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Ask HN: Is StackOverflow Dying?

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Re: Ask HN: Is StackOverflow Dying?

#121

Post by listenallyall »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #52

I think it's because all of the low hanging fruits have been picked up already. People used to make 30,000 reputation out of a single answer on an extremely basic topic like "how do I create a variable in X". Now all the questions are either duplicates getting closed or hard questions on very specific topic, that, even if you can answer, will get you 10 reputation, and maybe 50 over the years. On the other hand, the…

Very true. Further, most long-time contributors to the site have realized the rep points actually have zero value. Would you hire someone because they had a high SO score? Would you put your rep balance on a resume?

Re: Ask HN: Is StackOverflow Dying?

#122

Post by KRAKRISMOTT »

FeistySkink wrote: post #115
matrix_overload wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human society 101: moderation is work, like any other. And if you are not paying your moderators to do the job (like on HN), you will quickly find that it once the initial wave of idealists fades out, it will attract people who get "paid" by having petty power over others. The kind of people we call "toxic assholes". Then your platform will die and the cycle will repeat.

So you're saying we should clone dang?

Dang is very well paid

Re: Ask HN: Is StackOverflow Dying?

#126

Post by playingalong »

pocketarc wrote: post #55
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find repo issues generally horrendous to browse/sear h. In particular 'stale issue' bots killing off well written issues with reproduction.

Sorry, tangential rant, but, God I hate stale issue bots. The issue is valid, it's reproduced, it's been discussed, nothing's changed, it hasn't stopped being a valid issue just because it hasn't had activity in 30 days, or 6 months, or a year. Just means the maintainers haven't gotten around to fixing it/implementing it yet, nothing wrong with that - they don't owe anyone a timeline for fixing issues. The only way t…

While I agree with this sentiment and share the frustration. Or some sense of lack of cohesion, but...

Remember the stale bot is an opt-in feature. It is the maintainer (s) who decided to configure it.

Re: Ask HN: Is StackOverflow Dying?

#127

Post by __marvin_the__ »

ilaksh wrote: post #89

I stopped participating because I found that I usually was insulted somehow or my answer was not credited. If they can find any fault in a question or answer they will take the opportunity to do so. If you give a correct answer but don't include a significant amount of explanation, it will be marked down. Often times I see perfectly valid questions and people refuse to answer them but will only respond with a comment…

> If they can find any fault in a question or answer they will take the opportunity to do so.

This has been my experience with learn language subreddits as well. I will give a one or two-sentence answer. Someone else will expound on that in the replies. If the reply was written in a snarky way, I get downvoted. That's just an invitation to not participate imo.

Re: Ask HN: Is StackOverflow Dying?

#128

Post by jcal93 »

Not sure if it's just StackOverflow or the whole of StackExchange. I used to be active in another StackExchange subject site and it was incredibly toxic (and I say this as someone who is generally open to letting people speak their mind in any fashion they see fit). I was advocating that we let low quality questions get answered and remain, while providing feedback on how to ask better questions, and eventually (hopefully) raising the quality overall for all users of the site regardless of their experience level. You might have thought I'd suggested child sacrifice with the toxic responses I received for suggesting this. Net result -- I left the site altogether never to return, and found that Reddit was much more open to my idea of nurturing "newbies" rather than squashing them.

Re: Ask HN: Is StackOverflow Dying?

#129

Post by robocat »

listenallyall wrote: post #119
robocat wrote: post #62

Aside: earned reputation seems to last forever. I got to top 10% about ten years ago, mostly through basic questions and answers that you could easily do when StackOverflow started. I haven’t touched my account in years, and I am now in top 8% with about 5000 reputation, because old questions and answers keep getting upvotes. I would think few people have much incentive to try and gain StackOverflow reputation, so wh…

This isn't an aside, you identified the main point. You're entirely correct, all rep lasts forever, further, all the easiest "deposits" have long ago been mined. Early adopters like yourself answered basic, universal questions and earned thousands of points, some tens or hundred of thousands, for providing knowledge that was easy to find or that almost any programmer already knows. 2 things: earning points is exponen…

StackOverflow is “open knowledge”, so I enjoyed adding to it as I helped many people in the world. I am not involved with open source. I was very careful to be correct and what I wrote was often unique knowledge, although it was often about browser quirks so what I wrote has mostly become outdated.

If I were employing a developer, and the developer linked their StackOverflow account, I would definitely judge the quality and quantity of questions and answers. “Farming” reputation to use as a reference requires a lot of skill and judgement.

There is only one person in the top 30 at place #15 that has been using SO less than a decade: https://stackexchange.com/leagues/1/alltime/stackoverflow

I know one of the top ten, and I would employ them (although I would be surprised if they choose to work with me).

The question of activity can be answered because SO publishes data. For example, the StackOverflow user database can be queried using https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/new for LastEditDate, as a proxy for user activity. Or grab the raw database and work out activity over time?

(edits)

Re: Ask HN: Is StackOverflow Dying?

#130

Post by panza »

I think it will be around for a while - the volume of content is still valuable.

But like many others, I've stopped contributing to it. The last time I tried to answer a question, it was marked down. My answer was correct, concise, to SO standards etc, but because the question was poorly worded and formatted, I was seen to be 'encouraging' it.

I appreciate the need for high quality questions. But burying correct answers is completely ridiculous.

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