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The Fall of Stack Overflow

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Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#81

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

dhosek wrote: post #71
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #33

"How to do A?" Comment: "You shouldn't do A, it's better to do B" Closed, duplicate of "How to do C". Yeah sure, in the beginning, there were many more basic questions (how to increase number by 1, how to get division remainder, how to check if file exists,...), and if you're coding in Perl, you can still find all the answers... if you're working in python, you'll find answers for python2, some for python3, some spec…

I found the people who took on Rust questions to be actively hostile on SO when I started learning Rust. The Reddit community was much better, so I’ve tended to hang out there for Rust q&a. Most of my time in the Stack Overflow world these days is mostly in the more specialized StackExchange sites. tex.se tends to be pretty good, as does latin.se japanese.se seems dedicated to stomping out anything that is remotely a…

Reminds me of being on IRC in 97 asking questions about Assembly. When someone did finally respond it was "Did you read the manual yet"? It's ironic that SO became what it was replacing.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#83

Post by lawgimenez »

My SO account is almost 12 years, with just over 2k reputation and I don't really care. Until now I am still somewhat helping answer some basic questions in the mobile development area tags, my only gripe with SO is the hostile nature of some mods with large reputation. Some seem to get a kick out of this and forgot that reputation does not translate to expertise.

For 12 years, they have not figured this one out. New users will ask a very valid question and then won't respond anymore. I have seen this one played out every single day. Back in the day, users were generous with the upvotes even for a simple basic question, this is not the case anymore today.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#85

Post by stemlord »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #33

"How to do A?" Comment: "You shouldn't do A, it's better to do B" Closed, duplicate of "How to do C". Yeah sure, in the beginning, there were many more basic questions (how to increase number by 1, how to get division remainder, how to check if file exists,...), and if you're coding in Perl, you can still find all the answers... if you're working in python, you'll find answers for python2, some for python3, some spec…

Honestly still much better than asking a forum. The hostility from forum regulars always seems more intense--less masked as a "terse down to brass tacks" attitude and more-so blatant laziness, misplaced frustration, etc. Also, forum posters tend to waste much more time as every other post is likely to be a joke or a tangent idea, as if it were casual dialogue in a chatroom.

The same mechanisms that make SO kind of brutal have also helped revolutionize asynchronous online Q&A.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#86

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

maxlin wrote: post #43

Even though StackOverflow in the common use case has been taken over by ChatGPT, I sincerely hope it keeps operating, stays strict (even if it causes collateral) and keeps ban on LLM-generated content. The wheels of this kind of stuff turn slowly, but obviously ChatGPT was trained partly with data only gainable from a healthy StackOverflow-kind of site with users actively asking unique questions and enough people ans…

> Even though StackOverflow in the common use case has been taken over by ChatGPT

Claim asserted without evidence.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#87

Post by appplication »

qqtt wrote: post #74
readingnews wrote: post #3

I was promoted to one of those "mod" type people who reviews new answers, first posts, etc, a few years back. I can tell you that I quit in the last 6 months. All new answers are answers on questions from first time posters, answering questions that have good solid answers from 8+ years ago (mostly 10 years), and it is pretty obvious, they are just doing it to get points. The question/answer is not something that has…

Why was there such a heavy handed approach to moderation in the first place though? Why not let the community ask the same question over and over again, and let the answers naturally shift with the time? I'm just not sure what value there was to have a team of people volunteer their time to making sure there were absolutely zero duplicated questions/answers? What problem is that solving? If anything, it is adding pro…

When it comes to software, it’s even less sensical to have one archival correct answer, given that software evolves over time, and what was an acceptable or necessary workaround 5-10 years ago could be a complete anti pattern today.

It would more sense to establish lineage. Lock older questions from more answers after some point in time, and instead of closing and linking to original, do it the other way. Keep new questions open and link to past variations. Then in the old threads indicate newer guidance may exist and link forward.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#88

Post by DangitBobby »

jodrellblank wrote: post #67
glaucon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Gamifying reputation was one of the worst things Agreed and I don't know this for sure but the points lust, it seems to me, is not limited to questioners and answers, some of the behaviour I've seen from mods seems to be driven by that too. Just to repeat, I don't know that because I don't know what gets you points but the behaviour is hard to understand otherwise. I had a question where I had finished with a one wo…

> " I had a question where I had finished with a one word sentence "Thanks." . A mod had removed that part of the question, when I looked at their record they had an awful lot of edits which consisted of similar, tiny, non-substantive changes. It did make me wonder about their motivation. " https://stackoverflow.com/help/behavior " Do not use signature, taglines, greetings, thanks, or other chitchat. " Every post you…

Seems like a non-issue not warranting an edit practically ever. Very irritating policy.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#89

Post by DangitBobby »

ourmandave wrote: post #50
smeagull wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> answering questions that have good solid answers from 8+ years ago (mostly 10 years), I hit upon those useless answers all the time. I have no need to know about solutions that might have worked a decade ago and are obsolete. Stack Overflow is useless now.

Yeah, except for those of us working on old software that still runs the business.

I find Stack Overflow answers don't usually indicate which versions of software the solution was good for. Is that not your experience?

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#90

Post by Spooky23 »

qqtt wrote: post #74
readingnews wrote: post #3

I was promoted to one of those "mod" type people who reviews new answers, first posts, etc, a few years back. I can tell you that I quit in the last 6 months. All new answers are answers on questions from first time posters, answering questions that have good solid answers from 8+ years ago (mostly 10 years), and it is pretty obvious, they are just doing it to get points. The question/answer is not something that has…

Why was there such a heavy handed approach to moderation in the first place though? Why not let the community ask the same question over and over again, and let the answers naturally shift with the time? I'm just not sure what value there was to have a team of people volunteer their time to making sure there were absolutely zero duplicated questions/answers? What problem is that solving? If anything, it is adding pro…

They talked about it in the Stack Exchange podcast years ago.

IIRC, the vision of the perfect question was one with a canonical answer. They didn’t want to be Quora. I think that concept made and makes a lot of sense, but doesn’t capture the “meta” issues surrounding how you litigate the form of the question, especially as questions get more nuanced.

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