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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

#221

Post by vitd »

m_myers wrote: post #185
frostmatthew wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Popularity does not mean a question is within the scope of the site guidelines. True, but it might indicate adequate reason for modifying the guidelines.

There is a time and a place for everything. For opinion-based questions about programming, that place is http://www.slant.co/ (not affiliated with Stack Exchange).

I just checked this out and it looks horrible. There are no categories. It's just a long list of unrelated questions, like "What's the best app for listening to music?" and "What's the best 2D graphics and physics engine?" It looks completely unusable.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#222

Post by zerr »

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…

One may like helping the people generally, but real-time monitoring of unanswered questions for posting the FIRST answers.... that's something different.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#223

Post by DCoder »

nwp90 wrote: post #212

Ha. I have never started contributing to Stack Overflow, because it won't let me. It appears that you can't provide answers without first asking questions. When I have questions, I use Google or IRC. Every now and then Google throws up SO questions I can answer (or improve answers to, or point out FAIL in the answers to) on the way to my finding an answer to the original question, and I log in to SO and try to contri…

> It appears that you can't provide answers without first asking questions.

That's not true. You can write answers right away, but you need to acquire some rep before you can write comments .

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#224

Post by edent »

voltagex_ wrote: post #182
caoilte wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, the real wedge was wrapping a free service in a really slick interface. Points are just icing. Another poster made a very good point about voting ring vandals and spammers, but I'm concerned about "expiry dates". An increasing number of the top SO results in google are answers that were correct but are now wrong. Things will trundle along for another few years, but at some point the correct results will become u…

Can you provide some examples of out of date posts?

Take a look at Android questions especially. The API has changed so much recently that many answers are obsolete.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#225

Post by alfasin »

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…

Usually questions are "closed" by 5 users (not by a moderator) so make it "5 jerks" (and I am one of them BTW...)

A question should be closed because it's a dup, or because it's not clear, or there's not enough information and the author didn't bother responding to the comments that mention that etc.

If you don't think so - you can write a comment and vote to "repoen". If you feel better by calling us "jerks" - good for you...

Happy new year!

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#226

Post by voltagex_ »

edent wrote: post #224
voltagex_ wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide some examples of out of date posts?

Take a look at Android questions especially. The API has changed so much recently that many answers are obsolete.

Should they be deleted? Edited? I'm not sure I want to wade into the SO quagmire to fix them.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#227

Post by mathattack »

The OP decries the lack of deep learning. I don't think that was ever the intent. Neither was community. The intent was crowdsourcing a body of knowledge. For this they succeeded. I've also switched to being a provider to user but that's because I don't expect community there.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#228

Post by yomritoyj »

I agree with the OP's point that it is mostly the easy questions which get many answers on Stack Exchange. But I don't see that as a negative. Those working in dense communities can get a lot more done because they have the option to quickly ask a knowledgeable neighbour's opinion. Assured of this support everyone gains by specializing more. The Stack Exchange sites bring the same benefits to more isolated workers.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#229

Post by TacticalCoder »

insteadof wrote: post #149
TacticalCoder wrote: post #97

I think the biggest problem is not "creeping authoritarianism" or the low quality of quite some questions / answers. The biggest problem in my opinion are voting rings getting more sophisticated and getting undetected for longer and longer period of time, with users from the rings getting more and more rep before action is taken and basically filling the site with spammy questions/answers (and even probably links to…

A typical day's queue of flags on Stack Overflow is around 1000. If your flag isn't tended to the minute it's raised, it's going to be because of the 900 or so others already there taking up time from having to verify the flag reason is correct in the first place.

I know but that is kinda my point...

There are countless things way less important that are raised and people's time is wasted on less important issues, like people fighting as to who in the "close police" is going to close first, say, anything looking remotely like a duplicate.

While all that energy could be used instead to detect things like voting rings where people already have hundreds of rep and are polluting both SO and Google with fake questions, fake answers, fake edits, etc.

If nothing is done and if voting rings flags get queued at position 1000 in the queue, then it's just a matter of time before voting rings reach 10 K rep and are able to create a real mess.

Re: Why I no longer contribute to Stack Overflow

#230

Post by vitd »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #130
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…

I disagree that it's practically unachievable to enter the top 10%. I did it in my first year (2 years ago) without even knowing that they kept track of that sort of thing. Answer a single question a day (correctly) and you'll get there easily. You'll actually be in the top 3-5% if you do that.
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