I am behind a corporate proxy, and I always(!) need to solve a captcha before I can use the search.
Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
21–30 of 60 posts
Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
#22I don't think it works anymore. I was very engaged in Stackverflow a few years ago (got ~55K reputation) but stopped using it (not sure why). Now, last week I opened a question in ServerFault (where I got ~100 reputation or so) and my "silly" question was just answered with "what are you asking? Please ask the question the right way".
I didn't even bother fixing my question. I deleted all my stack exchange accounts.
Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
#23I don't think it works anymore. I was very engaged in Stackverflow a few years ago (got ~55K reputation) but stopped using it (not sure why). Now, last week I opened a question in ServerFault (where I got ~100 reputation or so) and my "silly" question was just answered with "what are you asking? Please ask the question the right way". I didn't even bother fixing my question. I deleted all my stack exchange accounts.
Is there some reason why people are so extremely rude on StackOverflow?
I understand sometimes questions can be worded poorly or miss out important pieces of information, but moaning at people (often those new to the site) to do something the right-way seems like the wrong approach. Most people don't spend all day on StackOverflow and know the "correct" way to format a question.
Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
#24[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
#25The width of the code blocks in the answers is often too narrow and require horizontal scrolling
"Hot Network Questions" are a distraction and take up too much horizontal space.
Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
#26I don't think it works anymore. I was very engaged in Stackverflow a few years ago (got ~55K reputation) but stopped using it (not sure why). Now, last week I opened a question in ServerFault (where I got ~100 reputation or so) and my "silly" question was just answered with "what are you asking? Please ask the question the right way". I didn't even bother fixing my question. I deleted all my stack exchange accounts.
Is there some reason why people are so extremely rude on StackOverflow? I understand sometimes questions can be worded poorly or miss out important pieces of information, but moaning at people (often those new to the site) to do something the right-way seems like the wrong approach. Most people don't spend all day on StackOverflow and know the "correct" way to format a question.
They encourage it big you do the peer moderation you're told to check for that.
Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
#27I don't think it works anymore. I was very engaged in Stackverflow a few years ago (got ~55K reputation) but stopped using it (not sure why). Now, last week I opened a question in ServerFault (where I got ~100 reputation or so) and my "silly" question was just answered with "what are you asking? Please ask the question the right way". I didn't even bother fixing my question. I deleted all my stack exchange accounts.
Is there some reason why people are so extremely rude on StackOverflow? I understand sometimes questions can be worded poorly or miss out important pieces of information, but moaning at people (often those new to the site) to do something the right-way seems like the wrong approach. Most people don't spend all day on StackOverflow and know the "correct" way to format a question.
Right from the start the idea was not to have just a forum with questions and answers but a curated repository of knowledge. There would therefore be an active moderation. Duplicated questions would be closed, out of topic ones would be deleted, questions/answers could be edited,...
This ended up in a culture of active and sometimes heavy-handed moderation that 's now part of the DNA of the site.
Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
#28Not being able to link to an answer.
Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
#29It doesn't allow broad questions, only nuts and bolts questions. As in: is my approach to building this the best approach? I could really do with a site that lets me ask that kind of question.
For many broad questions, when you google them one of the top results is an old Stack Exchange post that wouldn't be allowed today.
It's a shame, because these answers are usually more thorough, objective, and helpful than anything else that comes up in the search.
Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow
#30Their business model conflicts with what would serve users best. It once was a place where I would trust answers, now I have to search multiple times, scroll through many results to find relevant answers.
Having massive amounts of questions gets more surface area for ads but a lot of programming Q&A that is a few years out of date is mostly useless. API's change, things become deprecated or better solutions emerge.
They need to cull massive amounts of content for it to be more helpful but that would likely drop revenue.