Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#151

Post by w0rd-driven » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:17 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #29

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], abo…

That is roughly how I work too. I have tags I care about and among those, I look for questions I believe I can answer based on my knowledge. Either I have used some aspect of what they're asking for in the past or by research I'll uncover something I should use in the future.

To use the site for the sole purpose of gaining points seems asinine to me. What do you get from that behavior? Only what the gamification gives you. I didn't understand that anyone can be a mod though so it doesn't surprise me that people would subvert the system to be the ones to "CLOSED NOT RELEVANT" other people. There seems to have been a pedantic movement and it can probably be traced back to people like this just boosting points to be the head bitch in charge. It explains a ton to me now...

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#152

Post by dennisgorelik » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:23 PM UTC

lemmsjid wrote: post #131

I appreciate the author's opinions overall, so this is a nitpick of just one of his core arguments. I think he is inverting the value of certain kinds of questions. To me, Stack Overflow is valuable primarily for the simple answers to simple questions, and secondarily for the complex answers to hard questions. As a software developer well into my second decade of professional experience, I maintain a small number of…

Michael Richter mistakenly assumes that "hard work == productivity".

"Tough to solve C++ problems" are not in as high demand as relatively easy to answer Java questions. Stack Overflow scoring system captures that.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#153

Post by datphp » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:27 PM UTC

It's funny to see a guy who spent time on Google to research and answer trivial questions for points call people with more points than him "no-lifers".

Then there's the part about giving fishes instead of teaching how to fish. Duh. That's what the site is about. It's a resource for fishermen. It's a nice place to get samples of fishes you haven't heard of. You're free to just eat them, or study them further.

SO is amazing as a super cheat-sheet. It's not a tutorial, a school or a a forum. It's not Reddit or Farmville. Please stop.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#154

Post by mlvljr » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

stefan_kendall wrote: post #112

melling wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

StackOverflow seems to have devolved into a bunch of shit questions. Anything too technical doesn't get answered, since the real veterans have left, and anything not technical enough (like an approach to a problem) gets closed. I loved SO in the beginning. Now it's a cesspool.

the point on too technical not getting answers -- exactly

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#155

Post by erikpukinskis » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:45 PM UTC

My problem with Stack Overflow is that it basically feels like a ghost town when I try to use it. The Ember people encourage users to use SO for help, and shut down posts to the Ember discussion board that are too "helpy". But whenever I've asked a question on SO, I've gotten literally zero responses. I have no idea why. Does having a better reputation actually lead to you getting more answers? I don't even know, so I don't bother trying. Many of the things I try to do on SO I can't, because I don't have the right reputation. It mostly feels like an impenetrable, confusing castle full of useful stuff that I can only watch from outside.

Instead, I just blog solutions to various thorny problems I run into, so that other people can find them on Google. And I try to use whatever domain-specific message boards I can find. I just don't understand how to use SO to get help so I don't bother.

And it's not that I don't want to contribute. I've answered some questions on SO and I'd be happy to answer many more than the questions I ask. But my (uninformed) sense is that I could answer questions til I'm blue in the face and no one would ever answer mine. The ratio of unanswered questions to answered ones is insane. It just doesn't feel like there's a community there that I'm joining.

That said, I find it incredibly useful when there's already an SO solution that comes up in Google that solves my problem.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#156

Post by Someone » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

"Indeed I went from the top 4% of contributors at my time of departure to the top 3%"

That seems to indicate that stack overflow had considerable growth in the number of contributors, relatively few of which acquired large scores (for example, if there were no 'effortless scoring', they would need 33% growth of users who all have lower scores in order to make the former top 4% become the new top 3%)

That might be an indication that there are fewer users who play the "I want points" game. It would require access to quite a bit more data (who joined when, what do the distributions of scores look like, etc) to prove that, though.

If it turns out that there still are lots of users chasing high scores, I think it might be worthwhile for Stack Overflow to play with different scoring functions. For example, h-index is popular in scientific papers. One could do a SO h-index (has X answers that got at least X upvotes). Maybe, to encourage diversity, one could add "... With X different tags" to the requirement.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#157

Post by clubhi » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:49 PM UTC

corresation wrote: post #71

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…

While you call out the author, note that the primary motivator StackOverflow offers to users are those very internet points you decry: You can't blame someone for playing to the very mechanics of the site. Would StackOverflow be popular if it didn't have leader boards and reputation points and arrays of expertise-claiming badges? Would people spend their time working on other people's problems if it didn't earn them…

I just spent most of my morning on my day off trying to solve someones problem on one of my user groups.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#158

Post by mlvljr » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:53 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #65

crntaylor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that it's silly to care about how many points you have in the first place.

The people in charge of where the site "goes" via moderator tools are the people who play the game to accumulate points to get mod powers. What you reward, you get more of. Therefore the site will move in the direction of point collecting game players. Doesn't particularly matter what they "should" do, what the site is designed to do, intentionally or otherwise, rightly or wrongly, is what the site will do. Telling e…

Fuck yes (from someone with a decently "high" f-carma, actually)!

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#159

Post by j_s » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:55 PM UTC

I use Stack Overflow because I won't have to re-implement my solutions from scratch at the next job.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#160

Post by greenyoda » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 8:57 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #122

melling wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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."

I think they caught this disease from Wikipedia, where deletionist authoritarian editors kill articles on real people because they're "not notable enough" while allowing thousands of words to be written about minor characters in TV series.