I'm for more hostility. There should be more difficult to ask questions, there are way too much people asking idiot questions there. Allowing this makes the site worse for people who really have important questions.
The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
61–70 of 304 posts
Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
#62For most of my bugs I switched to read the source on Github. Works better for me
Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
#63People 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 agree. For the first time in a while, I've picked up a language I have not used for almost 15 years. Google is helping immensely, and I've been shocked at how often (>95%) of the time the first result is SO, and that answer is perfect. So much so I've stopped searching google, I've just got a lot of SO tabs open. It might not be perfect, though I'd say it's the best by a massive margin.
> So much so I've stopped searching google, I've just got a lot of SO tabs open.
with all due respect but SO search isn't quite stellar.
Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
#64stack overflow is one of the best dev resources available. do people not remember the dark days before trying to unblock the answers in expert sexchange?
For more than a decade before SO existed I was searching the internet and successfully finding answers to questions. There were good sites and bad sites then, good sites and bad sites now. SO didn't change anything. If it didn't exist the information would still be out there and searchable through other sites.
Usenet/DejaNews (pre-acquisition) were my favorite incarnation but there's never been a time that the makeup of sites at the time didn't result in the right information being easy to get.
Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
#65I'm apparently in the top 0.54% for this year. Whoever says SO hates new user have never used the moderation tools and read the stuff new users write on this page.
Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
#66People 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…
The curation is far and away the worst part of SO. So many interesting threads killed for being off topic. I've never seen moderation add a thing to that site. Its success is in its structure and voting. They've done everything in their power to kill that from a moderation angle.
Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
#67What we need instead of SO is a wiki similar to the Arch wiki, but for all IT related troubleshooting problems. Instead of removing "duplicate questions" we can just refine the details of that section of the wiki with more information.
The c2.com wiki is a nice alternative in this space. It's not quite what you're describing, but I think it's worth checking out of your after a general-software-stuff wiki.
Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
#68I've found that if you go to Stackoverflow for a fast-moving topic like Javascript, the first answer isn't correct in modern terms. The next set of answers, without check marks, are likely more correct. So you have to read the entire page to get a glimpse of the truth. This can be bad if you're just looking for an immediate solution, however for learning its fantastic because it shows you a recorded history of how th…
I think the accepted answer causes a lot of problems, I personally think that after 3-6 months it should no longer pin it as the top answer, votes should. Not sure if it's ever been discussed on meta, I don't understand why they haven't done it already, seems a reasonable solution.
I asked that once on Meta, my question got downvoted to an horrifying level (-17 or something) and I ended up deleting it.
I learned afterward Meta downvote don't actually impact your rep but still.
Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
#69Couldn't agree more! The way SO is being moderated, soon it's gonna be next Expert Exchange. IYKWIM
Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)
#70Disclaimer: 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 yo…
And I'm sure you'll have the same experience elsewhere. Once a site like SO gets large enough to be really useful to a lot of people you're going to also have to deal with an influx of the type of users you don't like. I don't know how you solve that problem.