I'm an indie Mac app developer, can I use AskDifferent as a support forum?

Question

I'm an Indie Mac Developer with several apps, most of which are fairly technical or even developer- or web-developer-targeted.

I'd love to have a StackExchange-style forum available for my users to post support questions that I (and the community) can answer.

I'm not sure whether I would ideally:

A) have my own white-labelled StackExchange site, or

B) just use an existing StackExchange site like AskDifferent

I realize that option A above is probably not available to me (but please correct me if I'm wrong). But again, option B may actually be just as good for me and my users, or maybe even better.

So:

1. Is this an appropriate use of AskDifferent? Am I allowed to direct the users of my Mac Apps here to post their support questions (which, again, are likely to be fairly technical in nature for my developer-focused apps)?

2. Is some other StackExchange site more appropriate for this? SuperUser?

One final note:

I noticed that the AskDifferent FAQ states that:

and [Ask Different] is not about ...

• programming, with the exception of AppleScript and Automator

Please note that the app I'm most interested in providing support for here is basically "Automator for the web" and is implemented using AppleScript.

It's called Fake:

http://fakeapp.com

Answer 1

Answer to A:

SE is not available for private use, except in extremely big corporate environments at an extremely big price, which to date I am not aware of any, nor has SE announced any.

Answer to B:

StackOverflow recently did a big support rollout with Facebook for developers, but the size of Facebook and the amount of Facebook Developer questions motivated and supported the move.

In general, using an existing SE site as a support forum for a particular product, is a bad idea. Unless the site is already building a lot of questions for that particular product, and to a point where it has a tag for it, the long term sustainability for this is not that great.

Some SE sites, for example Web Apps, quickly had the community up in arms because when Trello was launched, it's FAQ gave the impression that Web Apps was a support structure for Trello, and they had to heavily adjust their thinking and FAQ to make it clear that it's not.

I suggest you become an active part of the community, and if questions around your product comes up, feel free to answer and be visible, but don't use an public SE site as some sort of official Support systems for you product. Rather look at other tools for that specific purpose.