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I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

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Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

#171

Post by sanderjd »

coryfklein wrote: post #151
corobo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones that really get my gripe are the ones that are flagged for being off topic.. Off what topic? This is a place where technical questions are asked and answered and this is a technical question that needs answering - Why is it closed?

> This is a place where technical questions are asked and answered I think this is a great reflection of one of the largest problems that Stack Overflow has to solve, and that is user education. The definition of what is on topic for Stack Overflow is much more specific than just being "technical", but most users don't even know that. This results in many new questions being closed. The community is constantly trying…

It may be true that most users don't know how narrowly the topic is defined, but it's also true that many users do know, and simply think it is defined far too narrowly. Sometimes, if you just can't seem to communicate some policy concept to your target audience, it's a problem with the policy, not the communication.

Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

#172

Post by sanderjd »

coryfklein wrote: post #145
lloeki wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 I think there are two kinds of "broad": 1. There are multiple ways to solve a specific problem with a specific expected outcome. "How do I sort an array?", for example, is a broad question in that it can be solved in many ways, but you c…

I'd love to see the SO community's answers to "How do you write a game?".

Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

#173

Post by kazinator »

Stackoverflow is a waste dump of crap questions that need to be put on old (and permanently deleted).

This is not the case with some other SE sites, which run a "tigher ship". For instance, the moderation review queues on the Electronics SE site are kept small; everything gets processed.

The moderation queue on SO is huge. Currently, 8.8K questions with close votes need review. Hundreds of low-quality posts. In Electronics SE: 6 close votes need review at the moment, 3 First Posts and 1 re-open. That's it.

I clicked on Review in SO just now to start reviewing close votes. The very first question that comes up is from 6 years ago.

Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

#174

Post by kzisme »

r00fus wrote: post #165
Bartweiss wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my least favorite SO patterns is seeing a top answer with ~150 points that's simply wrong, and then a second or third answer with ~20 points that's actually correct. For high-profile questions this gets sorted out eventually, but it sometimes persists indefinitely for niche questions, and it's really unfortunate. I know "first mover advantage" is hard to solve (cf. Reddit), but it's a really big deal for SO.

Do you have an example? Honestly curious.

Of what exactly? The last question I answered got deleted by moderators.

Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

#176

Post by acjohnson55 »

Bartweiss wrote: post #122
acjohnson55 wrote: post #47

Earlier 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 don't agree that asking questions is easy, or limited only by quality barriers. That may be true for adhering to the rules, but it's not enough to get accurate answers. If you have a problem which is at all subtle or complicated, it's frequently necessary to open by saying "I know about X and Y, that's not what I'm asking!" Otherwise, the fastest guns in the west will see the header, skim a few lines, and answer "J…

> I don't agree that asking questions is easy, or limited only by quality barriers.

I didn't say either of those things, and I don't think either one is true :)

Asking quality questions is a skill, whether that's on SO or elsewhere. I'm just saying it's not rocket science.

Perhaps a better workflow could improve things. Almost like a wizard.

Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

#177

Post by coryfklein »

sanderjd wrote: post #171
coryfklein wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a place where technical questions are asked and answered I think this is a great reflection of one of the largest problems that Stack Overflow has to solve, and that is user education. The definition of what is on topic for Stack Overflow is much more specific than just being "technical", but most users don't even know that. This results in many new questions being closed. The community is constantly trying…

It may be true that most users don't know how narrowly the topic is defined, but it's also true that many users do know, and simply think it is defined far too narrowly. Sometimes, if you just can't seem to communicate some policy concept to your target audience, it's a problem with the policy, not the communication.

> Sometimes, if you just can't seem to communicate some policy concept to your target audience, it's a problem with the policy, not the communication.

I agree 100%. If you were to claim that the "on topic" policy for Stack Overflow is too narrow, I would respectfully disagree.

Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

#178

Post by coryfklein »

sanderjd wrote: post #172
coryfklein wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I think there are two kinds of "broad": 1. There are multiple ways to solve a specific problem with a specific expected outcome. "How do I sort an array?", for example, is a broad question in that it can be solved in many ways, but you c…

I'd love to see the SO community's answers to "How do you write a game?".

I think this is an interesting and common response to the policies. As if the "Too Broad" close policy is the only thing stopping volunteer contributors from writing a 10 page thesis "How To Write A Video Game" for every questioner that asks for it.

Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

#179

Post by wpietri »

initram wrote: post #160
wpietri wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a person says, "I'm having a problem" and the response is, "Well I'm not having any problem, buh-bye!" it in effect says "I don't care that you have a problem." Often the real problem for novices is that they don't know enough to ask the right question; good questions require that you already be pretty close to the answer. So the real process of helping somebody with technology often begins by turning a bad ques…

>When a person says, "I'm having a problem" and the response is, "Well I'm not having any problem, buh-bye!" it in effect says "I don't care that you have a problem." What a bizarre interpretation. When someone says, "It works for me," they're saying "I tried your example because I want to help, but was unable to reproduce your problem. Maybe there's some information you didn't provide that can explain the difference…

That may be what you're thinking. But it's often not how it comes across, especially when it's the totality of the reply. If you want to say the rest of that, I'd suggest you actually try saying the rest of that.

Re: I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining

#180

Post by r00fus »

kzisme wrote: post #174
r00fus wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an example? Honestly curious.

Of what exactly? The last question I answered got deleted by moderators.

Specifically this:

> ... seeing a top answer with ~150 points that's simply wrong, and then a second or third answer with ~20 points that's actually correct.

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