Merge branch 'stackoverflowpost' into 'master'

Draft post about Stack Overflow

Draft post

See merge request !1866

source/_posts/2016-04-07-stack-overflow-support-network.markdown

+---
+layout: post
+title: "Customer Story: Stack Overflow"
+date: 2016-04-07 16:30
+comments: true
+categories: customer
+author: GitLab
+author_twitter: gitlab
+image_title: '/images/unsplash/stack.jpg'
+---
+
+In this post we'll look at how [Stack Overflow] uses GitLab.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+- **Industry:** Support network for programming community
+- **Company Size:** 254
+- **Development Team:** 30
+- **Location:** Global. Stack Overflow HQ is in New York, but most developers
+work remotely.
+
+## Background Info
+
+[Stack Overflow] is a question and answer site run by and for programmers.
+It is part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites.
+Unlike discussion forums, this platform is all about getting answers.
+The concept is simple: good answers get up-voted by the community and rise to
+the top so they can be easily viewed. Users who receive positive feedback
+receive privileges including the ability to vote, comment on, and edit posts.
+
+All questions get tagged with their subject areas. Users can click on the tag
+list to see if their question has already been asked by a member of the community.
+Over time, users are building a library of detailed answers to programming questions.
+
+## Getting It Right
+
+When the team of developers at Stack Overflow set up their service for
+programmers, they knew they had to get the right source control solution.
+Get it right, and users would flock to the support resource; get it wrong, and
+the response wouldn’t be so positive.
+
+Stack Overflow senior developer Geoff Dalgas explains that when the team was
+looking around for the best possible solution, it became clear that GitLab fit
+the bill. Their initial choices of Git-web and Kiln were superseded by the
+continued development and improvements in performance offered by GitLab.
+
+Stack Overflow adopted GitLab as their primary source control. It is used
+on-premises and is currently self-hosted. They have opted to use a self-hosted
+chat system, as none of their preferences are integrating with GitLab at present.
+As basic GitLab users, the platform does not use the integrated CI into GitLab
+– they have opted for Team City.
+
+As a Q&A network that is itself constantly growing and developing, it is
+essential that it has a solution on board that enables its users to build a
+library of detailed, trustworthy answers to the questions posed by professional
+and amateur programmers. When asked to describe the special considerations for
+software that the Stack Overflow development team must consider, Geoff Dalgas
+answers succinctly: “Maintenance, reliability, and maintainability.”
+
+## Being Part of On-Going Developments
+
+Given that fit, function and speed are essential for the programming industry,
+GitLab has become ingrained in the Stack Overflow culture. As early adopters,
+Geoff’s team has been part of the ongoing developments of GitLab.
+He describes the increased development time, quicker code review and easier
+collaboration as being the main changes that he has witnessed.
+
+As active contributors to open source, Geoff and his colleagues have also seen
+an increase in the use of merge requests.
+
+The developers at Stack Overflow use [LDAP integration](http://doc.gitlab.com/ee/integration/ldap.html#gitlab-ldap-integration).
+The team have recently made the decision to implement [GitLab Geo](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/02/22/gitlab-8-5-released/).
+They are hoping that it could be a solution to their multi datacenter
+replication, but Geoff reports that analysis is ongoing and it’s too soon to
+tell for sure. His colleagues feel that an improved search experience would be
+a huge benefit to their work.
+
+## Tell us your story
+
+Is your team using Gitlab? We’d love to hear from you.
+Email us at community@gitlab.com if you’re interested in sharing.
+
+[Stack Overflow]: https://stackoverflow.com/