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The Fall of Stack Overflow

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Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#301

Post by pharmakom »

tylerneylon wrote: post #249

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 af…

This is a problem on the other side of the experience spectrum too. Sometimes I want to ask an advanced question and interact with other experienced users on SO. However I have to battle the mods (who clearly don’t understand my question) to keep it open.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#302

Post by fabian2k »

sedatk wrote: post #146
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…

Not to mention that you have no rights over the content you create on SO. You can’t take your content off the site if it happens to be an answered question or an accepted answer. Their reasoning is “but the content would be gone and would stop helping people”. The way it completely dismisses your efforts and your emotional connection with your own creation is the greatest indictment of how SO lacks the human perspect…

The content is licenced under the Creative Commons license, which ensures that everyone can take it and make something useful out of it. For example in the case Stack Overflow turns evil, adds a paywall or something like that.

This is a lot better than almost every other comparable site with user-created content. In most cases the company has the rights there and can do whatever they want with it, and users have no right to reuse the content of the site.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#303

Post by spaceman_2020 »

scrollaway wrote: post #295
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google keeps returning SO answer threads that are way too old to be relevant. Like a question with a top answer from 2013.

Not all ecosystems disintegrate after a couple of years. Many times an answer from 10 years ago is still extremely relevant.

Not when the answer references libraries that haven't been maintained in five years or have fallen out of favor completely (like jQuery).

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#304

Post by consp »

lph wrote: post #262
tylerneylon wrote: post #249

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 af…

The graphs in the post show the traffic decline starting around May 2022, months before ChatGPT was available. I'd wager the cause is a change in Google's algorithm. Most of the time I end up on Stack Overflow, it's because I've typed a question into a search engine.

The top search resuls used to be either a SO answer, or a forum post or the actual docs having the answer to the question. These days it's either a dupe site copy pasting ad verbatim, a recurgitated and slightly modified variant of the former, or a "AI" generated answer, all full of ads. And to make it worse, none of them are useful as they obfuscate the answer or are simply wrong.

Looks like Google started to prioritise ads even more than actual useful results is what changed mostly.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#305

Post by DanHulton »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #255
anticodon wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think moderation culture changed for a reason. About 8-10 years ago quality of answers started to decline because HR started to source SO for candidates. This created incentive for posting thousands of answers moments after the question is posted that were simply not right. More often than not those wrong answers were upvoted anyway. And HR won't check the quality of answers, they are concerned only with your total…

ah, the primordial incompatibility of cultures. Let's not forget that in india it is not considered wrong to "game" the system, even it is considered unethical by western standards. It is not a coincidence all of these tech support scammers are based in india. this brings forth an interesting topic, how do we reconcile cultural differences in online platforms ? Nobody can deny they exist, and they create clashes like…

I don't think you do. Your platform should have an explicit and expected code of conduct set up in advance, and people should be held to it. If they cannot, they aren't allowed to use the platform.

When it becomes apparent that there are cultural norms that make it difficult or impossible for people from those cultures to use your platform, you re-examine your code of conduct, of course, to make sure you're not unduly excluding people. If you are, you amend the code, you change the platform in ways necessary to support them, and everyone tends to end up better off as a result.

But some cultural norms will be antithetical to the point of the platform, like in this case: SO cannot function properly when people attempt to game the system. In those cases, the CoC remains, and people from that culture will either have to adapt to the platform or find (or make) a similar one that works for them.

The alternative, as we see here, is that your platform degrades until it's not useful to _anyone,_ this "problem culture" included.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#306

Post by walthamstow »

homami wrote: post #296

I don't understand why they killed their job board. We used to pay them a few hundreds a month for a a couple of job ads that we were quite happy with. But then they "decided to focus on enabling our community of developers and technologists to discover and learn about companies rather than just giving them a way to apply to an open role." Which meant they became a platform for recruiters that can spend monthly 10Ks+…

Where do you post your SmallCo jobs these days?

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#307

Post by pwdisswordfishc »

axblount wrote: post #176
Eisenstein wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that oftentimes people who want to do 'X by Y' are actually asking how to accomplish Q. They think 'X by Y' is the solution and get hit by a roadblock, not knowing that it will not help them and they are wasting time. This is called the XY problem and is extremely common on tech related forums and mailing lists. * https://xyproblem.info/

The issue is that sometimes poeple just want 'X by Y'. To get a question answered, you shouldn't have to list every constraint and design descision that led you to that point. Comes up all the time when people ask how to do things in bash/sh. I know there are better tools for the job, but this is the one I have.

> I know there are better tools for the job, but this is the one I have.

You may know, but someone else asking the exact same question may not.

So sorry then, but listing every constraint and design descision it is.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#308

Post by tylerneylon »

lph wrote: post #262
tylerneylon wrote: post #249

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 af…

The graphs in the post show the traffic decline starting around May 2022, months before ChatGPT was available. I'd wager the cause is a change in Google's algorithm. Most of the time I end up on Stack Overflow, it's because I've typed a question into a search engine.

Oh, you're right about the timing. It's probably not ChatGPT.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#310

Post by newaccount74 »

JohnMakin wrote: post #120
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…

here’s a classic SO thread: OP: “how can I accomplish X doing Y?” top voted response: “I wouldnt do X by Y. Instead, I’d consider Z. It’ll do everything X by Y would do, plus these other things.” buried sub comment to top voted response: “that’s not what he asked, to do X by Y (exact solution provided)” then 10 comments blasting the guy who actually answered the question for not doing it the way the top voted answer…

The very popular Zalgo answer is a perfect example of this problem [1]

The user asks a question that can be answered quite easily, and dozens of people post answers claiming that this is the wrong way to do it and that they should use some other tech to solve the problem.

Some people on Stack Overflow care more about showing off how smart they are rather than answering questions, and I think the point system attracts these people.

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open...

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