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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

#171

Post by kevinelliott »

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…

You criticize the OP for not liking the incentive system, but then openly admit that you don't visit the SO site much anymore because you have other priorities and don't want to play the waiting game. You're nearly saying the same thing in different ways, but you're still criticizing him.

Next, you criticize him for being narcissistic but forget to detail that the SO site is built around reputation, which is an INCENTIVE system for encouraging/discouraging participation, and thus actually encourages narcissism. After all, most people on that site are essentially working for a form of virtual currency to their personal brand. How much more narcissistic can you get? It's all about yourself, with an illusion that you're there to help others. Whenever reputation systems are in play, it's likely impossible to leave narcissism completely out of it. It would have to be anonymous, but even then, some people are still narcissistic privately.

Then, you go on to mention that the questions are less interesting to yourself (how is that not more about yourself than the posters on the site?)... I mean, the hypocrisy is thick here.

Sure, the OP is being critical of SO, but he brings up some good points. He's not really whining about not getting 1000 points after 2 posts. It's evident that he's used the site for a reasonable amount of time and then made some observations that he just can't deal with anymore.

You're obviously smart, perhaps more than most. Perhaps a more constructive reply to the OP of the article makes more sense than simply tearing him down? He makes good points, from his perspective.

I personally see the degradation of SO due to these problems. Less experienced developers can only earn reputation by knowing more than they do, because they are unable to ask repeat questions on simpler topics. Newbies still continue to do it, and thus the site is flooded with repeat questions, and more experienced users get annoyed and condescending. There is no warm culture there, and it's purely self-administrating, other than by some reputation filters. Contrast this to HN where PG and others help to continually curate the community personally and not just with software implementations.

Writing a thoughtful response takes time, and when 7-10 other people are writing thoughtful responses, don't you think that's a bit discouraging? Especially when you think the subject matter is less interesting as you have progressed?

If SO wants to grow a good community, they're going to have to make some serious changes.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#172

Post by 6ren »

dansingerman wrote: post #52
Gobiner wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe my enthusiasm for the quality of StackOverflow results in Google is because I remember the pre-SO days of scrolling through experts-exchange's hideous site and fictional paywall for a low quality answer in a tiny font.

Me too; though I also thought that experts-exchange was a good idea at the time, including its concept of an economic reward system (in fact, I got a wonderfully helpful answer on that forum). Yet, it turned out to have problems, which lead to SO with an even better, karma/game mechanics reward system.

And now, some people experience problems with SO. This opens an opportunity for something even better than SO. I wonder what that would be?

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#173

Post by uxp »

bbarthel wrote: post #136
chc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens sometimes, but I don't think it's endemic. I've seen people come in a day late, even in questions where an answer has been accepted, and get tons of votes. It just has to be obviously much better than the others and you have to hope the stars don't align against you (as with so many things in life). The "fastest gun" problem typically occurs when the best answer does not really stand out to people. For e…

Unless something has changed, you need a minimum level of reputation to upvote. If you are not a member of the site (I have a vague memory of starting with only 10 rep - I have no idea now) you have no mechanism to actually do as you suggest until after you've posted or asked a question that has gotten at least one vote.

I just created an account there after years of lurking and absorbing knowledge from other's questions and answers, but I only have 1 rep.

Oddly enough, I created the account specifically to upvote the answer that solved my problem of which another member had asked about, but I am unable to do so until I submit a problem of my own that has not already been answered.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#175

Post by jdludlow »

Gimpson wrote: post #99
georgemcbay wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Wes…

I presume that when you find questions in this state you're upvoting the "good but slow" answers? The original asker may have accepted the fast answer and moved on, but if you're landing on the question now, it's definitely not too late to improve the content you found.

I regularly upvote older questions and answers that I find interesting or helpful. It's also fun to have my own old answers upvoted or commented on, which prompts me to go back and reread them.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#176

Post by _sh »

gnosis wrote: post #120
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…

"SO is a superb solution for the person asking the question because they do get fast answers." You want an even faster answer? Ask on IRC. As far as programming questions go, freenode is usually the best place to go (with a minority or apps and projects off on some other irc networks, sometimes). That said, HN, forums, mailing lists, usenet, and SO are usually better for preserving answers for others to learn from on…

I'm in a non-US timezone, so all I get in most (software-related) IRC channels is crickets chirping. SO is like a searchable log of an IRC channel for when my question was asked and answered 4 days ago.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#178

Post by gnosis »

_sh wrote: post #176
gnosis wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"SO is a superb solution for the person asking the question because they do get fast answers." You want an even faster answer? Ask on IRC. As far as programming questions go, freenode is usually the best place to go (with a minority or apps and projects off on some other irc networks, sometimes). That said, HN, forums, mailing lists, usenet, and SO are usually better for preserving answers for others to learn from on…

I'm in a non-US timezone, so all I get in most (software-related) IRC channels is crickets chirping. SO is like a searchable log of an IRC channel for when my question was asked and answered 4 days ago.

It's true that freenode is relatively quiet when most people in US time zones are asleep. But even then, it's rarely completely dead. In the larger channels, it's quite likely that someone will be awake and answer your questions even then.

But you're right about the searchability of SO. That is one of the strengths having a good, searchable archive of questions and answers. Forums, some mailing lists, and Usenet also share that strength, to some extent.

On the other hand, some IRC logs have been published, and google search results do sometimes happen upon such public logs.

You can also keep your own long-term logs, just by turning on logging in your IRC client, and leaving your client idling in the channels that interest you.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#179

Post by Goladus »

Deestan wrote: post #149
lyudmil wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think it addresses the post. It's certainly true that Stack Overflow is the best place to get answers to programming questions and I won't dispute that. Here, though, is what I think the problem is. I think it mirrors the OP's problem. Stack Overflow became and is the best place to get answers to programming problems because of the community it has been able to build. Ther…

To be a bit brutal: Peter Programmer knows Python very well and is a highly skilled programmer, but there is a rep hurdle Peter can't pass because there are already tons of eager Python programmers answering every question at least as good as Peter. This means SO doesn't need Peter or his contributions. At all. If your contributions are unique and useful, you pass the rep hurdle easily.

Unique and useful to lots of people, you pass the rep hurdle easily. If it's only useful to a few people passing the rep hurdle will take a very long time.

Re: Why Stack Overflow Sucks and Participating There is Impossible

#180

Post by brodie »

brianpan wrote: post #167
lyudmil wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you're saying, but I don't think it addresses the post. It's certainly true that Stack Overflow is the best place to get answers to programming questions and I won't dispute that. Here, though, is what I think the problem is. I think it mirrors the OP's problem. Stack Overflow became and is the best place to get answers to programming problems because of the community it has been able to build. Ther…

I have the same feeling about HN. I've been regularly visiting HN for a year now, commenting when I have something insightful and voting articles and comments up if they're exceptional. Yet I still don't have enough karma to downvote. The feeling I get is- I'm a long-time member of the community, what do I need to do to be trusted with a simple downvote? This isn't that bad since I can still be part of any discussion…

What I find even more frustrating is getting enough karma to do things like downvoting, and then losing those abilities out of the blue because the requirements were moved up.
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