Five Years of Stackoverflow.com • Hacker News Board

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#51

Post by columbo » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 5:28 PM UTC

SO is great for what it is, direct answers from questions. It is hard to think back to the days of pre-SO when most answers had to come from books (!)

It is not designed, and will never be a place to foster discussions, or encourage exploration. I'm NOT complaining about SO, this is just how it is designed.

This kind of content, for example, is not something SO would create:

http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/05/17/frameworks-round-...

https://github.com/skx/static-site-generators

Since we don't have a SO for discussions we still rely on information from individual research and/or the modern-day newsgroup (reddit, forums). I wish there was a place to fully explore nebulous unanswerable questions like "Which web UI framework is fastest to develop in?" or "What is the best way to start a 2d platform game today (in 2013)?"

This isn't an easy problem to solve, the questions above aren't really there to get an answer but to start a discussion. For both questions I want to know what is popular (TODAY, not in 2006), active, has been tested, and personal experience. I want to see a collection of people submitting their own takes until a top-five is produced where further study can be made.

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#52

Post by jeremyt » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 5:45 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #2

I used to be a heavy stackoverflow user in the early days, and I have enough karma to put me in the moderator tier now. However, I don't use the site much anymore, except for getting questions answered. In a way I suppose that's a testament to the fact that the site still works, and works well. They solved most of the problem they set out to solve originally, which is a major achievement. Nevertheless, I still have a…

PM of the Stack Exchange sites here.

I can understand why it appears this way from outside, but we've never been moving faster than we are now.

I have been on board for about six months, and in that time we have rolled out lots of usability and layout improvements: streamlined sign-up process, a new anonymous homepage, a consolidated and curated help center, completely rewritten search, new badges page, upcoming new privileges page...

In the next couple of months, we will be finishing sitewide SSL, redesigns of our more high-traffic pages, and a complete re-factor around closing to make that process more clear.

Stay tuned, because I'm excited about where we're headed.

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#53

Post by moneyrich2 » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 5:55 PM UTC

i personally hate it.

its great when learning a new api or whatever, but i've had 4 out of 5 questions (in 4 years i need to ask 5 questions) closed as off topic, i tagged them with the tags from their own site also. example: config file management question in linux, automation, automated-install closed as off topic.

it's just a big karma jerk-off

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#54

Post by Helianthus » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 5:56 PM UTC

columbo wrote: post #51

SO is great for what it is, direct answers from questions. It is hard to think back to the days of pre-SO when most answers had to come from books (!) It is not designed, and will never be a place to foster discussions, or encourage exploration. I'm NOT complaining about SO, this is just how it is designed. This kind of content, for example, is not something SO would create: http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/05/17…

The flaw of StackOverflow, to me, is that activity is discouraged.

What I mean by that is, rehashing previous discussions is verboten, shooting the shit rarely happens, and nebulous questions are never explored (even though some of the better questions linked to on SO are often closed topics!).

As a result, StackOverflow is an authoritative source on a great many things. But the atmosphere of "ask any question" is absent. You're supposed to know what to look for instead of honestly throwing your query into the void trusting that someone will catch you.

In other words, your question has to be novel in a specific sense. Which is great!

But it doesn't mean it's an encouraging environment.

Edit: I mean, witness this comment, posted at the same time as me:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5919768

I dunno, I have never felt motivated to "hang out" at SO.

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#55

Post by yajoe » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 5:57 PM UTC

jeremyt wrote: post #52

InclinedPlane wrote: post #2

I used to be a heavy stackoverflow user in the early days, and I have enough karma to put me in the moderator tier now. However, I don't use the site much anymore, except for getting questions answered. In a way I suppose that's a testament to the fact that the site still works, and works well. They solved most of the problem they set out to solve originally, which is a major achievement. Nevertheless, I still have a…

PM of the Stack Exchange sites here. I can understand why it appears this way from outside, but we've never been moving faster than we are now. I have been on board for about six months, and in that time we have rolled out lots of usability and layout improvements: streamlined sign-up process, a new anonymous homepage, a consolidated and curated help center, completely rewritten search, new badges page, upcoming new…

Huge SO fan, and I have no doubt that there is serious ongoing work at SO. Each of the items you listed sounds like it will improve someone's life and is not so simple with 5 years of legacy. Based on these descriptions I would bucket that work as "improvements" and not "disruptive."

I think what GP was commenting on, which I agree with, is that SO doesn't appear to evolve its core mission from question-answers to something else -- perhaps a worthy HN/Slashot/Reddit replacement with discussions? Or expert-based code-reviews? Or documenting best-of-breed frameworks/platforms/service providers/etc/etc/etc (like GP posted)? I don't necessarily believe that SO should change its mandate, and I certainly don't know what would be a worthy change, but without an appearance of change then I can't help but fear SO will be relegated to the top google search result for me instead of a regular destination every day (like HN is).

