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Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

michael.richter.name

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Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#21

Post by cruise02 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #13

Unlike the OP who was playing the Stack Overflow game, I use SO like a typical programmer: I type my question into Google which often returns results from Stack Overflow. Sometimes I'll come across an unanswered question or one with a better answer, so I'll submit an answer. If I can't figure something out after a few hours of trying, I'll ask the question on SO. Such questions and answers represent hours of effort o…

I don't really see those Necro badges as devalued by other badges. I have 14 of them that I'm pretty proud of. I think each one of them represents a good answer to a question most people had ignored or forgotten about. I'd much rather have a Necro badge than 10 upvotes on a question that 10 other people were racing to answer as soon as it was posted.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#22

Post by pygy_ »

The LuaJIT author, Mike Pall recently stopped contributing to SO [0] after having an edit on one of his own posts about LuaJIT reverted by clueless mods [1].

The reply was highly precise and technical, and the reasons given by the mods to reject the edit are spurious, since they just couldn't understand it and its implications.

I reached out to two of them (I couldn't find how to contact the third one), but they didn't even reply to my mails.

[0] http://www.freelists.org/post/luajit/How-does-LuaJITs-trace-...

[1] http://stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/3395606

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#23

Post by ams6110 »

I've occasionally found, via google search, a good answer on SO for a question I had. But it's rare. I don't ever think to go there to search directly, and I don't participate in answering questions there.

I find it's much more effective to simply read the documentation of the language/function/feature I'm having trouble with, than it is to try to formulate the precise phrasing of the question that will lead me to the answer I need in my circumstance.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#25

Post by bryanlarsen »

Please everybody, please post your "obscure" questions to Stack Overflow. Yes, it's unlikely that you'll get a good answer in any sort of useful timeframe for many of the reasons the OP lists.

Sometimes you do get a good answer quickly, saving you hours of frustrating searching.

But most times you will have to spend hours figuring it out yourself or you'll end up giving up. Answering your own question won't get you a lot of points but it will probably get you a few over time. More importantly, because of SO's high google rank, you've made your answer easy to find for the next few people who have the same quesiton.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#26

Post by tokenrove »

cruise02 wrote: post #11

Under "poor pedagogy" the author explains the "give a man a fish" problem on Stack Overflow, then goes on to explain that giving fish is how he gained most of his reputation. How about being part of the solution instead of part of the problem? No one is stopping you from teaching people how to fish.

The system is such that there's no incentive to teach people how to fish. First, the best way for people to learn is not by completely solving the problem for them, but that's what people want in an answer. Second, by the time you've written out a pedagogical response, other people have swept in with quick, just-give-me-the-fish answers, and the question asker has moved on.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#27

Post by cruise02 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #2

I also find the quality of answers, and of questions(!) poor. A little googling usually finds better information. And then there's the line-going-dead issue that plagues most question/answer forums (fora?): after some back-and-forth somebody suggests to try something, and the supplicant never responds. Did that work, and they went on with their life? Did they give up? Are they still trying to find an answer? Nobody w…

I think the huge influx of low quality, often unanswerable questions is the biggest problem facing Stack Overflow. They make it much more difficult for expert programmers to find the interesting questions that deserve an answer. There are tools in place to remove these questions, but not enough people are using them.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#28

Post by thehme »

I find it interesting that there aren't more comments on this post; wondering is some Hacker News SO contributes disagree with Richter. I usually find myself kindda needing to comb through lots of SO answers to find something that actually explains a solution to a problem. I think that SO is a site you go to to when you don't have much time to actually learn what need to know. However, I should add that I have gotten good link by contributors that have helped me learn more about the topic of my question. Perhaps this is that we should be doing - sharing validated material that explains the topic one is trying to understand.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#29

Post by leephillips »

He doesn't have a problem with Stack Overflow, really. He has some loathing for his own practice of treating the site as a game and finding useless ways to rack up meaningless points. He never explained why he bothered to collect these points, but clearly one day he realized that this was pointless and decided to blame the site rather than himself.

I go there now and then to answer questions. My latest answer[0], about a way to get gnuplot to do a certain trick, took me a couple of hours to get right and got me 25 whole points for being the accepted answer. I worked on this because it seemed to be an interesting challenge, I was interested in figuring out how to do it, and nobody else was answering. I sharpened my gnuplot skills in figuring it out and helped someone. To do this for "points" is asinine (unless a big score gets you something else, like a consulting contract - in which case what's the complaint?).

[0]http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20294482/show-y-label-in-...

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#30

Post by cruise02 »

tokenrove wrote: post #26
cruise02 wrote: post #11

Under "poor pedagogy" the author explains the "give a man a fish" problem on Stack Overflow, then goes on to explain that giving fish is how he gained most of his reputation. How about being part of the solution instead of part of the problem? No one is stopping you from teaching people how to fish.

The system is such that there's no incentive to teach people how to fish. First, the best way for people to learn is not by completely solving the problem for them, but that's what people want in an answer. Second, by the time you've written out a pedagogical response, other people have swept in with quick, just-give-me-the-fish answers, and the question asker has moved on.

I don't really need incentive from the site to teach people how to fish. I just like doing it. More often than not, I learn something myself.
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