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Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

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Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

#31

Post by mooreds »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #30

Their 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 Having massive amounts of questions gets more surface area for ads but a lot of programming Q&A that is a few years out of date is mostly useless.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. T…

I wasn't able to find a detailed breakdown of their revenue, though https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2020/07/28/stack-ove... indicates that Teams is responsible for 1/3 of it.

Is it the ads you object to?

Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

#32

Post by busyant »

listenallyall wrote: post #19

Despite what SO states, the karma system does matter. And it's flawed, as the vast majority of karma that will ever be awarded, has already been awarded. Very simple questions have thousands of upvotes, as do the answers, and all of the basic, common questions have been covered extensively. The only path for a new, energetic, enthusiastic user to grow his/her karma score (and associated credibility) is via a massive…

> I don't claim to have all of the answers, but a decay function seems quite obvious to me.

I don't have a super-informed opinion here, but a decay function sounds reasonable. I'd also suggest that the decay be uncoupled from the user's karma (i.e., the user keeps his/her karma, but the value of the votes decay over time to make way for changes in technology). I don't claim that this is a well thought out idea, but at first blush, it seems reasonable. Also, I just don't give a shit what my karma percentile is.

Finally, FWIW, I find SO ~85% useful and ~15% problematic. And I feel like sometimes we fixate on the 15% without acknowledging the genuine utility of the 85%.

Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

#33

Post by rileymat2 »

Asraelite wrote: post #29
DarrenDev wrote: post #12

It 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.

Yes, a fair comparison and contrast to help choose between two libraries or frameworks is extremely helpful, but those are pretty much not allowed.

Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

#34

Post by hackflip »

kypro wrote: post #23
sdevonoes wrote: post #22

I 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.

The "goal" of StackOverflow is not to best serve the individual who posts a question. Their goal is to best serve the individuals who find the answer to their question without needing to post.

Once you look at it from that frame, it makes sense why they are harsh against poorly worded or duplicated questions. They aren't trying to aid any specific individual, just the collective.

Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

#35

Post by david_allison »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #25

The 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.

> "Hot Network Questions" are a distraction and take up too much horizontal space.

Well worth blocking these with an adblocker, if you don't already

Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

#37

Post by nicaragua »

attil-io wrote: post #36
nicaragua wrote: post #28

Not being able to link to an answer.

What do you mean? It is possible to link to answers, e.g.: https://stackoverflow.com/a/67723416/3398271

I just noticed the share links below the answers.

Honestly have been blinded to that link for quite some time, expecting it to be above the answer body sort of like github issues are.

Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

#38

Post by achairapart »

StackOverflow is one of the most toxic community out there. Asking a question is a miserable experience. Answering a question? Same.

It really seems no one is there to help each other. It's mostly status quo or reputation. Moderators have too much work to do or have serious ego problems (most users call them "StackOverlords"). Or a mix between the two.

One thing I noticed is that other sites of the Stack Exchange Network are doing quite well. Probably they should split up SO, at least with one site for backend related questions and one for frontend, or even for specific frameworks/platforms. But this would also split the value of the site, so I don't think it's gonna happen.

Eventually someone will disrupt the whole network, just like they did with Experts-Exchange.

Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

#39

Post by culopatin »

I just don’t value it enough to be reprimanded by an unknown internet person about how my question was worded. If I have a question I’m obviously not an expert in the matter, so I may not be able to word it perfectly the first time. Sometimes I need someone to ask a clarifying question to understand that I was looking at the situation from the wrong angle, but in SO you just get either ignored or just “that’s stupid”

Re: Ask HN: In your opinion, what sucks about StackOverflow

#40

Post by wallscratch »

As someone who didn’t study anywhere near as much math or cs in college as I’d have liked, and had to spend a lot of time asking questions on Stack.* sites, I’ve had an extremely positive experience.

The only even mildly negative experience I’ve had was once a high-level user pattern-matched one of my questions to a much simpler already-answered question and closed it along with a dismissive comment, but as soon as I commented highlighting the discrepancy he apologized and answered my question.

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