Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Fall of Stack Overflow

observablehq.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 808 posts

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#441

Post by bcoughlan »

I used to follow topics to try to answer questions. It's a great way to learn a topic in depth. But I find that the bulk of questions about {topic} have already been asked, and the stream of questions are like "How do I get {topic} to work with {other niche tool}?". The Venn diagram of people who know both topics is way smaller. If you want an answer, narrowing the question to a single topic really helps.

But I have asked a few questions, and the quality of answers have really declined, mainly because people are rushing to answer and not reading the question. They could address this by delaying voting on answers.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#442

Post by Lutger »

newaccount74 wrote: post #310
JohnMakin wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The question explicitly invites the kind of witty reflection shown in the accepted answer, by adding: "and what do you think?"

As mentioned elsewhere, this is an old question and both the kind of question and answer wouldn't be allowed these days.

However, I also fundamentally disagree that questioning the assumptions in a question is unhelpful. You want to solve a problem, find an approach and want help because you have problems with the approach? What if the approach you took _is_ wrong? Its very helpful especially for advanced beginners or at the intermediate level, to be given a different way of solving the problem even if that is not what you asked.

It depends on context if this is just pedantry or genuinely helpful. The best answers I found start with answering the question that was stated, but then proceed in showing how the problem behind the question can also or better be solved.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#443

Post by AtNightWeCode »

ChatGPT. Both that people use it instead but also that some people try to game SO with answers from it. So the moderation of the site has probably become harder.

SEO is another factor. At least I don't get as many results on SO as I used to. That may be because of many reasons but if the popularity of a site starts to fall Google search might speed that up.

EDIT: I see now that the drop started long before ChatGPT became relevant. But it won't help SO I think. Github copilot and Google featured snippets may also be factors.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#444

Post by geysersam »

lolc wrote: post #411
geysersam wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are browser extensions for blacklisting domains from your Google searches. I've been so incredibly happy using one if them. If I see one of those despicable content farms I just blacklist it and move on. Often when I search on Google for technical stuff I only get 2 visible results on the first page, 1 SO and 1 documentation. Soooo relaxing. The business reasons why Google doesn't take steps to remove the bad c…

My understanding is that Google has an incentive to send people to content farms because those farms will show Google's ads. Stackoverflow doesn't. So they can increase ad exposure. Thinking of it, it would be an interesting test to compare the ranking of two similar sites, one with google ads, another with ads from another provider. Might be good evidence for antitrust litigation. But what do you do if they just pre…

Maybe you're correct. I've heard that explanation before but it just seems too incredible that they'd undermine their monopolistic global billion dollar business for a measly share of the revenue of geeks4geeks.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#445

Post by Cthulhu_ »

sznio wrote: post #349
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…

Your first point seems to be most important. > - google used to return really relevant results for SO, and it stopped doing so at some point a while ago SO might be horrible now, but it still holds years worth of answers that were just fine a few years ago - so why aren't they showing up now? Google's current recommendation of going to w3schools or - even worse - geeks4geeks or any other content farm is and always wi…

Years ago, Google announced they would crack down on content farms, and SEO advice was really like "you NEED to have this meta tag if you duplicate content from elsewhere else google will fuck you over HARD!", but it seems they earn more money off of content farms then the sources.

This will hurt them long term I presume, but they won't care because they earned money.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#446

Post by geysersam »

Shrezzing wrote: post #407
sznio wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point seems to be most important. > - google used to return really relevant results for SO, and it stopped doing so at some point a while ago SO might be horrible now, but it still holds years worth of answers that were just fine a few years ago - so why aren't they showing up now? Google's current recommendation of going to w3schools or - even worse - geeks4geeks or any other content farm is and always wi…

Google is really failing hard in this regard, and I'm fairly sure it's intentional on their part. Searching "Typescript array" has obvious intent from the user, and an obvious "correct" first result. Google returns the documentation page in the 3rd result, but it's a link to a deprecated version of the page. The rest of the above-the-fold links are websites that contain Google ads. Duck-Duck-Go returns the up-to-date…

They should just add Google ads to all technical documentation pages. Problem solved.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#447

Post by deely3 »

Henk0815 wrote: post #422

Stack Overflow was the "what is wrong with the api?" "What api to use?" "How to improve api usage/syntax?" place. "Whats is wrong with the api?": moved to github, because its the source. "What api to use?": stackoverflow is still the place to go (or chatgpt). "How to improve api usage/syntax?" stackoverflow / chatpgt. Github could really dominate with its own LLM in the web and Stackoverflow could regain some shares…

I'm afraid "What api to use?" will be closed immediately as discussion, and "How to improve api usage/syntax?" as too general.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#448

Post by dmje »

geysersam wrote: post #391
sznio wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point seems to be most important. > - google used to return really relevant results for SO, and it stopped doing so at some point a while ago SO might be horrible now, but it still holds years worth of answers that were just fine a few years ago - so why aren't they showing up now? Google's current recommendation of going to w3schools or - even worse - geeks4geeks or any other content farm is and always wi…

There are browser extensions for blacklisting domains from your Google searches. I've been so incredibly happy using one if them. If I see one of those despicable content farms I just blacklist it and move on. Often when I search on Google for technical stuff I only get 2 visible results on the first page, 1 SO and 1 documentation. Soooo relaxing. The business reasons why Google doesn't take steps to remove the bad c…

I've been using Kagi[0] for a while now and it's pretty great in general - but also has options to boost up / down / totally ignore certain domains. It also has "lenses" that let you set a context (example: I'm searching for code stuff so just include sites a,b,c).

It's really good and IMO more than worth the price.

[0] https://kagi.com

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#449

Post by omgomgomgomg »

worthless-trash wrote: post #119
yuiegi wrote: post #100

As much as Stack Overflow has helped me in my youth. The community made me feel stupid and I felt so much anxiety asking for help.

Stack overflow hasn't ever been a place to get "help" though, its basically a place to get told that your question is a duplicate even when it isn't.

Its pretty annoying, for almost a decade all js questions have j query solutions, if you ask for that in reactjs or god forbid, vanilla js, which also went through many api changes, its still a duplicate.

Often itscthe same for css, where grid and flexbox are now standards, the old questions with replies full of vendor prefixes and very hacky solutions should be deprecated or transferred to archives.

Btw, how do the blog posts copying so questuons monetize and how does google not shut them down, the pages dont even work, I thought google would know better?

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#450

Post by Eisenstein »

kerkeslager wrote: post #333
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/

LOL. It's not "called the XY problem" just because some Dunning-Krugerite decided to make a website on a budget TLD. Here, I'll coin a name for a problem I see much more often, which is called the XX problem: 1. User has problem X, and asks for a solution for it. 2. People viewing the question decide that the original user actually has problem Y. 3. Those people tell the original user that they actually want to solve…

I understand your frustration but honestly the tone and style of your comment is dismissive and condescending. It strikes me that you are complaining about people treating others high-handedly and without understanding by epitomizing that attitude in your own post.
Post reply on HN