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The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

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Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#51

Post by dandare »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #34

Disclaimer: I work in the Q&A team at Stack Overflow. What people don't understand is that SO serves literally all developers. No matter what choices we make there will be upset people. Do we reduce moderation? Help vampires take over. Do we keep moderation as is? People complain we are too strict (or not enough). Do we allow only English? We are elitist. Do we allow SO in other languages? We are fragmenting the comm…

> No matter what choices we make there will be upset people.

Sure, I have no idea what you have to deal with on a daily basis and in the end the content is mostly helpful so you are probably doing it right. But in more than few occasions I have been treated like a dirty beggar/shoplifter/moron/(you name it) for actually asking a question (or answering one)! Yes I need you and yes I owe you a lot - but I don't like you. And I won't root for you when you will be an underdog and when there will be equal alternative I will switch and never look back.

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#52

Post by nine_k »

marcelluspye wrote: post #8
Latty wrote: post #3

People always talk about how SO is so terrible, and yet it's still the best resource by a mile. People have just forgotten that the lack of that carefully curated environment created the complete mess that was all the forums we used to have before. Sure, it's not ideal - SO could do better in terms of helping people understand the site's goals and enforcing the rules in a less hostile way, but they are working on tha…

>SO isn't dying any time soon, and the content is still good. While I'd say this is currently true, answers on SO tend to stick around for a long time, and the 'marked as duplicate'-heavy behavior means that even if the best practice to solving a given problem changes, the top SO google result won't. While this isn't a _huge_ problem right now, with the way the site is set up I only see it getting worse, to the point…

Highly upvoted answers are usually converted into "wiki entries", so that they can evolve, extend and restructure with time. It somehow alleviates the problem, as long as the both sides (asking and answering) care to actually update it.

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#53

Post by menacingly »

Stack Overflow is useful, but a lot of that usefulness comes from its complete dominance of search results. By keyword stuffing in the sidebar (and last I checked the nofollow links) they maintain a strong search presence for virtually every topic.

So, this position as top tech knowledge hub is sort of artificially propped up at this point. You type in your query, arrive at a page with something vaguely like the question you asked, are faced with pedantic flags about how the question you came to have answered is somehow unfit, and maybe some useful info. Also maybe some outdated info with real unaccepeted answers below it.

I'm not aware of another site that so heavily depends on content it itself seems to consider unworthy, siloed into so many vaguely overlapping sub-sites

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#54

Post by blowski »

tlogan wrote: post #43
zajd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence do you have that SO is in decline?

No evidence. Just observation based on unscientific measurements. I could be very much wrong.

It's probably the same evidence that causes people to say Hacker News is in decline, the internet is in decline, society as a whole is in decline. Occasionally those predictions are right, but usually they're not.

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#55

Post by drinchev »

Well can we just think the other way around.

StackOverflow is a community driven website for a society that is used to follow rules and be disciplined.

Nowadays, the popularity of the website put it in a bad position. Handling millions of impolite, pseudo-developers, who've heard that it can help them with their problem.

In other words the community and popularity changed, not StackOverflow. And no it's not dying, it's just working! Sorry for some of us that remember the times where questions were mostly high-quality, but I don't think there is a way to prevent collateral damage in this case.

I prefer to read "opinionated question", instead of 10 paragraphs about a problem that in the end is unsolvable by logical decision.

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#56

Post by junke »

joekrie wrote: post #15
Latty wrote: post #3

People always talk about how SO is so terrible, and yet it's still the best resource by a mile. People have just forgotten that the lack of that carefully curated environment created the complete mess that was all the forums we used to have before. Sure, it's not ideal - SO could do better in terms of helping people understand the site's goals and enforcing the rules in a less hostile way, but they are working on tha…

I find it to be a great resource if someone has already answered your question, especially if I find it via Google. As for asking questions, it's a bit off-putting to be immediately downvoted without explanation, and to not get a single answer. Point is, it's good resource to free-ride but not actively participate.

Did you eventually find out why you were downvoted?

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#58

Post by a3n »

I've idly wondered how I could restrict queries to questions that have been closed as too or not enough , as those are often the most interesting and educational items, even if they don't answer my specific question.

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#59

Post by makecheck »

While StackOverflow is still an outstanding resource, they never really solved the “why bother?” problem for the really difficult subjects.

Your choices are: answer a trivial JavaScript question and get a million points, or spend an hour painstakingly explaining a hard problem for maybe one point (where, half the time, the original submitter doesn’t even bother to “accept” your answer so you lose even that small point boost).

There needs to be some scaling factor. For example: if the number of questions anywhere on a certain topic is quite small then popular answers in that area could receive more credit; or, perhaps individual parts of a post could be voted on to increase value (say, you see a really detailed example so you “tip” that answer for taking the time to write it all out).

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#60

Post by clairity »

dustingetz wrote: post #11

Point based moderation generates toxicity, hacker news gets toxic too. Stack Overflow went all in on moderation before they understood the social consequences of it. There's an opportunity here for a social network with a moderation system that cares about how it makes people feel and how feelings impact user generated content.

this is a really important point. how do you curate for good content while not demoralizing contributors?

and it's a more generalized social challenge. in coaching for example, you need to improve a player's abilities and instincts, which essentially implies that what they're currently doing is not so great. the easiest people to coach understand that they are not already perfect. those who are hardest to coach are those who already believe they are good enough.

for the player, there's a tension between having the self-esteem to assert yourself while having the maturity to accept criticism. you need to be able to encourage both behaviors while maintaining a balance between them.

as you point out, the challenge for an online moderation system is providing a similar balance to users/contributors. the social distance between contributors and moderators makes it hard not to become defensive.

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