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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

#121

Post by pygy_ »

cruise02 wrote: post #111
pygy_ wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He used to be there. You can't find a better expert. I'd expect mods familiar with Lua to recognize him, and he should have mod powers, to begin with.

He doesn't even recognize that he's using two separate accounts, but other people are supposed to recognize him and his accounts should have mod powers? Again, if he had just used his original account to edit his answer, he wouldn't have needed any of that.

Yes.

He's a world class expert in compilers and high performance, low level programming on modern hardware.

This addresses the core point of the article, being that the SO "meritocracy" is badly implemented, and conflates heavy site usage with maturity and technical ability.

Edit: If not a mod status, a VIP status. SO would gain a lot if its staff were to individually recruit people as talented as he is.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#122

Post by VLM »

melling wrote: post #94
crntaylor wrote: post #31

The author's main problem stems from his desire to use Stack Overflow as a mechanism for gaining internet points - as is illustrated by his confession that "I saw a simple Java question, hit Google, read briefly, then synthesized an original answer." Why bother? Instead, I use Stack Overflow predominantly for three reasons -- 1. To ask interesting questions that I think will get a better answer there than anywhere el…

How many good questions do you see that are "CLOSED AS NOT A REAL QUESTION"? The site is fine for what it is, but there's definitely a market for building a better StackOverFlow.

That annoys the heck out of me, because if it truly is not a real question, then the "general masses" of answer authors would naturally agree. Instead some deletionist authoritarian jerk needs to force his idea on everyone else, because obviously no one else is worthy enough to make a judgment. Why feel the need to force what they call the truth on everyone, if it is in fact the truth? Or more likely they're full of it and just enjoy watching the world burn. The worst part is the selection of judges is based basically on who spends the most clock time googling for people too lazy to use google, it has nothing to do with taste or skill or ability or experience. Random selection would be more effective.

A site could be designed that isn't based on an anti-social, exclusionary, classist, authoritarian philosophy. The tragedy is it wouldn't look too much different than SO. So close, and yet so far...

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#123

Post by shortstuffsushi »

melling wrote: post #94
crntaylor wrote: post #31

The author's main problem stems from his desire to use Stack Overflow as a mechanism for gaining internet points - as is illustrated by his confession that "I saw a simple Java question, hit Google, read briefly, then synthesized an original answer." Why bother? Instead, I use Stack Overflow predominantly for three reasons -- 1. To ask interesting questions that I think will get a better answer there than anywhere el…

How many good questions do you see that are "CLOSED AS NOT A REAL QUESTION"? The site is fine for what it is, but there's definitely a market for building a better StackOverFlow.

Closed as not a real question.

150 question upvotes.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#124

Post by testrun »

VLM wrote: post #115
aaronem wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what mechanism do you imagine Stack Exchange-style sites starving out more detailed and comprehensive treatments of individual subjects? The proposition would seem to require the assumption that all programming can be reduced to cookbook recipes.

Theoretical mechanism would look something like noob who could someday write detailed comprehensive treatments of some Clojure topic tries to get started, sees 99% of his available resources for help are java oriented, eh, better stick with java in case I need help later on, and the possibility of noob growing up to be clojure author of a detailed treatment has disappeared. "The proposition would seem to require the…

This does not make sense whatsoever. You don't go to SO to get a feel for a language. You go to SO to get quick answers for a problem you are having for a language already chosen.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#125

Post by Shog9 »

cruise02 wrote: post #44
pygy_ wrote: post #22

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…

It's generally accepted by the community at Stack Overflow that you don't edit other people's answers except to make improvements to formatting and punctuation. Changing the code should be left to the original author of the post, as that changes the meaning of the answer. The people who rejected the edit probably didn't notice that it was the same person who suggested the edit. Mike could have avoided that by just us…

FWIW, I've merged his accounts now.

