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Dear StackExchange: Thank You

maxmackie.com

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Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#31

Post by reidmain »

StackOverflow is a watershed website. There are very few websites I can go without and StackOverflow is, without a doubt, one of them.

It is difficult to remember the dark ages where every question I typed into Google would link to Expert Exchange and it was a coin flip on whether you'd find your answer.

Very much like GitHub was the tipping point for social coding, StackOverflow was the tipping point for social problem solving about programming.

StackOverflow and GitHub weren't the first websites of their kind but they were the ones that executed it almost flawlessly.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#33

Post by EvilTerran »

4ad wrote: post #9

No thanks from me. The no discussions rule means the only questions on the site are the trivial questions that could be answered by reading some documentation. If questions are broad or open ended, the value lies in the discussion, not in any particular answer. I also found that many accepted answers are blatantly wrong, or encourage very poor practice. Sure, the StackExchange network is better than experts-exchange…

Likewise. I usually only end up searching the web-in-general for answers when the product documentation doesn't help. When that's led me to stackexchange, more often than not the threads asking my exact question have been closed as "too general" or similar.

The most recent example, in my case, was:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10166086/good-examples-of...

"Can anybody recommend some [PHP] programs for me to look at, that promote best practises, but are simple enough for me to understand?"

"closed as not a real question; It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. [no it's not] This question is ambiguous [nope], vague [no], incomplete [er, no], overly broad [no], or rhetorical [still no] and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form [no again]. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it [mmm, passive-agression]."

... er, WTF guys? Given the minefield that is trying to write good PHP, it's a very good question. A couple of good answers had, I note, already been given, which puts the lie to the mods' reasoning -- but they killed it off anyway, even though it was showing promise? Really?

Reeks of power-tripping or jobsworthy moderation to me.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#34

Post by weinzierl »

simonsarris wrote: post #27

I participate in the SO community a lot (I'm top answer-er for the Canvas tag and HTML5 tag). It's not quite a "community", though, because while I have a lot of respect for the other answer-ers I don't really get to interact with them very much, aside from complimenting a novel solution and the like. I sort of wish there were more methods for interaction (the chat channels don't help that much for niche tags). And w…

I don't feel the same about SO not being a community.

Even though I'm not a very active member, I'm in contact with quite a few people I got to know from SO and even met some in person.

In my opinion it's just that communication doesn't happen mainly on SO itself. As far as I understood the discussion (more methods for interaction have been suggested since the beginning of SO) this is deliberate.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#35

Post by robbles »

EvilTerran wrote: post #33
4ad wrote: post #9

No thanks from me. The no discussions rule means the only questions on the site are the trivial questions that could be answered by reading some documentation. If questions are broad or open ended, the value lies in the discussion, not in any particular answer. I also found that many accepted answers are blatantly wrong, or encourage very poor practice. Sure, the StackExchange network is better than experts-exchange…

Likewise. I usually only end up searching the web-in-general for answers when the product documentation doesn't help. When that's led me to stackexchange, more often than not the threads asking my exact question have been closed as "too general" or similar. The most recent example, in my case, was: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10166086/good-examples-of... "Can anybody recommend some [PHP] programs for me to loo…

In my opinion, that IS an ambiguous question. Not in the sense that it's hard to understand approximately what you're looking for, but that it's not obvious how to choose the right answers. I agree that this kind of moderation can be a bit heavy-handed, but I think one of the goals of SO is to have provably correct solutions to questions, not an "answer wiki" like Quora. You can't really "accept the right answer" to this question in any fair way.

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#38

Post by pknerd »

Stack Overflow helped me to finish up a facebook app. Prior to that project I had never worked on Fb apps. After having initial requirements by clients, I googled about the main features of the project and found answers about their implementation. I gave a demo to the client and he approved my bid. The rest of the project also completed by posting a few questions.

Without SO It was not possible for me to earn a project. Thanks Joel!

Re: Dear StackExchange: Thank You

#39

Post by excuse-me »

4ad wrote: post #9

No thanks from me. The no discussions rule means the only questions on the site are the trivial questions that could be answered by reading some documentation. If questions are broad or open ended, the value lies in the discussion, not in any particular answer. I also found that many accepted answers are blatantly wrong, or encourage very poor practice. Sure, the StackExchange network is better than experts-exchange…

stackexchange is to solve problems not answer questions.

Can a dog have the Bhudda nature - is a good question but it's not really a problem.

How do I connect to a wifi network without an SSID in Ubuntu is a problem - even if it is a less good question

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