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Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

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Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#71

Post by alain94040 »

ck2 wrote: post #19
kylec wrote: post #10

It's definitely true that there are a lot of people waiting for new questions so they can pounce with a quick answer and get a few upvotes. However, there's also a large backlog of unanswered questions as well ( http://stackoverflow.com/unanswered ) that are very much in need of a "thoughtful, correctly documented" answer. And while it's unfortunate that legitimate brand-new users are unable to post comments, the rea…

I simply do not understand this ego thing with "points". A million points gets you what? An award for most wasted time? I wish HN had an option to turn off points on an account, I can't even block it with adblock because there's no element id. There's more to life than meaningless "points".

A million points gets you what? An award for most wasted time?

Except some sites start recognizing that the work you put in on Stack Overflow actually means something about you (beyond wasting time on line). Case in point, my latest startup (http://letslunch.com) specifically recognizes HN karma and Stack Overflow karma. "because you're worth it" :-)

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#72

Post by evilduck »

rtghnyhjm wrote: post #57
SandB0x wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the development of Stack Overflow, Joel and Jeff talked about the answers staying up-to-date in a wiki-like fashion. I think what the author means is that in order to participate in this - i.e. edit and improve an existing answer - you have to have a certain amount of rep. It's quite likely that a user Googling for their particular issue might find an incomplete or out-of-date answer on Stack Overflow. When th…

I think thats a big problem with the "accepted answer" Firstly it's accepted by the questioner - who by definition knows the least about the subject, otherwise they wouldn't be asking! Even if it is correct and well written - then it stays accepted years later when it's no longer the best way to do something.

The temporal nature of best practices is my biggest complaint with how SO works. It works great for relatively static subjects, but its useless for fast moving technology targets due to the community resistance of duplicate questions.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#73

Post by dspillett »

ck2 wrote: post #33
Tycho wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the specific case of StackOverflow, having a lot of points is something that indicates to potential employers that you are a useful/knowledgable candidate. And it's not just a vague signifier - they can actually go and look at your answers and see what you're about.

But if I was an employer and saw someone that was really active on Stackoverflow, I'd consider the problem of them being on SO and other sites when they should be working.

Some will no doubt take that view, but others the opposite.

I was actually contacted by a certain multi-national company who specializing in search and advertising off the back of my SF contributions, to suggest that I might like to apply for one of the openings they had at the time. They contacted me (rather than the other way around, I'm not even job hunting ATM) which is as exact opposite of being put off by someone's contribution to that family of sites.

If they take high rep on those sites seriously (from a beneficial view point) then I'm guessing many other companies with similar positions to fill will as well. Links to my SF and SU accounts are certainly going on my CV next time I am properly job hunting.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#74

Post by randrews »

I asked two questions, one about C and one about Objective C. I got answers to both, relatively quickly. The answers worked.

But, in the C question, I provided some more information by adding a comment instead of editing my post. Result? Comment deleted with a snotty note. In the Objective C question, I called the language "Objective C" instead of "Objective-C". Result? My question edited to fit someone else's idea of good style: http://stackoverflow.com/posts/2669817/revisions

It's that last one that really gets me. Someone with more karma gets to put words in my mouth? And my name gets left on the edited post? Wow. Done.

I get why they allow it, they want the site to be more searchable. And in a way I'm glad, because I get a lot from reading answers to things other people ask, but I will never again write anything there myself.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#75

Post by allwein »

Gobiner wrote: post #44
dansingerman wrote: post #9

The thing is StackOverflow really really works. If I search Google for a programming query I nearly always find links to useful information on SO, if not the precise answer. (I've even found my own answers via Google when I have forgotten how to do something) That is SO's first and foremost use case. And I reiterate - it works extremely well. The community features are secondary to that (it's not Quora), and there ar…

I've found plenty of helpful information on StackOverflow via Google as well, but I definitely would not say that it "really really works." I've asked two questions (C#/.NET so there's a large pool of potential answerers) and neither question ever got the answer it deserved, even though both got answers from genuine experts (Jon Skeet and Eric Lippert). I found the answer to my first question on some MSDN blog after…

Have you gone back and provided the answer to your first question? If not, then you're part of the reason that SO doesn't "really really work" in all cases.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#76

Post by rexreed »

Am I the only person that doesn't get this whole Stack / Quora thing? Why does anyone care about points?

