchange, which raised concerns regarding the quality and accuracy of AI-generated content, and the lack of transparency from Stack Exchange surrounding this policy change. Moderators also stated that the version of the policy released to the public differed from the version they had received on the moderator-only forum, notably in that the public version did not include language requiring that moderators stop restricting all AI content. Negotiations between Stack Exchange and moderators resulted in new policies allowing moderators to remove AI content when there

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468-479: A question-and-answer website for computer programming questions, which they described as an alternative to the programmer forum Experts-Exchange . In 2009, they started additional sites based on the Stack Overflow model: Server Fault for questions related to system administration and Super User for questions from computer power users . In September 2009, Spolsky's company, Fog Creek Software , released

507-467: A staging area called Area 51, where algorithms determine which suggested site topics have critical mass and should be created. In November 2010, Stack Exchange site topics in "beta testing" included physics, mathematics, and writing. Stack Exchange publicly launched in January 2011 with 33 Web sites; it had 27 employees and 1.5 million users at the time, and it included advertising. At that time, it

546-482: Is Visual Studio and the data layers uses Dapper for data access. The site makes use of URL slugs in addition to numeric identifiers for question URLs. Every new site created in the Stack Exchange Network goes through a detailed review process on a site called Area 51, that is consisting of four steps: Question and answer website The following is a list of websites that follow

585-431: Is a strong indicator of GPT usage, and a commitment from the site to continue to provide data and API access. At the conclusion of negotiations, the strike ended on August 2, 2023. The primary purpose of each Stack Exchange site is to enable users to post questions and answer them. Users can vote on both answers and questions, and through this process users earn reputation points, a form of gamification . This voting system

624-514: Is used where users can rank all the candidates if they wish. Votes are tallied using the Meek STV method (single transferable vote) which allows fractional parts of a vote to be counted. Stack Exchange allows users to donate some of their reputation to help questions receive answers or better answers, as well as to incentivize users to answer. This is called a 'bounty' and can be applied on questions 48 hours after being asked, lasting for 7 days plus

663-818: Is widely used for system monitoring and alerting, while Prometheus (software) is popular for collecting and querying metrics in cloud-native environments. SRE teams dedicated to specific products or applications are common in large organizations. These teams are responsible for ensuring the reliability, scalability, and performance of key services. In larger companies, it's typical to have multiple SRE teams, each focusing on different products or applications, ensuring that each area receives specialized attention to meet performance and availability targets. In an embedded model, individual SREs or small SRE pairs are integrated within software engineering teams. These SREs work closely with developers, applying core SRE principles, such as automation, monitoring, and incident response—directly to

702-514: The September 2019 announcement was not a breach of CC BY-SA 3.0 that would have caused its termination, and some answers were not placated by the dateline chosen. In the ensuing discussion, Stack Overflow staff declined to comment. In mid-2023, Stack Exchange made several changes regarding its policies around content generated by artificial intelligence which resulted in a strike of a portion of its volunteer moderators. The protest centered around

741-567: The community the legal basis for the relicensing. In March 2020, a post announced that content contributed before May 2, 2018 was available under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license. In the ensuing discussion, several users asked about the similar situation in August 2010, when Stack Exchange switched from accepting CC BY-SA 2.5 contributions to 3.0. A representative of the corporation noted "we are looking [...] to show v2.5 for posts predating this change but cannot commit to it yet". Some users were unconvinced that

780-447: The company posted a message, stating that they and the moderator had come to an agreement and expressing regret for any damage to her reputation. Nevertheless, this, plus the sudden departure of multiple community managers (Stack Exchange employees who interact with the community), led to an erosion of trust between the community and the company—convincing many of the site's most prolific users, including many community-elected moderators and

819-583: The company removed its Interpersonal Skills site from the Hot Network Questions list after a complaint on Twitter, and an employee (who was part of the SRE team, which was not community-facing) posted tweets attacking moderators. To start, in June 2019, more advertisements were added causing a large dispute. On September 27, 2019, a moderator of multiple Stack Exchange sites, specifically Monica Cellio,

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858-549: The company renamed itself to Stack Exchange, Inc. It is based in Manhattan . In February 2012, Atwood left the company. On April 18, 2013 CipherCloud issued Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices in an attempt to block discussion of possible weaknesses of their encryption algorithm. The Stack Exchange Crypto group discussion on the algorithm was censored, but it was later restored without pictures. As of September 2015, "Stack Exchange" no longer refers to

897-418: The company, only the network of question-and-answer websites. Instead, the company is now referred to as Stack Overflow. In 2016, Stack Exchange added a variety of new sites which pushed the boundaries of the typical question-and-answer site. For example, Puzzling offers a platform for users who already know the answer to questions to challenge their peers to solve the problems unlike traditional Q–A sites where

936-748: The list below is relatively commonly seen as at least partially implemented: SRE teams collaborate with other departments within organizations to implement principles effectively. Below is an overview of common practices: Kitchen Sink refers to the expansive and often unbounded scope of services and workflows that SRE teams oversee. Unlike traditional roles with clearly defined boundaries, SREs are tasked with various responsibilities, including system performance optimization, incident management, and automation. This approach allows SREs to address multiple challenges, ensuring that systems run efficiently and evolve in response to changing demands and complexities. Infrastructure SRE teams focus on maintaining and improving

