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What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

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Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#391

Post by senderista »

lynndotpy wrote: post #24

Any social organization needs to carefully consider their inclusion-exclusion curve with intentionality. I think a lot of people might balk at the word "inclusivity" today, but StackExchange had ridiculously high barriers to participation, making it inclusive to the long-time users on the site, but exclusive to the newbie participants who found themselves blocked for asking questions. They slowly killed the site in t…

I tried to answer an SO question exactly once, around 15 years ago. Someone asked a question which was covered perfectly by some OSS code I had already published, so I linked to that in my answer (while explaining how the linked code was relevant). My answer was promptly deleted, of course, for linking to code. After that I lost all desire to contribute.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#392

Post by senderista »

lynndotpy wrote: post #296
wisemanwillhear wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm wrong, but with the advances in AI, SO was in for a major reduction in usage not matter how good they were about enabling the community and encouraging collaboration. I realize that your mileage my vary with modern AI, but the AI has an immediacy and interactivity that together are impossible for SO to overcome. At this point their best option might be to find a way to pivot to an AI based interface while s…

I think so too, but many people have many oppositions to AI and would prefer knowledge to be in the hands of knowledgeable community, rather than AI companies. SO was poised to be this alternative, but leadership showed they did not see value in knowledge-work for its own sake.

But SO had already been acquired by PE when LLMs went mainstream, so I doubt they would have made any strategic growth bets rather than trying to squeeze all the monetization they could out of the site.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#393

Post by jambalaya8 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #321
lynndotpy wrote: post #24

Any social organization needs to carefully consider their inclusion-exclusion curve with intentionality. I think a lot of people might balk at the word "inclusivity" today, but StackExchange had ridiculously high barriers to participation, making it inclusive to the long-time users on the site, but exclusive to the newbie participants who found themselves blocked for asking questions. They slowly killed the site in t…

If it wasn't so controlled it'd might as well have just been reddit. I agree there's a balance, and maybe they edged over the line, but I was consistently happy to have the following be the outcomes 1. Answers were reasonably close to correct, usable, informative (teaching) 2. Your site score came to mean something -- I once had a hiring CTO say "Oh you have some popular answers on the techs we use" 3. Progressive un…

These were all good things about stackexchange (and a precious few other places), yeah. Especially the latter two. Whenever I see people using stuff like linkedin to 'vet' things, I think of this. Reddit is much more cliquey and free-for-all, and has a lot more emotional fighting than the egoistic sort of arguments that sometimes took/take place on SO. I still prefer SO.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#394

Post by mancerayder »

lynndotpy wrote: post #24

Any social organization needs to carefully consider their inclusion-exclusion curve with intentionality. I think a lot of people might balk at the word "inclusivity" today, but StackExchange had ridiculously high barriers to participation, making it inclusive to the long-time users on the site, but exclusive to the newbie participants who found themselves blocked for asking questions. They slowly killed the site in t…

One of the biggest flaws of the site was the ability to close questions as 'Duplicate' or similar. Multiple times I would google a problem, the SO question was exactly as asked the first result, half-answers or 'Closed as Duplicate', then you click on the supposed "duplicate" and the nuance was totally missed.

The other was the 'ability to read the room.' Even late-stage SO had the 'mods' not understand that they were the first google results, and their mean-spirited dismissals were being seen by thousands of hits.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#396

Post by znpy »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #315
znpy wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but exclusive to the newbie participants who found themselves blocked for asking questions. They slowly killed the site in this manner. i got stung by exactly this. i saw some of my early questions rewritten because some idiot mod that had not touched grass in a while thought that some words were better suited for stackoverflow. and don't get me wrong: i'm not talking about profanity, n-word or racial slurs, deroga…

This is an example of a functional cultural trait -- question and answer style should not be larded up with irrelevant pleasantries and redundant signatures that waste time for everyone reading the question thereafter. They took the time to fix it for you and you should have assimilated. This is different from closing your question and depriving you of an answer or making you feel dumb. It's just teaching you how to…

Communicating professionally and coming across as polite are not mutually exclusive.

Stackoverflow was not the K&R.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#397

Post by democracy »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #321
lynndotpy wrote: post #24

Any social organization needs to carefully consider their inclusion-exclusion curve with intentionality. I think a lot of people might balk at the word "inclusivity" today, but StackExchange had ridiculously high barriers to participation, making it inclusive to the long-time users on the site, but exclusive to the newbie participants who found themselves blocked for asking questions. They slowly killed the site in t…

If it wasn't so controlled it'd might as well have just been reddit. I agree there's a balance, and maybe they edged over the line, but I was consistently happy to have the following be the outcomes 1. Answers were reasonably close to correct, usable, informative (teaching) 2. Your site score came to mean something -- I once had a hiring CTO say "Oh you have some popular answers on the techs we use" 3. Progressive un…

They chose being controlled and not being Reddit - I can imagine lots of ways to do both - still they chose the toxic way and now they are dead, goal achieved.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#398

Post by democracy »

evilduck wrote: post #235
Sammi wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How good are the questions?

Does it matter? A site and community that refuses to allow or accommodate anyone to grow and learn as a new user will quickly run out of users. The gatekeeping on SO is a blockade, not a teaching mechanism.

I am happy they are dead. Humanity gets +1 for this one.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#400

Post by eudamoniac »

lynndotpy wrote: post #24

Any social organization needs to carefully consider their inclusion-exclusion curve with intentionality. I think a lot of people might balk at the word "inclusivity" today, but StackExchange had ridiculously high barriers to participation, making it inclusive to the long-time users on the site, but exclusive to the newbie participants who found themselves blocked for asking questions. They slowly killed the site in t…

No online community can maintain quality unless there are systems in place to prevent mentally ill internet addicts from gaining power over it. This should have a name. We can can call it Eudaimoniac's Law.

Anything that gives power on a basis of seniority, activity, volunteering, is guaranteed to suck very soon. There are just way too many mentally ill authoritarians permanently online for normal people to stave them off with naive good faith.

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