Don't get me wrong - I love the fact that there's a place I can go to ask a question and get it answered by knowledgeable people. But what does that have to do with points? If people want to help each other, then great. If not, then don't.

Newsgroups used to fill this role quite well without points, but came with all sorts of negatives (as detailed above). The benefit of the Stack / Quora stuff is that you don't have to wade through irrelevant stuff to find what you need. but points?

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#77

Post by rexreed »

ck2 wrote: post #19
kylec wrote: post #10

It's definitely true that there are a lot of people waiting for new questions so they can pounce with a quick answer and get a few upvotes. However, there's also a large backlog of unanswered questions as well ( http://stackoverflow.com/unanswered ) that are very much in need of a "thoughtful, correctly documented" answer. And while it's unfortunate that legitimate brand-new users are unable to post comments, the rea…

I simply do not understand this ego thing with "points". A million points gets you what? An award for most wasted time? I wish HN had an option to turn off points on an account, I can't even block it with adblock because there's no element id. There's more to life than meaningless "points".

Agreed. I don't get it either. Time is precious - an hour spent solving customer problems or developing customer acquisition can provide significantly more return than an hour spent answering questions in exchange for the uncertain value of "points".

Now, I can understand if you have a question you need answered having it answered in a relevant way by experts is great. And if you can help someone else, that's great. That helps float all boats. But what is the drive to collect points? I don't get the point thing. On HN either, I just don't get it.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#78

Post by icandoitbetter »

cletus wrote: post #61

Let me add some perspective as a relatively highly ranked user (cletus) on SO. I've seen this kind of post before and frankly it's annoying. The typical template is "I tried to answer 2 questions and didn't get 1000 points so it sucks" or some variation revolving around faster answerers or whatever. Rather than being a problem, SO is a superb solution for the person asking the question because they do get fast answer…

Excellent reply. SO far surpasses any other programming forum when it comes to getting answers for a specific problem, and that matters so much more than how easy it is for a user to get artificial karma.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#79

Post by georgemcbay »

cletus wrote: post #61

Let me add some perspective as a relatively highly ranked user (cletus) on SO. I've seen this kind of post before and frankly it's annoying. The typical template is "I tried to answer 2 questions and didn't get 1000 points so it sucks" or some variation revolving around faster answerers or whatever. Rather than being a problem, SO is a superb solution for the person asking the question because they do get fast answer…

Re: "But to complain about a system where there are too many people answering questions is, to be perfectly blunt, ridiculous and narcissistic"

I've never tried to participate in Stack Overflow as a hyper-active question answerer, but as a sometimes-user of the site who ends up there via Google often when performing coding question searches, the site still suffers from what has been dubbed "The Fastest Gun in the West" problem. I can usually find answers that are at least a useful starting point to solving my core problem on Stack Overflow but they are very often not the top ranked answer and are often way at the bottom sitting with a 0 rating due to having been posted "long" after the question went live (and by "long" after I usually mean like the next day). The top rated stuff is often superficial junk answers that just happened to be the best available when the question was still a hot one.

So I'd argue that even from a non-poster's view, the site is broken (because I have to dig through it more than I should have to) though still ultimately useful.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#80

Post by cruise02 »

smackfu wrote: post #62
alexsherrick wrote: post #35

A lot of people are dogging acconrad, but I have to agree with him. I was having a problem with rails, and I found the answer on stackoverflow. The right answer had no upvotes, so I figured I would upvote it; this way the original "asker" would know it is the right answer. However, it said I didn't have enough rep to upvote... I'm sure he'll figure it out but this would save him from checking the other "solutions".

The weird thing is how it doesn't tell you that you can't upvote until you try to do it.

It tells you in the FAQ. http://stackoverflow.com/faq#reputation
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