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The Stack Overflow Age

joelonsoftware.com

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Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#11

Post by Slansitartop »

klmr wrote: post #2

> One of the biggest such forums was called Experts Exchange. By what metric? I don’t know anybody who was actually subscribed there (although they must have existed). Instead, people were using various other forums that were free. Some of these forums were absolutely huge, both in terms of number of users, and by the number of questions/discussions. Experts Exchange started dominating Google search results, true. Bu…

>> One of the biggest such forums was called Experts Exchange.

> By what metric? I don’t know anybody who was actually subscribed there (although they must have existed). Instead, people were using various other forums that were free.

Or just used workarounds. I remember always going to the Google Cache versions, because that was what the GoogleBot saw, so it had the answers.

I wouldn't be surprised if their SEO trickery made it one of the biggest single Q&A sites of the time, since people will go where search takes them.

Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#12

Post by yulaow »

ProAm wrote: post #9

It's too bad the culture of SO turned out the way it did. I was eager and happy to use it early on but was quickly disillusioned and it's my last resort to turn to if I have questions these days.

Same, and the problem is that the "mods" enforce that culture instead of fighting it, making it worse and worse over time.

Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#13

Post by lucb1e »

ProAm wrote: post #9

It's too bad the culture of SO turned out the way it did. I was eager and happy to use it early on but was quickly disillusioned and it's my last resort to turn to if I have questions these days.

This is why I always vote in moderator elections for those who make a point of being kind to new people, or are still new themselves. Not the rookies who have nothing to say in the "why me" section and don't even have access to the moderator tools which you get at 10k rep, but a balance.

Most of the community seems to be aware of the issue when prompted, but most times when I see moderation happening, it's not as friendly as one might hope... I always try to provide helpful pointers and comments for the author, if I happen to notice it in time.

Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#14

Post by maxxxxx »

booleandilemma wrote: post #10
clavalle wrote: post #3

The Pedant Police make Stack Overflow very difficult to use.

I don’t think so. They try to keep it a question and answer site, not a question and opinion site.

I have tried to ask questions two times in the last few months and the responses were pretty much "if you don't know what you are doing you should hire an expert" or "why would would anyone do such a thing?". I definitely didn't feel very welcome and will stop posting there. It seems most questions that get answers are very simple and straightforward ones. Difficult stuff doesn't get discussed.

Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#15

Post by baud147258 »

ProAm wrote: post #9

It's too bad the culture of SO turned out the way it did. I was eager and happy to use it early on but was quickly disillusioned and it's my last resort to turn to if I have questions these days.

What's so bad about the culture? I've never had any problem there.

Please note that I've answered a bunch of question, but only on a tag with not a lot of frequentation.

Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#16

Post by astannard »

klmr wrote: post #2

> One of the biggest such forums was called Experts Exchange. By what metric? I don’t know anybody who was actually subscribed there (although they must have existed). Instead, people were using various other forums that were free. Some of these forums were absolutely huge, both in terms of number of users, and by the number of questions/discussions. Experts Exchange started dominating Google search results, true. Bu…

It definitely featured near the top of google results for many questions. I remember being annoyed at the paywall many a time.

Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#17

Post by ythn »

clavalle wrote: post #3

The Pedant Police make Stack Overflow very difficult to use.

I haven't found that to be the case if I do my due diligence. Even if I get down votes, people in the comments are generally helpful. I recently asked a question about int64_t -> double casting collisions, and even though I was initially downvoted because I didn't articulate my question well, after I demonstrated the problem with a few edits they magically turned into upvotes.

Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#18

Post by baud147258 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #14
booleandilemma wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think so. They try to keep it a question and answer site, not a question and opinion site.

I have tried to ask questions two times in the last few months and the responses were pretty much "if you don't know what you are doing you should hire an expert" or "why would would anyone do such a thing?". I definitely didn't feel very welcome and will stop posting there. It seems most questions that get answers are very simple and straightforward ones. Difficult stuff doesn't get discussed.

Perhaps in the first case the question you asked was too broad compared to the standard expected for SO questions? Or too precise to be of use to anyone else?

Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#19

Post by payne92 »

SO is definitely a force, but I feel its usefulness has faded from inattention to the user experience and use cases. For example:

#1. There's a huge "homework problem" (narrow, specific questions that aren't broadly useful). Consider flagging homework as homework (and excluding it from searches), trying to divert questioners to other resources before their question is posted ("this looks like homework..."), and more thinking about ways to codify the use case. I'd gladly help with homework if there were tools focused on that (e.g. ability to comment on specific lines of code -- Gooogle Docs for posted source code, etc.)

#2. There are oddly subjective editorial decisions, such as closing my question about an API for generating USPS priority mail labels as "off topic": https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5690713/how-to-programma...

(My view: "is there any API for doing X" is no different than "is there any method/function for doing X", it's a question of existence, not opinion. But even then, opinions are often very useful!)

#3. The best answer is often buried under the "accepted" answer. Over time, highly upvoted answers should drift to the top.

#4. There should be explicit UI support for flagging stale/out-of-date information. SO has a long tail of information now, and much of it is dated. It should be super easy to note and see that.

Re: The Stack Overflow Age

#20

Post by shagie »

lucb1e wrote: post #13
ProAm wrote: post #9

It's too bad the culture of SO turned out the way it did. I was eager and happy to use it early on but was quickly disillusioned and it's my last resort to turn to if I have questions these days.

This is why I always vote in moderator elections for those who make a point of being kind to new people, or are still new themselves. Not the rookies who have nothing to say in the "why me" section and don't even have access to the moderator tools which you get at 10k rep, but a balance. Most of the community seems to be aware of the issue when prompted, but most times when I see moderation happening, it's not as fri…

Unfriendly/ rude moderation is what happens when the tools in place to try to keep the site’s content in alignment with the person’s vision fail.

Not enough votes. Not enough time. Poor filters. Too low a barrier to post a new question.

People then turn to social tools. Rudeness ensues.

An open question is what is the vision of the site... and there are probably many of them.

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