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#56

Post by SeanDav » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 6:02 PM UTC

jeremyt wrote: post #52

InclinedPlane wrote: post #2

I used to be a heavy stackoverflow user in the early days, and I have enough karma to put me in the moderator tier now. However, I don't use the site much anymore, except for getting questions answered. In a way I suppose that's a testament to the fact that the site still works, and works well. They solved most of the problem they set out to solve originally, which is a major achievement. Nevertheless, I still have a…

PM of the Stack Exchange sites here. I can understand why it appears this way from outside, but we've never been moving faster than we are now. I have been on board for about six months, and in that time we have rolled out lots of usability and layout improvements: streamlined sign-up process, a new anonymous homepage, a consolidated and curated help center, completely rewritten search, new badges page, upcoming new…

I like SO, but its focus is just too narrow. Any question that seems to involve an opinion is shut down as not constructive, yet I can assure you that the vast majority of questions that bring me to SO are of this type.

You already rely on the users to vote up the good answers and vote down the bad ones - why don't you trust them to continue doing this, rather than shutting down useful and interesting topics?

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#57

Post by StuieK » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 6:06 PM UTC

columbo wrote: post #51

SO is great for what it is, direct answers from questions. It is hard to think back to the days of pre-SO when most answers had to come from books (!) It is not designed, and will never be a place to foster discussions, or encourage exploration. I'm NOT complaining about SO, this is just how it is designed. This kind of content, for example, is not something SO would create: http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/05/17…

We're trying to do this. Examples:

http://www.slant.co/topics/217/~best-css-preprocessor

http://www.slant.co/topics/95/~what-is-the-best-search-engin...

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#58

Post by jeremyt » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

SeanDav wrote: post #56

jeremyt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PM of the Stack Exchange sites here. I can understand why it appears this way from outside, but we've never been moving faster than we are now. I have been on board for about six months, and in that time we have rolled out lots of usability and layout improvements: streamlined sign-up process, a new anonymous homepage, a consolidated and curated help center, completely rewritten search, new badges page, upcoming new…

I like SO, but its focus is just too narrow. Any question that seems to involve an opinion is shut down as not constructive, yet I can assure you that the vast majority of questions that bring me to SO are of this type. You already rely on the users to vote up the good answers and vote down the bad ones - why don't you trust them to continue doing this, rather than shutting down useful and interesting topics?

Without addressing the broader question, which we are well aware of and continue to discuss internally, "not constructive" will no longer be a close reason as of next week. It's being replaced, in this case, by "primarily opinion based", which is a slightly higher bar. The result should be a small decrease in questions closed for opinion based reasons.

http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/171732/help-us-make-...

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#59

Post by jeremyt » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 6:46 PM UTC

jackmaney wrote: post #44

MrDOS wrote: post #41

StackOverflow is being killed by its overzealous moderation, as was Wikipedia a year or so ago before they backed off a bit. Let's sample a random question from the `php` tag: [1]. The question is not particularly well-asked, but I think it's fairly obvious that the answer is a union of the three tables. And yet, because he phrased his question as a requirement (it's the last sentence) and not an absolute question, i…

Stack Overflow is not a bargain-basement alternative to Elance, Odesk, or rent-a-coder.com, whereby people can get code snippets vomited at them for free. As was made evident in the comments, the OP of the question needed to show what he tried. Also, closed questions can be edited. That's the main point of closing a question: to send a signal to the OP that the question needs to be edited and improved.

A result of the new close reasons re-factor is that closed questions will be called "on hold" for five days before they become finally closed to encourage the OP to improve the question.

Re: Five Years of Stackoverflow.com

#60

Post by InclinedPlane » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 7:54 PM UTC

gus_massa wrote: post #25

InclinedPlane wrote: post #2

I used to be a heavy stackoverflow user in the early days, and I have enough karma to put me in the moderator tier now. However, I don't use the site much anymore, except for getting questions answered. In a way I suppose that's a testament to the fact that the site still works, and works well. They solved most of the problem they set out to solve originally, which is a major achievement. Nevertheless, I still have a…

Most of that is by design. It was designed as a questions-answer site, to collect every question of every programming language and provide the correct answer. It was not designed as a forum, where you go to talk with friends. The problem is what to do when all the questions had been answered?

Yes and no. The focus on tangible questions with definitive answers is certainly intentional, however they've missed the mark on some of their original goals. Here's a description of those goals: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/09/stack-overflow-none...

They've achieved a lot, but if you look at that diagram of what stackoverflow is supposed to be you'll see it's still not that. It's very much not wiki-like, and it's very much not blog-like. And part of the reason to support those aspects was to provide precisely the experiences that I've found lacking, such as being able to use the site as a general education resource (like wikipedia).