Probably too late, but... If he ever decides to come back, he'll be able to edit his own posts without review.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#126

Post by aaronem »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #32
jordan0day wrote: post #17

> There's an old cliché in English: give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. StackOverflow is filled to the brim with people giving fishes. This hits the nail on the head, imo. While the SO system is (presumably) meant to reward "karma" based on the quality of answers, more often than not it seems that quantity is just as important. And it's not hard to see why this is the ca…

more often than not it seems that quantity is just as important. And it's not hard to see why this is the case -- there's an inherent risk in typing a well thought-out (read: time consuming and potentially long) answer This is what turned me off from SO. The strategy to garner points (at least in the topics I'm expert in) is to lurk waiting for quickly-answered questions. Pounce on these, by entering a rough, approxi…

The green check mark is worth 25 points, one time, and an asker can reassign it (and the points) if a later answer proves more worthwhile than one already accepted. Every upvote is worth 10 points, and an answer can get upvoted for as long as it exists.

If you're playing the game for points, the way to win it is to find questions with lots of Google juice, and then answer them with every bit of correctness and completeness you can possibly muster. This strategy requires patience and discipline, which the "throw off a quick stupid answer as fast as possible" strategy admittedly does not. Over time, though, it's bulletproof, and if you're going to play the game for points in the first place, then I think this is the best way to combine that and actually contributing something worthwhile.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#127

Post by mratzloff »

probablyfiction wrote: post #35
andrewcooke wrote: post #18

i left so a month ago, and while i agree with one point here (creeping authoriarianism) i am completely opposed to "teach a man to fish". for me, as a professional programmer, that site is useful because it has direct, simple answers. but it seems to have been taken over by students who are resentful that there should be simple answers without some evidence of suffering (it really seems to be that). why should i have…

Knowing what you have already tried is useful from a troubleshooting perspective...not to mention that if I suggest something you've already tried, it is wasted time on both our parts; mine for suggesting it and yours for waiting for me to make the redundant suggestion. Many times there are multiple potential causes for an issue. Ruling out what has already been tried is what any competent troubleshooter is going to…

Most of those "show your work" responses are designed purely to force the asker to prove that they have tried to solve the problem himself before asking Stack Overflow.

Showing your work can needlessly complicates the question, especially if it requires a lot of explanation. It's also irritating because someone knows the answer but is withholding it until you do what he wants.

I had that exact experience when I asked this question:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13240039/group-count-with...

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#128

Post by caoilte »

JimDabell wrote: post #50

The site seems designed to enable lazy developers to scrape by without learning how to do things properly. There are developers out there who, when faced with a problem, don't bother debugging, don't bother looking at the documentation, don't bother searching Google for the error message, but just post a question on Stack Overflow and wait for somebody to solve their problem for them. I've seen questions where you ca…

Stop answering the stupid questions.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#129

Post by aaronem »

VLM wrote: post #115
aaronem wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what mechanism do you imagine Stack Exchange-style sites starving out more detailed and comprehensive treatments of individual subjects? The proposition would seem to require the assumption that all programming can be reduced to cookbook recipes.

Theoretical mechanism would look something like noob who could someday write detailed comprehensive treatments of some Clojure topic tries to get started, sees 99% of his available resources for help are java oriented, eh, better stick with java in case I need help later on, and the possibility of noob growing up to be clojure author of a detailed treatment has disappeared. "The proposition would seem to require the…

Some languages are better supported and have broader ecosystems than others, and for a given language this tends to be self-perpetuating as a result of its effect on the languages which people choose to learn and use. This you blame on Stack Exchange? I concede the model is less than perfect, but really.

And you seem to mistake knowing languages for understanding programming. The essence of the skill is the ability to formally specify an algorithm which solves a given problem; the rest, more or less, is libraries and syntax.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#130

Post by acjohnson55 »

jaydles wrote: post #69

DON'T TRUST ME BLINDLY: I work for Stack Exchange, so I'm totally biased. On the other hand, I left a lucrative career in finance for a lot less money here because I believe in what we're doing, so there's that. MOST IMPORTANTLY: I appreciate Michael's feedback, and he worries about a lot of the same things I do. Moreover, we are incredibly grateful for all he's done over the years - my honest belief is that his cont…

I really think SO is a gamechanger and I agree with you mostly, but I do think the points system is broken. SO offers all of these points and statistics that catapult people to positions of visibility, bestow clout, and unlock abilities on the site, and you're saying that they don't matter? They do. As a new user, it's practically unachievable to enter the top 10%, because all those people are still gaining points at an incredible rate, even if they're not actively contributing. It's a classic "rich get richer" dynamic. If the points really aren't the reward, then maybe they shouldn't be displayed right next to the user's username.
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