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Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time

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441–450 of 1001 posts

Re: Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time

#441

Where will LLMs be trained if no-one generates new posts and information like this? Do we sort of just stop innovating here in 2026? Probably not but it's a serious consideration.

Ideally, you'd train them on the core documentation of the language or tool itself.

Hopefully, LLMs lead to more thorough documentation at the start of a new language, framework, or tool. Perhaps to the point of the documentation being specifically tailored to read well for the LLM that will parse and internalize it.

Most of what StackOverflow was was just a regurgitation of knowledge that people could acquire from documentation or research papers. It obviously became easier to ask on SO than dig through documentation. LLMs (in theory) should be able to do that digging for you at lightning speed.

What ended up happening was people would turn to the internet and Stack Overflow to get a quick answer and string those answers together to develop a solution, never reading or internalizing documentation. I was definitely guilty of this many times. I think in the long run it's probably good that Stack Overflow dies.

Re: Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time

#442
post #210

Some comments: - This is a really remarkable graph. I just didn't realize how thoroughly it was over for SO. It stuns me as much as when Encyclopædia Britannica stopped selling print versions a mere 9 years after the publication of Wikipedia, but at an even faster timescale. - I disagree with most comments that the brusque moderation is the cause of SO's problems, though it certainly didn't help. SO has had poor mode…

I stopped because of moderators. They literally killed the site for me.

Re: Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time

#443
post #210

Some comments: - This is a really remarkable graph. I just didn't realize how thoroughly it was over for SO. It stuns me as much as when Encyclopædia Britannica stopped selling print versions a mere 9 years after the publication of Wikipedia, but at an even faster timescale. - I disagree with most comments that the brusque moderation is the cause of SO's problems, though it certainly didn't help. SO has had poor mode…

> I disagree with most comments that the brusque moderation is the cause of SO's problems

The moderation was precisely the reason I stopped using stackoverflow and started looking for answers and asking questions elsewhere. It was nearly impossible to ask anything without someone replying "Why would you even want to do that, do instead!". Or someone claiming it's a duplicate and you should use that ancient answer from another question that 1) barely fits and doesnt solve my problem and 2) is so outdated, it's no longer useful.

Whenever I had to ask something, I had to add a justification as to why I have to do it that way and why previous posts do not solve the issue, and that took more space than the question itself.

I certainly won't miss SO.

Re: Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me one that was closed by a moderator. Just one. And I will tell you exactly what happened.

I logged into my old account and found an old question I asked: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32711321/setting-element...

The linked answer seems like a valid guess for a relevant dupe. Like I said in my comment, "I understand a few eggs got cracked along the way to making this omelette" but I really don't think this was as widespread of a problem as people are making it out to be.

They also have Meta Stack Overflow to appeal if you think your question was unfairly marked as a dupe. From what I read, it seems that most mods back off readily

Re: Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time

#447
post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me one that was closed by a moderator. Just one. And I will tell you exactly what happened.

You had me looking through my history. Here is an example from 12 years ago: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15626760/does-an-idle-my... Granted when I look at that question today, it doesn't make much sense. But 12 years-back me didn't know much better. Let's just say the community was quite hostile to people trying to figure stuff out and learn.

Yeah I can definitely see why this might feel hostile to a newbie. But SO explicitly intended to highlight really good well-formed and specific questions. Stuff that other people would be asking and stuff that wouldn't meander too much. It's simply not meant to be a forum for these kinds of questions. I think Reddit would've been a better fit for you

Re: Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time

#448

They will no doubt blame this on AI, somehow (ChatGPT release: late 2022, decline start: mid 2020), instead of the toxicity of the community and the site's goals of being a knowledgebase instead of a QA site despite the design. PS - This comment is closed as a [duplicate] of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46482620

Use of GPT3 among programmers started 2021 with GitHub Copilot which preceded ChatGPT.

I agree the toxic moderation (and tone-deaf ownership!) initiated the slower decline earlier that then turned into the LLM landslide.

Tbf SO also suffered from its own success as a knowledgebase where the easy pickings were long gone by then.

Re: Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? The "human touch" is "you fucking moron, why would you ask such a stupid question!"

Would you mind linking me to an example or two? I've seen this type of complaint often on HN, but never really observed that behavior on SO, despite being active on there for 15 years. I guess maybe I was part of the problem...?

I think PP means it's more in the tone and passive-aggressive behavior ("closed as duplicate") than somebody explicitly articulating that.

It's a paradox of poor communication that you cannot prove with certainty that there is an intent behind it. There is always the argument that the receiver should have known better (and bother checking local news at Alpha Centauri).

Re: Total monthly number of StackOverflow questions over time

#450

I once published a method for finding the closest distance between an ellipse and a point on SO: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22959698/distance-from-g... I consider it the most beautiful piece of code I've ever written and perhaps my one minor contribution to human knowledge. It uses a method I invented, is just a few lines, and converges in very few iterations. People used to reach out to me all the time with…

Amazing work!
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