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The Fall of Stack Overflow

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Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#621

Post by eitland »

pwpw wrote: post #614
freediver wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Results on Kagi for comparison: https://kagi.com/search?q=typescript+array&r=us&sh=Qa5cXHvwj... We simply downrank sites which display a lots of ads on them and also use community blacklists for dev site clones.

I also notice and appreciate that Kagi returns older results while Google continues to push newer webpages. I have found so many useful results from perfectly fine content on older webpages. At this point, I’d be extra happy if Kagi had a Web 1.0 filter that focuses on basic html websites.

For those who want this it exists on https://search.marginalia.nu

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#622

Post by highspeedbus »

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…

My theory these days is that indexing services like google are now too big to work properly. There's more and more noise added every time new information is indexed, to the point where strong bias is necessary for it to return relevant results to average user.

Maybe there's a point where the internet, with decades old information pilling up, becomes unbearably big for indexing services to handle all of it in a efficient manner. Hence the recent "optimizations" that companies swear haven't worsened searchability.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#623

Post by coliveira »

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'm glad SO is going down, because it is a really nasty site. Every time I click on a page it asks again for cookie permission. Probably they want me to register to the web site, which I refuse to. So, no wonder people who are not already members think it is not a good search result.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#624

Post by adolph »

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…

> but it still holds years worth of answers that were just fine a few years ago

The flip side of that is a large proportion of those are no longer fine or operant.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#625

Post by coliveira »

bee_rider wrote: post #609
coliveira wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is that the content farms are doing a better job of interacting with Google algorithm than SO. Of course it is a problem with Google search, but search was always hackable. The made-for-google sites know very well how to play the game.

I wonder if Google should make their SEO prevention worse but simpler. Everyone has always wanted to SEO for Google, as long as Google has been around. It has seemed like only recently that good sites predictably lose. Perhaps 10 years ago Stack Overflow was able to do some minimal SEO and then get by on content strength. Perhaps nowadays Google is doing a good job preventing basic stuff from working, so the only peo…

I think the answer is simpler. To rank well on Google you need to integrate with Google (search console, analytics and similar). I guess SO is not giving all their data to Google, so they cannot "optimize" for the site in the way that content farms are willing to.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#626

Post by eitland »

freediver wrote: post #594
madog wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I want from a new search engine: 1. Respect exact match searches - this used to work enclosing the search terms in "" quotes, but no longer works. If there are no exact match results, return nothing. 2. Allow blacklisting or removing results from certain websites entirely e.g. I want to be able to configure geeks4geeks to never show up in any results ever If someone could make this new search engine they…

Both features exactly as described already exist in Kagi search [1] (founder here). We are not trying to replace Google though, but offer an alternative to people who care so much for the quality of their search experience, that they are willing to pay for it. [1] https://kagi.com

Can confirm.

And if you find a result that got included despite not being an exact match you can report it and see it get fixed in a few days.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#627

Post by coldpie »

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…

Do you have a suggestion for a Firefox extension to do that?

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#628

Post by tzs »

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…

> 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 shutting it down for not being “on topic” enough or whatever.

Related: I've often been looking how to do X, find an SO question asking that, but the answerers there refused to answer until the person explained why they wanted to do X, and then all the answers (correctly) told the person that they actually needed to do Y and explained quite well how to do Y.

I actually need to do X, so those answers are useless to me.

Then I find another question on how to do X, and the mods close it as a duplicate of that earlier question. Even when the questioner specifically notes in their question that it is not a duplicate of that earlier question because they really need to do X the idiot moderators close it.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#629

Post by usrbinbash »

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.

> you shouldn't have to list every constraint and design descision that led you to that point

True, but that logic goes both ways: Unless told otherwise, whoever reads the question, isn't required to assume that there is a constraint.

If I get asked how to water plants with a sieve, without getting told why getting a watering can is impossible, "You don't, use a watering can", is a perfectly acceptable answer.

Especially when the question is aked in a question archive, rather than a help-forum.

If specific constraints apply to a question, then they should be a part of the question.

Re: The Fall of Stack Overflow

#630

Post by backendanon »

cassepipe wrote: post #571

Well, I must be the only one left to think Stack Overflow is great then. Sure, you may encounter the occasional rough moderator but having to correspond with random people on the internet in writing as my daily job, I can't blame them. If you don't have a rep, it's up to you to gain some by crafting the best question, linking to the relevant docs, transcribing screenshots, correcting typos etc. The only issue with SO…

Agree. Makes me wonder if the author could be cleverly supporting a machine learning agenda by downplaying Stack Overflow.
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