975-491: The network are modeled after the initial site Stack Overflow which was created by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky in 2008. Further Q&A sites in the network are established, defined, and eventually – if found relevant – brought to creation by registered users through a special site named Area 51. User contributions since May 2, 2018 are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International . Older content, contributed while

1014-439: The past year. Aside from introducing themselves and explaining why they would be a good moderator, users must also answer questions written by the community. Nominations can be withdrawn at any time. After this, users vote on the candidates in a primary, where the vote tally is made public. The top 10 nominees advance to the election stage, where any user with at least 150 reputation is allowed to vote. A ranked-choice voting system

1053-506: The poster does not know the answer. In 2016, Stack Exchange announced the second iteration of the Stack Exchange Quality Project, in which they attempt to implement specific important features requested by the community to meet a distinct high-priority set of goals. After users enthusiastically responded with feature ideas, they complained that there was insufficient action on the company's part. In October 2018,

1092-405: The reliability of systems that support other teams' workflows. While they sometimes collaborate with platform engineering teams, their primary responsibility is ensuring up-time, performance, and efficiency. Platform teams, on the other hand, primarily develop the software and systems used across the organization. While reliability is a goal for both, platform teams prioritize creating and maintaining

1131-526: The relicensing was found to be a breach of CC BY-SA 3.0, Stack Exchange would have made itself unable to distribute the content under any CC BY-SA license (and that the footer's license statement could be erroneous), and would have to rely on its "perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use, copy, cache, publish, display, distribute, modify, create derivative works and store" the content instead. On September 27, an official Stack Exchange reply stated it had been an "important step", but declined to discuss with

1170-534: The site used the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license or the earlier Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Unported license, remains licensed under the license in force at the time it was contributed. In June 2021, Prosus acquired Stack Overflow for $ 1.8 billion, its first complete acquisition in the area of educational technology . In 2008, Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky created Stack Overflow ,

1209-401: The site. There are bronze, silver and gold badges and appear on users' profile pages as well as their posts. Moderators are responsible for managing the site, such as by following up on flagged posts, locking and protecting posts, suspending users, and deleting the worst posts (including misinformation) on the site. According to the Stack Exchange philosophy, they should be minimally involved in

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1248-554: The site. They are also expected to lead by example, as well as to show respect to other users. To become a moderator, users have to participate in an election. Elections are called as needed by the Stack Exchange Community Team for a designated number of seats. Users must first nominate themselves and have at least 300 reputation (3,000 on Stack Overflow and 1,000 on Math Stack Exchange), while also being in good standing, such as not having been suspended during

1287-496: The software development industry, leading various companies to employ site reliability engineers . By March 2016, Google had over 1,000 site reliability engineers on staff. Dedicated SRE teams are common at larger web development companies. DevOps teams sometimes serve the dual purpose of SRE in midsize and smaller companies. Organizations that have adopted the concept include Airbnb , Dropbox , IBM , LinkedIn , Netflix , and Wikimedia . Site reliability engineering as

1326-564: The software development lifecycle. This approach helps improve reliability, performance and collaboration between SREs and developers. Consulting SRE teams specialize in advising organizations on the implementation of SRE principles and practices. Typically composed of seasoned SREs with history across various implementations, these teams provide insights and guidance for specific organizational needs. When working directly with clients, these SREs are often referred to as ' Customer Reliability Engineers .' In large organizations that have adopted SRE,

1365-431: The system . Along with posting questions and answers, users can add comments to them and edit text written by others. Each Stack Exchange site has a "meta" section where users can settle disputes, in the style of MetaFilter 's "MetaTalk" forum, because the self-moderation system for questions and answers can lead to significant arguments. Badges are awarded for asking and answering, participating in meta, and for moderating

1404-401: The tools and services used by internal stakeholders, whereas Infrastructure SRE teams are tasked with ensuring those systems run smoothly and meet reliability standards. SRE teams utilize a variety of tools to measure, maintain, and enhance system reliability. These tools play a role in monitoring performance, identifying issues, and facilitating proactive maintenance. For instance, Nagios Core

1443-475: Was compared to Digg when the Stack Exchange platform was first released. Users receive privileges by collecting reputation points, ranging from the ability to vote and comment on questions and answers to the ability to moderate many aspects of the site. Due to the prominence of Stack Exchange profiles in web search results and the Stack Overflow Careers job board, users may have reason to game

1482-418: Was compared to Quora , founded in 2009, which similarly specializes in expert answers. Other competing sites include WikiAnswers and Yahoo! Answers . In February 2011, Stack Overflow released an associated job board called Careers 2.0, charging fees to recruiters for access, which later re-branded to Stack Overflow Careers. In March 2011, Stack Overflow raised US$ 12 million in additional venture funding, and

1521-498: Was dismissed from her moderator position, allegedly connected to behavior associated with upcoming changes to the Code of Conduct (CoC) relating to gender pronouns . Many other moderators resigned or suspended their moderator activity in response to the dismissal. The company responded with two very poorly received messages which have since been deleted, and by a slightly less negatively-received apology several days later. In December 2019,

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