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Stack Overflow Fatigue

robertelwell.blogspot.com

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Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#11

Post by CWuestefeld »

I'd like to be answering questions there to provide a service, but I'd also like to receive recognition for it. But it seems like that's no longer possible, at least not at a level of tradeoff that's acceptable to me.

For one thing, I always try to provide a tested answer, but doing so means that someone frequently jumps in front of me, scoring the reputation. In many of these cases I can see that the answer provided might be conceptually correct, but wasn't actually tested, because there are typos in the code. Thus, it appears that the incentives are skewed away from providing the highest-quality answers.

I pretty much quit about two weeks ago. I spent time formulating an answer [1] that was entirely correct, so by the time I posted it there were three other answers there, but they relied on special cases rather than being generally correct. One person upvoted my answer, but almost immediately, someone else downvoted it. The only thing I can imagine is that one of the "competing" answerers wanted to ensure that his mostly-correct answer was listed above my completely correct one, so he could score points from readers that hadn't yet seen my reply that explained why special care was needed.

If my diligent work is going to be devalued like that, then I don't see the point in investing more time in it.

[1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2975588/selecting-a-range...

Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#12

Post by farmerbuzz »

melling wrote: post #2

I quit StackOverFlow once they devalued asking questions. No one on the site seemed to understand that incentivizing people to ask great questions was the most important thing. The site could have been a great starting point for learning esoteric topics like Haskell, Scheme, Lisp, Grails, Scala, Lift, Go, Emacs Lisp, etc. Basically, in general, you need one good question with 2 or 3 good answers [yes, some types are…

Are you using the site for reputation or to spread knowledge? If its the former then you're welcome to leave, if its the latter then why do you care about reputation?

Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#13

Post by netmau5 »

I've used SO from time to time but have only participated when I came across a question I thought I could add value to with my perspective. I've never really kept up with the point system.

The author says "There's a plateau you hit there where you either have to devote way too much time to help other people do their work, or you just fall out of it." Do your points devalue over time somehow? Is there inflation in the user permissions you get with rep? Or is it just that you have to jump the shark to get the first answers in as they are far more valuable than later answers/editing answers?

Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#14

Post by bad_user »

farmerbuzz wrote: post #12
melling wrote: post #2

I quit StackOverFlow once they devalued asking questions. No one on the site seemed to understand that incentivizing people to ask great questions was the most important thing. The site could have been a great starting point for learning esoteric topics like Haskell, Scheme, Lisp, Grails, Scala, Lift, Go, Emacs Lisp, etc. Basically, in general, you need one good question with 2 or 3 good answers [yes, some types are…

Are you using the site for reputation or to spread knowledge? If its the former then you're welcome to leave, if its the latter then why do you care about reputation?

Can't it be both?

Gaining reputation points is a wonderful short-term incentive for contributing. Otherwise why waist time instead of working on something fun? (and good answers take a lot to write)

Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#15

Post by mmacaulay »

farmerbuzz wrote: post #12
melling wrote: post #2

I quit StackOverFlow once they devalued asking questions. No one on the site seemed to understand that incentivizing people to ask great questions was the most important thing. The site could have been a great starting point for learning esoteric topics like Haskell, Scheme, Lisp, Grails, Scala, Lift, Go, Emacs Lisp, etc. Basically, in general, you need one good question with 2 or 3 good answers [yes, some types are…

Are you using the site for reputation or to spread knowledge? If its the former then you're welcome to leave, if its the latter then why do you care about reputation?

Reputation and other points systems are designed to attract people because it's like a game - in fact, this very site uses it!

Obviously there's the problem of people "gaming the system" to earn more reputation and you do whatever is possible to prevent that, but there's no reason why people can't be there for both the reputation points game AND to spread knowledge. The problem now for Stack Overflow (as I see it) is that it's reached a level of saturation where it's difficult to do either.

Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#16

Post by languagehacker »

netmau5 wrote: post #13

I've used SO from time to time but have only participated when I came across a question I thought I could add value to with my perspective. I've never really kept up with the point system. The author says "There's a plateau you hit there where you either have to devote way too much time to help other people do their work, or you just fall out of it." Do your points devalue over time somehow? Is there inflation in the…

The plateau doesn't have to do with the points, but rather the content. If you're going to give an answer that's worthwhile, it would be nice to recognition for it. If you want recognition, you have to go after questions that haven't been answered. A lot of those are basically doing other people's work, and not really question-answering.

Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#17

Post by nickelplate »

The problem with StackOverflow is that it doesn't allow discussions, and as long as that will be the case I only see it working for general, domain-agnostic questions. If you have questions about the dark corners of C++/C#/Java, or how to best apply a design pattern, then chances are SO has something for you. As we level up as developers we gravitate relatively quickly towards specific domains. And a community of domain experts will not last long if it explicitly forbids extended discussions. The best online programming communities (e.g. gamedev, ltu, ompf, and the gold standard, flipcode (r.i.p.) ) are home to domain experts who enjoy discussing, debating and basically shooting the breeze with each other. This is what ultimately makes people stick around.

Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#18

Post by eli »

farmerbuzz wrote: post #12
melling wrote: post #2

I quit StackOverFlow once they devalued asking questions. No one on the site seemed to understand that incentivizing people to ask great questions was the most important thing. The site could have been a great starting point for learning esoteric topics like Haskell, Scheme, Lisp, Grails, Scala, Lift, Go, Emacs Lisp, etc. Basically, in general, you need one good question with 2 or 3 good answers [yes, some types are…

Are you using the site for reputation or to spread knowledge? If its the former then you're welcome to leave, if its the latter then why do you care about reputation?

The fact that points on SO actually unlock admin and moderation features on the site gives them real value. I don't care at all about my Reddit karma, but if it meant I could eventually retitle misleading posts I would.

Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#19

Post by telemachos »

My SO pet peeve was authors who answer nearly all questions in their field with "I discuss this in Chapter 5 of Volume 4 of my Everything You Need to Know About Everything series. In stores now."

Re: Stack Overflow Fatigue

#20

Post by [deleted] »

languagehacker wrote: post #16
netmau5 wrote: post #13

I've used SO from time to time but have only participated when I came across a question I thought I could add value to with my perspective. I've never really kept up with the point system. The author says "There's a plateau you hit there where you either have to devote way too much time to help other people do their work, or you just fall out of it." Do your points devalue over time somehow? Is there inflation in the…

The plateau doesn't have to do with the points, but rather the content. If you're going to give an answer that's worthwhile, it would be nice to recognition for it. If you want recognition, you have to go after questions that haven't been answered. A lot of those are basically doing other people's work, and not really question-answering.

[deleted]
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