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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?

#171

Post by codinghorror »

melling wrote: post #22

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…

It's not a bad idea, but speculative questions (will anyone really ask this?) lead down the path of the "documentation" effort which was hugely risky and eventually got pulled. https://stackoverflow.com/documentation

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

#172

Post by codinghorror »

Someone1234 wrote: post #85
skohan wrote: post #46

I feel like Stack Overflow has gotten less useful to me as a programmer over the years, and these days I more often find the answers I need on a forum geared toward whatever technology I have a question about. I have a hard time telling whether this reflects a change in developer culture online over the years, or a change in the types of questions I tend to ask as I have become a more experienced programmer.

The way SO is moderated encourages out of date information. For example, if you find a question from 2015, with all out of date answers, if you ask it again today it will be flagged as duplicate with a link to the 2015 answers and no further discussion is allowed. The older SO gets the worse the content gets. They're trying to make a "Wiki site" but in a Q&A format, it doesn't work and doesn't make sense. Until they…

Per the wiki comparison, there's an edit button on every answer and question -- it works even if you're not logged in. Try it!

I'm starting to think that calling the edit button "improve this answer" and "improve this question" was a mistake..

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

#173

Post by btilly »

codinghorror wrote: post #161
btilly wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this can happen surprisingly quickly. As a cautionary example, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5021456/how-does-mongodb... . The question was why MongoDB was by default able to avoid the equivalent of SQL injection attacks. My answer took what was in their FAQ at the time, and expanded upon it based on advice from D.J. Bernstein - who is famous for his ability to write secure by default code. Then it was…

why haven't you, or someone else, edited the answer to indicate this or add a disclaimer?

What makes you think that I haven't?

For a long time I thought that the comment that I left in 2011 after the PHP bug was sufficient. Remembering it today I edited the answer at the same time that I posted here.

Now I could be faulted for not having responded to the comments in 2015. However I was taking an extended break from stack overflow after getting annoyed at the moderation of https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11314077/algorithm-for-e.... When I came back, dealing with the variety of things that could have further annoyed me while I was gone did not seem worthwhile, so I didn't. (It remains a pet peeve that a lot of moderators remain quick to close algorithm questions because they do not recognize DP-type problems as things which are more likely to be answerable by people with a CS background than a math one.)

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

#174

Post by codinghorror »

pg_bot wrote: post #18
faitswulff wrote: post #9

I found the conclusion rather disappointing: > What should Stack Overflow be when it grows up? Whatever we make it, together. It's more of a historical overview than a vision for the future.

That's appropriate considering Jeff hasn't worked there for more than half the life of the company. Stack Overflow is a piece of software that I would consider complete. I hope their future is just more of the same. Sure there will be small improvements to be made over time, but the radical days of product changes are far behind. I'm going to guess that in 10 years the site will still be recognizable to anyone who us…

Entirely possible .. but I desperately hope that the /ask page is reworked from the ground up to be a much more engaging sort of dynamic tutorial. Most of the friction from people colliding with the SO system is on that page, and it hasn't materially changed since 2011.

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

#175

Post by codinghorror »

randomsearch wrote: post #160

“SO has probably added billions of dollars of value to the world in increased programmer productivity.” No: the voluntary contributions of many skilled programmers, mediated by a website, has increased programmer productivity. Stack Overflow has captured and exploited some of the value created, and the contributors have not been paid. Skill needed to create SO / Expertise embodied in content provided for free to SO =…

This is covered in the blog post, search for "I didn't do that"

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

#176

Post by mark-r »

gaius wrote: post #107
crispyambulance wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t fault anyone for responding to the incentives they are given, when explicitly set out by the site owners... Oh yes you can! I remember stackoverflow in the early days and it was useful from the beginning. Sure, there were always some persnickety zealots who acted as self-appointed police "protecting" the community from subjectivity and duplicate questions with all the sensitivity of a clock-maker wearing…

SO literally gives you a reward in the form of a badge for your profile the more you flag questions! They give you a badge for downvoting, a badge for editing... The root cause for all these behaviours lies with whoever dreamt up those badges and chose what to award them for.

How many people use badges as incentives? I completely ignore mine, except for the gold ones that let me mark a duplicate without waiting for anybody else. And I'm always careful to be 100% sure before I do.

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

#177

Post by codinghorror »

btilly wrote: post #173
codinghorror wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why haven't you, or someone else, edited the answer to indicate this or add a disclaimer?

What makes you think that I haven't? For a long time I thought that the comment that I left in 2011 after the PHP bug was sufficient. Remembering it today I edited the answer at the same time that I posted here. Now I could be faulted for not having responded to the comments in 2015. However I was taking an extended break from stack overflow after getting annoyed at the moderation of https://stackoverflow.com/questio…

Fair. Thanks for that edit.

It is amazing the number of replies in this entire HN thread that have no idea every single question and answer on Stack Overflow is editable, even by an anonymous user. The first item in my list was Stack = wiki for a reason!

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

#178

Post by m_myers »

codinghorror wrote: post #167
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…

> Personally I would have been much more understanding of the process of using stackoverflow if I knew this, and so would many of the people who get stung expecting an answer to their question. My gut feeling is that this worked better in the past because Stack Overflow was at a smaller scale, and the audience was a bit more insular and willing to read stuff about how the systems work on Stack Overflow (programmers l…

I admire your optimistic view of how many users would read such a manual when all they want to know is why doesn't this code do what it's supposed to and can you hurry I need this by 5 pm?

But... I do agree that a detailed, educational multi-step page (with examples!) would be an improvement over the current here-are-the-8-rules-for-asking-ok-now-have-fun page.

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

#179

Post by Izkata »

codinghorror wrote: post #163
jrochkind1 wrote: post #26

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 fo…

> 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. It's not discussed because the solution is kinda obvious.. wikis mean editing , right? Even by anonymous users? That's also how it works on Stack O…

> Edit the answer to make it better, more up to date

This is strongly discouraged because then the existing votes become a lie.

> or add a disclaimer at the top that it only applies to very specific versions as needed

This I think is allowed, but is extremely rare.

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

#180

Post by mark-r »

I've found that the policies on StackOverflow are at odds with my motivation for providing answers. There are two main motivators for me, working on interesting problems and helping other human beings. The interesting problems are few and far between, so helping others has to do. As you can see from this post, the system has been rigged so that the goal of helping the individual is completely deemphasized to the point where it's actively hostile.
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