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Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

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Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#191

Post by fanf2 »

alright2565 wrote: post #82
JPLeRouzic wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even when there aren’t better sources I’ve found that the SO results are just all outdated and don’t cover any newer stuff I think their algorithm is the problem, answers should be slowly deprecated over time. Who in real life would trust an answer written 10 years ago when languages, OSes and frameworks change every year?

They do do this! When you're on a question, for example https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30081275 , click on the answer sort order drop-down and select trending. I've also seen the trending sort automatically applied on certain questions.

So the default priority that it shows to search engine crawlers is the wrong one?

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#192

Post by bhandziuk »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #187
antimora wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience must be an outlier. After I posted I read other comments here and others had the same experience (just search "duplicate" here).

It does seem likely that I'm an outlier . OTOH it could be that just people that have had bad experiences are posting their experiences and the silent majority without bad experiences aren't posting. It's so hard to tell in a forum format.

I think the loudest people are the ones talking about their bad experience. I've been on SO for, I think, 13 years. I've rarely had questions closed as duplicates and if one was it truly was a duplicate and I found my answer on the referenced question.

I don't see how all the people complaining about moderation don't look at all the low quality questions and see why moderation is what it is.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#193

Post by bhandziuk »

kar5pt wrote: post #190
bryanlarsen wrote: post #103

Am I the only one that still finds SO to be quite useful? If I paste an error message into Google, it's still quite likely that the SO answer is the best one. And if it doesn't, I contribute an answer if/when I eventually find it because I still think I get more out of SO than I put in. I've received 21 necromancer badges doing that.

For Android development SO is pretty useless. I often find answers on there from <=2015. That's when Android 6 came out, its way too old to be relevant. But if you try to re-ask the same question they mark it as a duplicate.

I'm skeptical that if you ask a good question and the "duplicate"is so old that it's not relevant anymore that your question would be closed.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#194

Post by IshKebab »

charlie0 wrote: post #157
antimora wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For finding answers, Stack Overflow may be useful, but for posting questions, it is not. I ceased posting questions a while ago due to the aggressive moderation, which often labeled my questions as duplicates or too common. I was very upset with the direction Stack Overflow had taken, as it seemed to embody the very criticisms it had once had about forums. The Stack Overflow community has lost its vibrancy and has be…

If they didn't moderate aggressively, they would probably end up with a bunch of duplicate questions. I really like the fact there's not a ton of dups on SO. ie, see other help sites. They also have a high standard for those questions, to the point where it will take 10+ minutes to post a good question. I don't ask questions either, mainly because I don't want to spend 30+ minutes writing a good question AND that's a…

There still are a ton of duplicate questions. When questions get marked as duplicate they don't get merged or anything, they just lock the most recent ones (even if they are much better than the older one).

Their moderation doesn't prevent duplicate questions it just makes it more frustrating when the question you find has been marked as duplicate.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#195

Post by IshKebab »

rmwaite wrote: post #180
d3w4s9 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you are just learning C++ language. There is a syntax error or type mismatch. The error message is 50 lines long and it does not make any sense to you. You already spent 10 minutes on it. What do you do now? If there is an experienced C++ developer around who is happy to answer questions, great. Otherwise you are stuck with having to figure it out by using trial and errors and Google-fu. If you post it to a f…

Isn’t it worth considering that the reason ChatGPT can do those things is that it was trained on data from platforms like Stack Overflow? This is hard to quantify but my guess would be that without the SO data it wouldn’t be as useful.

It is not worth considering that because that is irrelevant to the fact that ChatGPT is a competitor now.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#196

Post by IshKebab »

bhandziuk wrote: post #193
kar5pt wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Android development SO is pretty useless. I often find answers on there from <=2015. That's when Android 6 came out, its way too old to be relevant. But if you try to re-ask the same question they mark it as a duplicate.

I'm skeptical that if you ask a good question and the "duplicate"is so old that it's not relevant anymore that your question would be closed.

I am not. The mods there absolutely love closing questions as duplicate. It has earned that reputation for a reason.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#197

Post by IshKebab »

ncann wrote: post #100

The biggest problem with SO is that it is self-conflicting in its mission. It wants high-quality answers, it wants to avoid duplicates, it wants to be wiki-like or even something that can replace official docs/man page. All those are good and noble goals, but you cannot have that and at the same time be novice-user friendly. Wikipedia has the same issue to a certain extent, but SO is much worse because it's a Q&A sit…

I agree. It can be a Q&A site where you ask a question and get an answer, or it can be an FAQ style reference wiki where all the questions and answers are perfect and people edit any answer. It can't be both, but it seems like they just can't decide which it should be.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#198

Post by rightbyte »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #170
antimora wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For finding answers, Stack Overflow may be useful, but for posting questions, it is not. I ceased posting questions a while ago due to the aggressive moderation, which often labeled my questions as duplicates or too common. I was very upset with the direction Stack Overflow had taken, as it seemed to embody the very criticisms it had once had about forums. The Stack Overflow community has lost its vibrancy and has be…

Counterpoint: I've never had a question moderated as duplicate, and I've been using StackOverflow for 15 years.

> I've been using StackOverflow for 15 years.

I guess you and any experienced user know the "meta game" of allowed questions. Survivorship bias, kinda.

Re: Stack Overflow is laying off another 28%

#200

Post by bryanlarsen »

rightbyte wrote: post #198
bryanlarsen wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: I've never had a question moderated as duplicate, and I've been using StackOverflow for 15 years.

> I've been using StackOverflow for 15 years. I guess you and any experienced user know the "meta game" of allowed questions. Survivorship bias, kinda.

Yes, seems a likely explanation. Being on the internet prior to the eternal September probably helps too.
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