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StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

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Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

#81

Post by vitd »

jlynn wrote: post #70
67726e wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird. In the past two years or so, I've answered almost every one of my own answers after an additional day or two of work. Generally, when I think I've exhausted all leads on solving a problem I'll distill everything down into the smallest reproducible setup, do a detailed write-up, and list all what I've done. At best I might get a token up-vote from someone who pities me, but I never get any real attention. There…

This leaves me wondering how you might a site like SO that incentivizes participation and quality answers, but disincentivizes poaching and incomplete first answers. Could you build an incentive strategy and reputation system around collaborative answers?

One option is to either not show scores for some time after answers are posted (at least to other viewers - maybe the asker could still see answer scores?), and/or to randomize the order in which answers are shown for some period of time. That would at least make it less likely that people read just the first answer, up-vote it, and move on. Each person would see a different "first" answer, at least for some time period. Maybe after an hour or 24 hours, then they become ranked by votes? Just a thought - I haven't actually tried it.

Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

#82

Post by misnome »

MCRed wrote: post #6

Stack Overflow incentivizes bad behavior by its users. For instance, I've had questions marked as duplicates with links to entirely other questions... but the person who had the right answer for that other question, along with others on the point gravy train for it were the ones who voted to close my question. Appealing after adding additional info showing how the questions were different didn't improve anything as t…

Finding questions via google marked as a duplicate, which aren't a duplicate, but subtly different is really common - and really annoying.

Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

#83

Post by curiousjorge »

The community of moderators are extremely toxic, heading over to SO's chatrooms gives you a glimpse at the type of people responsible for moderating the content. Hazing new comers when they just have a need to fulfill their curiosity is shut down.

All in all, I've moved onto just reading the documentation and figuring things out occassionaly asking a very narrow question on SO.

If anyone is thinking of disrupting SO's space now is a perfect time. Ironic that people are now searching for stackoverflow alternatives.

Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

#84

Post by mostlystatic »

gnufied wrote: post #66
jrcii wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Google lands me there, about 80-90% of the time a SO post contains the answer I was looking for, it has tons of votes, yet is closed as being off-topic or too broad. Useful yet puzzling.

There is a tendency among the new mods to retroactively close questions which were asked and answered years ago. Honestly, I don't get it. Here is a question of mine for example ( http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4701538/javascript-based-... ). Leaving aside the question if the question is indeed off-topic, I don't know why anyone will come 4 years later and question intelligence of person asking the question and p…

I think the idea is that new users will find the question and think that the type of question is still welcome on StackOverflow.

There used to be a question about popular programming blogs. To me it looked like a good and popular question, so I asked a similar one - which was then closed, because by then the consensus among the mods had moved on to discourage that kind of question.

Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

#85

Post by curiousjorge »

codinghorror wrote: post #76
DanBC wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SO incentivises some stuff. You ask a question and you get points if other people upvote your question. You answer a question and you get points if someone upvotes your answer. You can't vote on closed questions or answers to closed questions. A question can't just be closed. There needs to be a reason to close it. "This question is a duplicate of this other question" is frequently used. Often the questions are simil…

Incorrect, you can vote on closed questions. You just can't add new answers.

I understand that SO is about building a knowledgebase but isn't it clear that a lot of people view SO as more of a Q&A + forum? When you close a question, it feels like censorship, which is frustrating because continued discussion and up to date answers are almost always expected.

Anyhow, SO isn't the same site it was 5 years ago. It's actually pretty darn toxic for new userbase and seems to cater to the mods themselves.

Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

#87

Post by cheald »

detaro wrote: post #41
cheald wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this regularly, and I'm really curious what kinds of things you're searching. I practically never experience this.

Yes, it seems like there is a big split in what people expect AND get from SO. I'll try to remember next time I come across such a case to save the link to have examples ready when it comes up again, but I guess I just search more for non-specific questions? Or maybe remember them more, because they take more time and result in more material read than specific ones with one right solution that I quickly find and move…

This makes me wonder if it's just a disconnect in the product that SO is providing - SO is consistently a very useful, high-quality product for me (and I say that as someone who is certainly not googling basic JQuery questions), but I hear this critique often enough that I wonder if there is some major market segment that SO is just completely failing to serve.

I don't think that SO is a bad tool, but it may well be a bad tool for a certain subset of programmers seeking help. I would be interested in figuring out who that segment is and what they want!

Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

#88

Post by curiousjorge »

67726e wrote: post #15
elorant wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, as a C# developer I find tons of useful information there especially in advanced issues. And the discussion is also useful because they present solutions from different angles. Perhaps SO is better suited for those on the Desktop frontier rather than mobile or web development.

Weird. In the past two years or so, I've answered almost every one of my own answers after an additional day or two of work. Generally, when I think I've exhausted all leads on solving a problem I'll distill everything down into the smallest reproducible setup, do a detailed write-up, and list all what I've done. At best I might get a token up-vote from someone who pities me, but I never get any real attention. There…

I think that there is misconception that more reputation = more money = job which drives this point whoring.

While I don't argue the demonstrated knowledge and skills, having talked to job recruiters, SO is actually very far down their list to my surprise.

Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

#89

Post by cardiffspaceman »

gnufied wrote: post #66
jrcii wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Google lands me there, about 80-90% of the time a SO post contains the answer I was looking for, it has tons of votes, yet is closed as being off-topic or too broad. Useful yet puzzling.

There is a tendency among the new mods to retroactively close questions which were asked and answered years ago. Honestly, I don't get it. Here is a question of mine for example ( http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4701538/javascript-based-... ). Leaving aside the question if the question is indeed off-topic, I don't know why anyone will come 4 years later and question intelligence of person asking the question and p…

There is apparently a deep queue between the action of recommending that a question be closed, and when thwt recommendation is acted on. I have a question which admittedly, I put in the wrong section of the site. When I comolained about an anonymous, unexplained downvote, a helpful passerby left a comment that included useful advise, meta advice about where to post if I needed further help, and the observation that questions don't close as quickly as they should because the queue is too long.

Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence

#90

Post by cardiffspaceman »

gnufied wrote: post #66
jrcii wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Google lands me there, about 80-90% of the time a SO post contains the answer I was looking for, it has tons of votes, yet is closed as being off-topic or too broad. Useful yet puzzling.

There is a tendency among the new mods to retroactively close questions which were asked and answered years ago. Honestly, I don't get it. Here is a question of mine for example ( http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4701538/javascript-based-... ). Leaving aside the question if the question is indeed off-topic, I don't know why anyone will come 4 years later and question intelligence of person asking the question and p…

When they decided to sprout the "sub-stack-overflows" they decided that each sub would have a topic. There is a sub for interetation of Jewish religious law, and you wouldn't post a programming question there. But if you mostly READ stackoverflow questions (on the subject of coding) and you have a question about using PGP commandline options, you're not supposed to post it on stackoverflow just because it's the one you read most. That would be a superuser question (probably).
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