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The Fall of Stack Overflow

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Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#241

Post by throwaway2037 »

JohnMakin wrote: post #109

The problems I’ve noticed with Stack Overflow are a few and hard for me to narrow down but basically: - google used to return really relevant results for SO, and it stopped doing so at some point a while ago - moderation on SO has gotten progressively more horrible. can’t tell you how many times I found the exact, bizarre question I was asking only to see one comment trying to answer it and then a mod aggressively sh…

I have two opinions about your post. One: I agree. Two: I disagree. My point: I see both.

I see "answer as comment" in my most mature tech subjects because people are afraid of downvotes. In my experience, the most mature tech subjects are carefully guarded by a small community of very unfriendly "fastest gun in the West" types. The C++ community is incredibly unwelcoming and negative towards most questions. Note: Comments can only receive upvotes. (In theory, comments can be flagged as off topic, or offensive, but assume -- for my commentary here -- they are not.) Examples of more mature tech subjects: Python, Ruby, ASP.NET, Java (language/foundation libraries), C# (language/founding libraries), C (but not yet C++!), Win32, etc.

For less mature tech subjects (or faster moving), you see many more answers. Example of less mature tech subjects: Python AI/ML libraries, Java/C# open source libraries (Spring, etc.), C++, Qt, Gtk+, Zig, Swift, Golang.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#242

Post by Gibbon1 »

zer8k wrote: post #189
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…

If you loosen up your definition of of LLM the moderators and posters are really just LLMs that have been jailbroken to insult you and close your post. Stack Overflow is the programmer's internet bloodsport.

> moderators and posters are really just LLMs that have been jailbroken to insult you and close your post.

Better than reddit where you get insulted and banned by an actual LLM.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#243

Post by jonwinstanley »

invalidname wrote: post #233

This is 100% because of ChatGPT but the problem is that ChatGPT got all its information from StackOverflow... That means fewer people contributing to SO which means ChatGPT will deteriorate and people won't know why.

Yes, both ChatGPT and GitHub Co-pilot have decimated my use of StackOverflow

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#244

Post by jackdh »

invalidname wrote: post #233

This is 100% because of ChatGPT but the problem is that ChatGPT got all its information from StackOverflow... That means fewer people contributing to SO which means ChatGPT will deteriorate and people won't know why.

How can it be 100% ChatGPT? The release dates (November 2022) does not match up with the large drop in traffic starting at around April 2022?

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#245

Post by aiappreciator »

invalidname wrote: post #233

This is 100% because of ChatGPT but the problem is that ChatGPT got all its information from StackOverflow... That means fewer people contributing to SO which means ChatGPT will deteriorate and people won't know why.

Don't worry.

GPT written code gets committed to github (After human review, so its working code only). Github data gets shared with OpenAI (Microsoft). So GPT continues to improve.

The recent deterioration is due to reduction in parameter count for GPT-4 to save money.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#246

Post by feoren »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #241
JohnMakin wrote: post #109

The problems I’ve noticed with Stack Overflow are a few and hard for me to narrow down but basically: - google used to return really relevant results for SO, and it stopped doing so at some point a while ago - moderation on SO has gotten progressively more horrible. can’t tell you how many times I found the exact, bizarre question I was asking only to see one comment trying to answer it and then a mod aggressively sh…

I have two opinions about your post. One: I agree. Two: I disagree. My point: I see both . I see "answer as comment" in my most mature tech subjects because people are afraid of downvotes. In my experience, the most mature tech subjects are carefully guarded by a small community of very unfriendly "fastest gun in the West" types. The C++ community is incredibly unwelcoming and negative towards most questions. Note: C…

> people are afraid of downvotes

People are afraid of downvotes because people will throw out downvotes without even reading your answer, and once you get the first downvote, everyone else will pile on, also without reading your answer.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#248

Post by invalidname »

jackdh wrote: post #244
invalidname wrote: post #233

This is 100% because of ChatGPT but the problem is that ChatGPT got all its information from StackOverflow... That means fewer people contributing to SO which means ChatGPT will deteriorate and people won't know why.

How can it be 100% ChatGPT? The release dates (November 2022) does not match up with the large drop in traffic starting at around April 2022?

The graph bounces back and forth through the year. This might have been a bigger dip but notice it was on the way up around when ChatGPT launched.

But yes, you're correct 100% might be a bit over the top.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#249

Post by tylerneylon »

This post, to me, is about the rise of ChatGPT — but I do think over-moderation is a huge problem.

I had a hard moment on the gamedev stackexchange where I was stuck trying to learn how to do something in OpenGL. A moderator immediately closed my question as a duplicate because there was a similar question about OpenGL ES, which is a (related but) different API. I tried to plead my case, but was shut down.

Shortly after that, I gave up on the game I'd been working on for a couple years. The mod's decision contributed to that.

I felt stuck by a wall between me and answers to some of my game programming questions. Over-moderation is more than an inconvenience. It can destroy the ability of users to get things done.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#250

Post by iSnow »

majikaja wrote: post #161
charcircuit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of asking a question on stack exchange is to create a question answer pair as the whole goal of stack exchange is to create a repository of high quality question answer pairs. If it's not possible to select an answer to a question then it isn't a relevant question for stack exchange.

And the point of this repository created by users for free is to sell it to a 3rd party I suppose? Why would anyone other than undergraduate students spend their time on such a site

At least in software development, SO is/was very useful, as they provide a curated repository of Q/A where the answers follow the current state of tech.

Every time I started out learning a new framework, SO would be tremendously helpful, because in software development, you mostly have questions that have correct and incorrect answers.

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