I see them as a HN for the masses. If HN is a billboard for YC, anyone with a little $ can have their ad on SO. Seems to be working just fine.
I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
131–140 of 196 posts
Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, asking on SO isn't all that difficult. It just requires a little patience, to read and understand the guidelines, and to craft a high quality question. Unfortunately, when someone's blocked on some tricky programming task they've already been banging their head against for hours, it's probably a time when patience is in short supply. But, that patience is often rewarded with a solution. I'm amused to see…
I agree, I actually really like that there's a high bar for asking. It makes it more likely someone will be able to fully understand and give a good answer. And I would say probably 50% of the questions I start typing on SO, I actually figure out on my own by the time I've written it. I'll notice that I've glossed over the details of one part so I'll stop to dig in further and sure enough I had been making a bad assu…
> And I would say probably 50% of the questions I start typing on SO, I actually figure out on my own by the time I've written it.
The live search for related Q&As has been particularly useful for me for this. Do I sometimes feel bad I did all that typing first? Sure. But that's vastly outweighed by happiness at getting a solution.
Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
#133Stackoverflow works great for me, and I don't know why more people don't appear to use it like I do. 1) When you've got a problem, Google it. 98% of the time the answer will be in top 5 links to stackoverflow or documentation. You upvote the answer and question. 2) 1.5% of the time, stackoverflow will have a related question, but either it doesn't have an answer, or the answer has issues. You figure it out yourself,…
I've earned "Necromancer" about a dozen times and I don't think it's a coincidence that they're some of the answers I'm most pleased with. I don't even bother answering old questions unless I think there's a clear gap in the existing answers that I can help fill.
Do you normally answer older questions that have already been answered, or newer questions with a few sub-optimal answers?
I find that most older questions have pretty useful answers so I can't really improve upon them.
Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I must be missing something, given the "reverence" SO seems to get. I don't think you are. Stack Overflow was an interesting idea, but I find it has a terrible signal/noise ratio today and one of the most unpleasant and unconstructive cultures of any tech discussion site, for basically the same reasons that many other comments here have already given. The way they chose to co-opt search engines was also a brilliant m…
What would you prefer be returned instead? Places like Expertsexchange or Quora?
No, they are usually even worse. What I would prefer to see is whichever search results organically rise to the top excluding the huge but more-hype-than-substance sites by default. I often find there is real expert commentary via official docs, blog posts, archived mailing lists, presentations at conferences, and so on, sitting just underneath all those SO links that clog up the first results page.
Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have flagged many questions for being off topic. You could say I'm part of the "problem" but from my standpoint, someone will ask a question that can be answered so many ways that the scope is too broad. Many times the person asking doesn't know enough to understand just how broad the question they've asked is. That's why I also leave a comment telling them _why_ I just voted to close. This is, unfortunately, an un…
"How do I convert a JSON object to CSV?" is a common broad question I see all the time. There is no standard conversion because they are completely different data structures.
And yet, answers with demonstrations of the many ways to do so are extremely useful! Sometimes I think the side of this debate you land on is something of a personality test: do you seek order above all else or do you embrace and try to grapple with chaos?
Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
#136Why has SO entered the hiring market? Are they losing focus? I use SO profile as part of my hiring process but does the world really need another job-board?
Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have flagged many questions for being off topic. You could say I'm part of the "problem" but from my standpoint, someone will ask a question that can be answered so many ways that the scope is too broad. Many times the person asking doesn't know enough to understand just how broad the question they've asked is. That's why I also leave a comment telling them _why_ I just voted to close. This is, unfortunately, an un…
Maybe some questions are just not "too broad" but simply broad, and that one may wish to have a number of possible solutions to a problem and pick the one that fits one's case best ("one" being possibly someone else in the future that has a not precisely similar but close enough problem that the set of proposed solutions can help in finding the right path). So maybe, just maybe a slightly broad question with a couple…
My personal experience with such questions is that very often, the process of engaging in dialogue to determine what kind of answer(s) the asker actually wants is difficult and time-consuming. This typically complicated by askers who don't actually show up to the dialogue, leaving people who want to be helpful with no way to figure out what specific answers are helpful. There tends to be no adequate way to helpfully answer such questions, so people try to filter them out as poor uses of time.
The scenario you describe is somewhat different, in which the asker is well aware they have a broad question. Such people are advised to make clear that they know full well it is a broad question and are seeking broad comment on multiple viable approaches.
Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
#138Stackoverflow works great for me, and I don't know why more people don't appear to use it like I do. 1) When you've got a problem, Google it. 98% of the time the answer will be in top 5 links to stackoverflow or documentation. You upvote the answer and question. 2) 1.5% of the time, stackoverflow will have a related question, but either it doesn't have an answer, or the answer has issues. You figure it out yourself,…
One issue I run into is finding a Stack Overflow question that exactly matches the issue I've run into, find that it's been closed for being a duplicate, click the link to the question it's supposed to be a duplicate of, and find that the other question is completely unrelated. Not only can I not find the answer from SO at this point, but if I find the answer on my own I can't even help others. Another issue I've run…
> and find that the other question is completely unrelated.
Did you take advantage of this opportunity to comment or flag the answer for moderation? If a question has been inappropriately marked as duplicate, that's something that the community should be aware of, and SO has methods for doing so.
Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
"How do I convert a JSON object to CSV?" is a common broad question I see all the time. There is no standard conversion because they are completely different data structures.
And yet, answers with demonstrations of the many ways to do so are extremely useful! Sometimes I think the side of this debate you land on is something of a personality test: do you seek order above all else or do you embrace and try to grapple with chaos?
Such a question is best addressed in a personalized way, starting from what capabilities the asker has and what they are trying to accomplish. Offering multiple viable technical solutions to a person who asks such a question is quite likely to leave them confused and adrift as most of the answers are not comprehended.
So, you're absolutely correct. Demonstrations of the many ways to do so are extremely useful to many people! It is, however, highly likely that few - if any - will be useful to the person asking the question.
You're very right - this is a personality test. Do you try to jump directly to trying to answer an apparently-simple question, or do you cautiously consider if the simple question hides complex depths (deeply nested structures, arrays of variable length, etc.) that make a simple and straightforward answer difficult?
Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have flagged many questions for being off topic. You could say I'm part of the "problem" but from my standpoint, someone will ask a question that can be answered so many ways that the scope is too broad. Many times the person asking doesn't know enough to understand just how broad the question they've asked is. That's why I also leave a comment telling them _why_ I just voted to close. This is, unfortunately, an un…
> You could say I'm part of the "problem" And I do! With lots of swearing! :) The only time I'm on SO is from a Google search result. They should at least make the danged site noindex itself for that page if it's the question has been closed. You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've been searching for a solution and found a SO link and thought I had the answer coming my way only to see the thing was closed befor…
> The solution is to make the closed question not appear in Google search results. If the same question keeps appearing the solution is to let someone answer it.
This is a great idea. Have you considered discussing it on the Meta site?
The solution would definitely have to be more nuanced - sometimes "closed" questions have useful answers on them so you wouldn't want to remove those from Google. But removing "closed" questions that provide no value would probably be an improvement.