Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums • Hacker News Board

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#51

Post by slantyyz » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:10 PM UTC

nhzmju wrote: post #43

troymc wrote: post #28

I often ask a question on Google, get taken to a Stack Exchange site, and find that yes, they have my question, but some moderator closed it before it got answered. SE got my traffic, but I didn't get my answer. Isn't that broken?

Having read over 5000( yes really ) questions and searched over 100 with Google, that didn't happen once. Just to clarify, SE doesn't always have the question, but it always has the answer. It must be related to the specific field you are searching for; older ones are usually complete. I wouldn't be surprised if a more casual programming field has a larger ratio of closed answers.

It seems to happen with certain areas of interest more than others. I would say I encounter them in as much as 30% of my searches, which are web development related.

While I understand the intentions of the moderators, they seem to assess the value of a question for people at the moderator's own skill level than at the people who might be asking the question or seeking an answer to a particular question.

The silver lining for me is that at least they don't delete the questions and answers they mod down. I've found a lot of useful stuff in questions that the mods didn't like.

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#52

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

psp wrote: post #33

ceejayoz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you don't have to browse to page four of a giant thread to find out a posted solution doesn't work, and you can update an old answer when the information becomes outdated, etc.

Stale is stale wherever you put it - page four or on top. Technology moves so fast that that responses from 2009 to HTML/JS question should be just ignored no matter how green the accepted checkmark.

Other than "can I use " style questions, the vast majority of 2009 HTML/JS answers are still entirely valid.

Again, though, you're missing the point. On StackOverflow, a stale answer can be fixed, by virtually anyone. On traditional vBulletin-style forums, the post saying "this isn't true anymore, there's a better way" might be buried hundreds of posts in.

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#53

Post by nhzmju » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:12 PM UTC

27182818284 wrote: post #44

troymc wrote: post #28

I often ask a question on Google, get taken to a Stack Exchange site, and find that yes, they have my question, but some moderator closed it before it got answered. SE got my traffic, but I didn't get my answer. Isn't that broken?

This is pretty much my experience. The site is read-only for a lot of people. I think I was rejected the other day because I didn't have the 50 reputation to comment on a reply that had other comments on an older question. They need to lessen restrictions that got too strict out of fear of the site becoming worthless. Right now the scales aren't balanced.

Comments on SE are meant to be temporary( in their value, not duration ). If you had to raise an important issue about something, you should have instead asked a question about it, where you could leave a link to the problematic answer/question and explain the problem. In fact that is the usual procedure in case of conflicts. There is no restriction on that. If your point is valid, the community does the rest.

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#54

Post by jaydles » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:12 PM UTC

argc wrote: post #29

Doesn't surprise me considering how much I use Stack Overflow. I also have a lot of respect for Joel--I don't actually know much about him but from his blog posts he seems like a very decent guy.

He's my boss, so I'm super biased, but I can still share a primary-source perspective. I knew him for years before working here, and would say that both as a manager and a general human being, he's one of the genuinely best people I've ever known. From when he started Fogcreek, his and Michael's whole philosophy was to create an environment and mission that makes smart people actually love working there, and then get the hell out of their way. Here at SE, we've grown a ton since I've been here, but I can tell you our exec team spends a lot of time discussing how to ensure we maintain an environment where employees are actually excited to work. (I know that sounds goofy/cheesy/like BS, but talk to any of our devs or other employees; I think you'll find that just about all of us take great pride in what we do.)

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#55

Post by orbitur » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:13 PM UTC

psp wrote: post #33

ceejayoz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you don't have to browse to page four of a giant thread to find out a posted solution doesn't work, and you can update an old answer when the information becomes outdated, etc.

Stale is stale wherever you put it - page four or on top. Technology moves so fast that that responses from 2009 to HTML/JS question should be just ignored no matter how green the accepted checkmark.

I agree with you to an extent, and this is especially true for iOS stuff where there's a lot of API/platform churn, and sometimes the same issue or bug pops up twice with a few years between.

I often land on a question that I'm asking, and it has a lot of upvotes, but it was answered 3 years ago using deprecated APIs.

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#56

Post by Shog9 » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:13 PM UTC

gortok wrote: post #19

Unfortunately, Tech Crunch labels Stack Exchange as a 'forum'. It's not. A Forum is for hanging out and sharing. It may have information you need, it may not. You will spend a lot of time scrolling through useless material finding it. Or even worse: http://xkcd.com/979/ Stack Exchange will not waste your time. You have a much higher chance to find the answer you're looking for. In short, while Forums and Stack Exchan…

There are multiple definitions for forum. The standard Internet definition is indeed "hang out, post lots of BS, troll newbs" - but the broader definition is simply "a venue for exchanging ideas", and SE certainly fits that.

We don't like to call it a forum, precisely because it brings to mind the former. But the latter (older) definition is perfectly applicable.

(I'm an employee of Stack Exchange, working in the "annoy gortok with pedantry" department)

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#57

Post by ben336 » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:13 PM UTC

avinassh wrote: post #34

scottc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a great experience about 3 years ago. It was amazing. First, SO Careers 1.0 came to a halt, they made a few changes in 2.0, they changed it to an invite-only system as opposed to a premium subscription service. They best part of all, they reimbursed everyone who had previously paid. Here was the blog post about it: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/02/careers-2-0-launches/ It was great, I was getting several r…

Is it important to have high SE rep points for getting noticed from recruiters? (I have started using recently, have only 1k rep)

That is actually (surprisingly) not made super prominent on a users profile page. There is a place to list questions/answers that you felt were good representations of your skill/knowledge

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#58

Post by orbitur » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:16 PM UTC

arfliw wrote: post #37

cheald wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide examples of some of those questions? Usually when I encounter that, it's been closed as a duplicate with a link to the original.

Going to be hard to reproduce that bug since they are totally random long tail questions, but I have it happen a lot too FWIW.

My experience with StackOverflow is that the long-tail questions are still open 2 years later, but lacking any answers.

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#59

Post by yesimahuman » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:16 PM UTC

troymc wrote: post #28

I often ask a question on Google, get taken to a Stack Exchange site, and find that yes, they have my question, but some moderator closed it before it got answered. SE got my traffic, but I didn't get my answer. Isn't that broken?

The moderation is ridiculous. Useful questions get closed all the time for nebulous "fit" reasons. My opinion is if the community thinks it's a valuable question by voting it up, it should stay.

Re: Stack Exchange Raises $40M Led by A16Z to Boost Its Programmer Forums

#60

Post by mtrn » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 6:18 PM UTC

rattray wrote: post #4

One interesting nugget: more than half of the 200+ employees at Stack Exchange are working on StackOverflow Careers. Has anyone used SO Careers? Opinions?

Had contact with a couple of interesting people, startups, companies via SO Careers. I think, it's one of the top job hubs currently, if you are in the software business.