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What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

blog.codinghorror.com

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Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#21

Post by torstenvl »

PudgePacket wrote: post #4

I've used stackoverflow for years and have never heard it put like that. "Stack Overflow ultimately has much more in common with Wikipedia than a discussion forum. By this I mean questions and answers on Stack Overflow are not primarily judged by their usefulness to a specific individual, but by how many other programmers that question or answer can potentially help over time ." Personally I would have been much more…

I think this is a good observation, but I still don't think it completely explains the hostility on SO, which quite often seems like an even more hostile and juvenile version of certain Linux distro mailing lists. It honestly seems like most of SO is people screaming "RTFM n00b!" and downvoting questions into oblivion.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#22

Post by melling »

Before I did a couple of rage quits on StackOverFlow, I wanted it to be the definitive place for learning any computer topic from the beginning through advanced topic, especially esoteric topics. You could easily build the ultimate learning guide given enough questions, linking, etc.

I spent quite a bit of time on elisp questions. For example:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2170528/writing-hello-wo...

I think I had close to 200 questions at one point.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#23

Post by manigandham »

There are definitely problems with outdated content. SO + Google seems to be particularly bad at finding accurate answers without cross-referencing several different posts all linking to each other, combined with forced immutability and the difficulty of some changes.

Some other sites like Quora have a full question "merge" feature which SO needs, it would cut down the duplicates and allow a single question thread to become more useful.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#24

Post by kevinherron »

gonational wrote: post #20

I’m gonna catch some flak for this... Listening to Jeff try to describe what stack overflow is and the “fundamental misunderstanding” by all of us millions of unwashed masses is amazing. It’s also a bit like listening to a muskox describe why it decided to grow long hair after so much time in the snow; IOW, a complete and total lack of understanding of emergence and a rewriting of history at the behest of Jeff’s enor…

This post was written by Jeff Atwood, not Joel...

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#25

Post by dgritsko »

gonational wrote: post #20

I’m gonna catch some flak for this... Listening to Jeff try to describe what stack overflow is and the “fundamental misunderstanding” by all of us millions of unwashed masses is amazing. It’s also a bit like listening to a muskox describe why it decided to grow long hair after so much time in the snow; IOW, a complete and total lack of understanding of emergence and a rewriting of history at the behest of Jeff’s enor…

On the subject of fundamental misunderstandings, you do realize that Jeff Atwood wrote this post and not Joel Spolsky, right?

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#26

Post by jrochkind1 »

One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever software/platform/library is discussed. This is also something that gets worse over time, like the uniqueness problem.

I think it's worse than the uniqueness problem, multiple duplicate _good_ questions/answers don't actually harm, misguide, or delay anyone looking for an answer; one _wrong_ one does.

And of course, if you try to ask a question again because you think the old one might be outdated (if you were _sure_, you wouldn't have to ask probably), it'll likely get closed as a duplicate. :)

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#27

Post by sureaboutthis »

PudgePacket wrote: post #4

I've used stackoverflow for years and have never heard it put like that. "Stack Overflow ultimately has much more in common with Wikipedia than a discussion forum. By this I mean questions and answers on Stack Overflow are not primarily judged by their usefulness to a specific individual, but by how many other programmers that question or answer can potentially help over time ." Personally I would have been much more…

A version of that is published in the Help Center and The Tour--both which everyone is directed to but nobody reads--and then everyone argues with us about.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#28

Post by gonational »

dgritsko wrote: post #25
gonational wrote: post #20

I’m gonna catch some flak for this... Listening to Jeff try to describe what stack overflow is and the “fundamental misunderstanding” by all of us millions of unwashed masses is amazing. It’s also a bit like listening to a muskox describe why it decided to grow long hair after so much time in the snow; IOW, a complete and total lack of understanding of emergence and a rewriting of history at the behest of Jeff’s enor…

On the subject of fundamental misunderstandings, you do realize that Jeff Atwood wrote this post and not Joel Spolsky, right?

Oops, thanks - corrected. Also makes my deleted last paragraph’s speculation a little bit irrelevant, nominally, while also remaining entirely relevant.

Re: What does Stack Overflow want to be when it grows up?

#30

Post by sureaboutthis »

neuland wrote: post #19
PudgePacket wrote: post #4

I've used stackoverflow for years and have never heard it put like that. "Stack Overflow ultimately has much more in common with Wikipedia than a discussion forum. By this I mean questions and answers on Stack Overflow are not primarily judged by their usefulness to a specific individual, but by how many other programmers that question or answer can potentially help over time ." Personally I would have been much more…

Given this though, is the question / answer format really suiting the purpose?

It did but there aren't enough mods and knowledgeable users to monitor and police the tremendous inflow of off topic questions and answers.
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