201–210 of 216 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Before StackOverflow, this was Q&A for programmers: https://xkcd.com/979/
Whenever that happens to me, it turns out that I'm the one who had the same question ten years earlier, and I still don't know the solution.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remove the entire concept of "accepted" answers and let votes decay or be withdrawn, along with scoring the rankings using time as an additional input. Quora has recently introduced secondary voting mechanisms where answers will randomly have a "is it still relevant" toggle for users to continue providing signal beyond the initial vote.
I don't mind the Accepted label, however they are sorted at the top by default. They probably should change that to "sort by votes," so the best answer can change over time.
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
You want to throwdown enough breadcrumbs from hello world to any topic you might wish to know to get things done in a language. More of a cookbook.
“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 =…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Editing someone else's question or answer (comments can't be edited by others) is a very aggressive move and not something that anyone other than a handful of very experienced / high rep users are likely to do very often. And it is far from a perfect solution either. Editing an answer substantially upsets the entire up/down vote system, as well as the comments. A better system would be something like question/answer…
> Editing someone else's question or answer (comments can't be edited by others) is a very aggressive move and not something that anyone other than a handful of very experienced / high rep users are likely to do very often. Do you really believe that adding a tag with a version number to a post is something that can be classified as a very aggressive move, particilarly if it's an old post?
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…
My edit was quickly rejected by a user who had no knowledge whatsoever of the technical domain in question, claiming that my edit went against the spirit or intention of the original answer's author. I then submitted mine as a separate answer, where it languishes at the bottom of the page, rarely noticed by users who come looking for the answer (and it's virtually the only hit on Google for the question, has been for years). They all see the outdated, poorly organized one instead.
So my work was a waste of time, shot down by an ignorant, mindless policy wonk whose only goal is to farm reputation points.
I have not contributed to SO since. I have better things to do with my time, like publish my own documentation on readmes on GitHub.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The solution to dups is obvious too, right? Close em as dups? Yet that is a large focus of the article. The solution to out-dated answers might be obvious, but apparently obvious isn't stopping it from being a problem... it's a big problem. If it's obvious, why is it still a problem? If the answer is "because the userbase isn't doing what I want", then _that's_ a problem to which the answer is apparently not obvious.…
It's a problem that is within your power to fix, and in fact within the power of anyone in front of a web browser to fix, because it requires no permissions or even a login. When you see an obsolete answer in need of clarification (such as this only works on versions 1.0 - 5.3, or this functionality was removed in version 2.3), press the edit button and make it so.
When SO was new, there was incentive for people with expertise to contribute it. Now there is more incentive for Wikipedia-types to go around smashing others' contributions with their rejection hammers. It's a waste of time for those who actually have something to contribute.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Editing is not strongly discouraged, and adding a disclaimer is not rare.
Editing in general no, changing the answer is. You get rebuked and told to post your own.
I think there is a critical mass after which the site's focus changes from creation to protectionism, and then it becomes stagnant.
Wow, time flies (for both the age of SO and how long since Jeff was involved). So I'm onboard with the concept of SO as Wikipedia. Fine. Weirdly I see no mention of some of the bigger problems (as I see them). And what's weird about these problems is they were completely foreseeable by anyone who paid the tiniest bit of attention to Wikipedia. 1. TMS (Toxic Moderator Syndrome). You have askers, answerers and moderato…
> How to handle stale information. I still see no solution to this. Since you're down with "SO as Wikipedia" surely you can find the edit button on every answer and question.. which works even in incognito mode when you are not logged in?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People definitely stop reading after the first answer, especially if it looks like a reasonable solution. It is a very common experience for me, where I won't realise that there is a much better rated answer below the accepted one, especially if the top answer is long enough so that the second one isn't visible without scrolling. From a UX perspective, you want to put the most relevant information at the top. The vot…
There's zero evidence that people stop reading at the first answer. Otherwise no other answers would have any upvotes, and you can see that's not the case.