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StackOverflow unwinding?

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Re: StackOverflow unwinding?

#91

Post by excuse-me »

edanm wrote: post #78
excuse-me wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There needs to be an embargo period where votes don't show up for the first 15-30mins to stop the snowballing effect of the first answer - like with real election results

This was actually discussed to death on StackOverflow's Meta site in the "old days". The reason they stick to this system: They prefer people answering quickly. This is the perfect incentive to get people to answer ASAP. And to the argument "but I have a much better, more thought out answer", most people will say "Yes, but I want my answer now. I don't care about the history behind git, I want to know how to stage re…

But in the early days there were fewer people asking and answering.

Now there are a larger number of answerers and a bigger pool of people wanting/needing to gain rep by writing the quickest (but not necessarily correct) answer. This leads to a state where people don't bother clicking on questions with an answer on the front page - because they are already 'behind' in the race

Re: StackOverflow unwinding?

#93

Post by andrewcooke »

spolsky wrote: post #61

None of the actual metrics of the site bear this out. I don't know what "myspacing" is, and "floundering" is pretty subjective, but in terms of actual measurable things, we have more questions asked, more questions answered, more people active on the site, more sites with more activity and most metrics are up about 100% in the last year. Some of the things that we track pretty closely (like number of users who ask or…

so why are so many people convinced otherwise? most posts here are from people apparently tired of so. if you're only measuring positives, what are you missing that explains the negatives?

it's understandable being defensive. but maybe that reflex is causing you to miss something?

[edit: also, how do you measure evaporative cooling?]

Re: StackOverflow unwinding?

#94

Post by adventureful »

spolsky wrote: post #61

None of the actual metrics of the site bear this out. I don't know what "myspacing" is, and "floundering" is pretty subjective, but in terms of actual measurable things, we have more questions asked, more questions answered, more people active on the site, more sites with more activity and most metrics are up about 100% in the last year. Some of the things that we track pretty closely (like number of users who ask or…

I noticed that according to Quantcast your uniques is flat for the last four months or so (about 15m per month roughly). The flatline is pretty dramatic on a three year scale. Is there an expectation that growth will pick up?

Re: StackOverflow unwinding?

#95

Post by kmfrk »

debacle wrote: post #16

The problem with SO is that easy questions get answered quickly and hard questions don't get answered at all, in most cases. I'm a semi-competent programmer with a few thousand SO reputation (or whatever it's called). Every question I have ever asked there has gone unanswered or has been answered insufficiently. The moderators are also awful. They manage the community in a very autistic fashion - quality questions wi…

This was one of the things that drove me away from Quora (amongst plenty of other things). It felt extremely bureaucratic and arbitrary, and the tone of the moderator replies on Quora really brought down morale - along with the downvote feature.

I will grant SO that you always know when you are being moderated; Hacker News and Quora does this more surreptitiously, which is more infuriating by an order of magnitude.

Re: StackOverflow unwinding?

#96

Post by biafra »

powerslave12r wrote: post #24
debacle wrote: post #16

The problem with SO is that easy questions get answered quickly and hard questions don't get answered at all, in most cases. I'm a semi-competent programmer with a few thousand SO reputation (or whatever it's called). Every question I have ever asked there has gone unanswered or has been answered insufficiently. The moderators are also awful. They manage the community in a very autistic fashion - quality questions wi…

It's funny that a huge chunk of the questions that I find extremely interesting and worth reading have been 'closed for .'

At least closed questions are visible and you can decide for yourself if you like them. Other moderators just delete your question and you will never know why. There is no trail, no warning and no one can be held accountable. Unless you have 10k reputation. With 10k you can see deleted questions and it seems you can see who deleted it.

Re: StackOverflow unwinding?

#97

Post by adventureful »

nathan_long wrote: post #72
adventureful wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's why it guarantees overall stagnation (not necessarily on a specific topic): Let's say you have 10 super segments, eg: PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, Javascript, etc. Once you build those out to a high degree, reasonably the amount of new content possible in relation to existing content, will plunge. Then if you add a new language that becomes popular and mass adopted, the best you can hope for is perhaps an addition…

I don't see anything in this that bodes badly for Stackoverflow, financially or as a community. If all the PHP questions are answered, every PHP programmer is now able to Google and find what they want to SO. That means they 1) learn that SO is the place for answers and 2) see ads. 2 years from now, when they're working in another language with less established Q&A, they'll know where to go. "Excitement overall" real…

I don't see anything in it that bodes badly for Stack in terms of traffic or financially either. I never said otherwise. They're dominant and given their answer base and the value of the content, they're likely to remain so.

I believe overall stagnation in the community is guaranteed however, which is what the topic rather focuses on.

Re: StackOverflow unwinding?

#98

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

spolsky wrote: post #61

None of the actual metrics of the site bear this out. I don't know what "myspacing" is, and "floundering" is pretty subjective, but in terms of actual measurable things, we have more questions asked, more questions answered, more people active on the site, more sites with more activity and most metrics are up about 100% in the last year. Some of the things that we track pretty closely (like number of users who ask or…

I'm curious whether you track any metrics that try to distinguish questions and answeres posted simply for the information, vs those posted mainly to gain online reputation?

Re: StackOverflow unwinding?

#99

Post by biafra »

SonicSoul wrote: post #88
BennyMcBenBen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'The moderators are also awful.' SO is holding elections right now. If you feel the moderators are doing a poor job, why not vote for a moderator who shares your beliefs?

that seems futile. unless you're a serious power user you're not going to keep track of who the good/bad moderators are. i guess everyone could go back to their closed questions and see who closed them? although it usually takes a few votes and i'm not sure if you can even see who the close votes came from. I couldn't agree more that moderators on SO are awful, but not going to spend time tracking them down and down…

Do you have examples for those closed subjective questions? Or have they been deleted meanwhile?

Re: StackOverflow unwinding?

#100

Post by simonsarris »

debacle wrote: post #16

The problem with SO is that easy questions get answered quickly and hard questions don't get answered at all, in most cases. I'm a semi-competent programmer with a few thousand SO reputation (or whatever it's called). Every question I have ever asked there has gone unanswered or has been answered insufficiently. The moderators are also awful. They manage the community in a very autistic fashion - quality questions wi…

Also, very difficult questions get relatively few points compared to very easy ones when they are answered.

I pride myself in answering some of the trickier questions in my domain, ie http://stackoverflow.com/q/10060242/154112

Those are easily the questions I feel the best about after answering, and really they generate the best encouragement by far. Much better than points is seeing this: http://i.imgur.com/POZmt.png

But compare the score of that tricky question to this very recent one, where both the question and answer garnered a lot of upvotes because the title was "why are my balls disappearing": http://stackoverflow.com/q/11066050/154112

Even with a bounty on the tricky question, hounding flippant questions can garner you more "reputation" far faster than giving thoughtful replies to hard questions, which can be a little disheartening.

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