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Stack Overflow is almost dead

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Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#261

Post by yuzzi »

zahlman wrote: post #253
solongso wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely true. I've had my posts edited to remove phrases like "thanks for any advice which you can provide". I've had people leave comments and ding my reputation because I've expressed gratitude. Maybe you don't think eliminating gratitude from basic communications qualifies as "dehumanizing". OK, let's agree to disagree. (BTW - to the guy who called me a "troll". If you can't disagree with a fellow of your…

>I've had my posts edited to remove phrases like "thanks for any advice which you can provide" Yes. Doing this makes your post better, because it means everyone who reads it later saves time. Your post is not there to talk to people. Your question is there to ask a question . Your answer is there to answer the question . This is explicit policy: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2950 https://meta.stackexchange…

Stop assuming the worst. Someday you'll get on the wrong train before you check its destination. I happen to be signed in with two accounts on two different devices because I had forgotten my password and was having trouble with the recovery process. So ding me for it. It's what you do best.

Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#262

Post by [deleted] »

zahlman wrote: post #253
solongso wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely true. I've had my posts edited to remove phrases like "thanks for any advice which you can provide". I've had people leave comments and ding my reputation because I've expressed gratitude. Maybe you don't think eliminating gratitude from basic communications qualifies as "dehumanizing". OK, let's agree to disagree. (BTW - to the guy who called me a "troll". If you can't disagree with a fellow of your…

>I've had my posts edited to remove phrases like "thanks for any advice which you can provide" Yes. Doing this makes your post better, because it means everyone who reads it later saves time. Your post is not there to talk to people. Your question is there to ask a question . Your answer is there to answer the question . This is explicit policy: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2950 https://meta.stackexchange…

[deleted]

Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#263

Post by yuzzi »

zahlman wrote: post #253
solongso wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely true. I've had my posts edited to remove phrases like "thanks for any advice which you can provide". I've had people leave comments and ding my reputation because I've expressed gratitude. Maybe you don't think eliminating gratitude from basic communications qualifies as "dehumanizing". OK, let's agree to disagree. (BTW - to the guy who called me a "troll". If you can't disagree with a fellow of your…

>I've had my posts edited to remove phrases like "thanks for any advice which you can provide" Yes. Doing this makes your post better, because it means everyone who reads it later saves time. Your post is not there to talk to people. Your question is there to ask a question . Your answer is there to answer the question . This is explicit policy: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2950 https://meta.stackexchange…

"unintentionally eavesdropping on some conversation"

Let me introduce you to the internet. It's this public access network where literally the entire world comes to exchange information in open forum.

Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#264

Post by palata »

zahlman wrote: post #200
palata wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because they usually can. I wonder if I can't write coherent English, or if you can't understand it. You keep fighting to not understand what people complain about. They complain about good questions being closed, you say "that's because they are bad questions". They say that they don't complain about bad questions being close, you say "that's because we don't close bad questions". Sure sounds like you don't really…

>They complain about good questions being closed, you say "that's because they are bad questions" Because they have not shown that they understand what a good question is, or what the standards are. Or because they presume that they are the ones who should get to say what makes a question good or not. >you say "that's because we don't close bad questions". ????? I said nothing of the sort. >other than "we are great".…

> ????? I said nothing of the sort.

How is this not something of that sort?

> Because they usually can. There aren't enough curators paying attention. Stopping them generally requires three curators to find the same question and act on it before an answer is posted.

Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#265

Post by yuzzi »

zahlman wrote: post #252
solongso wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damaging a contributor's reputation because they didn't initially conform to your standard is vandalism. Why don't you make your suggestion for improvement and let the poster bring the post into compliance? If that's what you want, do you think that by damaging my reputation you are motivating me toward compliance with your standards? No, you're motivating me to stop contributing. OK. I concede the point. Maybe it's…

> Damaging a contributor's reputation because they didn't initially conform to your standard is vandalism. So, you tell me, vandalism is when you notice that someone's content doesn't meet standards, rate it accordingly using the system that was explicitly designed for that purpose, and it ends up incidentally (because of a system we don't get to change) "damaging the reputation" of its author... ? By the way, the on…

I just gave you a tangible suggestion for how you might maintain your standards and, at the same time, preserve your audience. Your response is basically "shrug, that's the way the system works". Reminds me of Hal trying to talk to the onboard computer in 2001 Space Odyssey. "I can't do that, Hal. That's just the way I work, Hal."

Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#266

Post by zahlman »

yuzzi wrote: post #265
zahlman wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Damaging a contributor's reputation because they didn't initially conform to your standard is vandalism. So, you tell me, vandalism is when you notice that someone's content doesn't meet standards, rate it accordingly using the system that was explicitly designed for that purpose, and it ends up incidentally (because of a system we don't get to change) "damaging the reputation" of its author... ? By the way, the on…

I just gave you a tangible suggestion for how you might maintain your standards and, at the same time, preserve your audience. Your response is basically "shrug, that's the way the system works". Reminds me of Hal trying to talk to the onboard computer in 2001 Space Odyssey. "I can't do that, Hal. That's just the way I work, Hal."

>I just gave you a tangible suggestion for how you might maintain your standards

No, you did nothing of the sort. You asked why people don't do something, and I explained to you that they sometimes do, but aren't required to because, among other things, it attracts abuse from new users. There are more reasons I didn't elaborate upon, that are covered in the meta discussion I linked you.

Meta discussion from 2017 that we have rehashed repeatedly ever since.

Countless people before you have suggested all the exact same things. None of them ever bring any new argument (because there is a small set of coherent arguments that could possibly be made) and none ever show any evidence of having considered, or being aware of, the previous discussion.

Again: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/357436

Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#267

Post by zahlman »

Buttons840 wrote: post #129
zahlman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> StackOverflow should have focused on linking duplicates rather than forbidding duplicates.... StackOverflow tried to prevent all duplicate questions. Duplicates are not forbidden on Stack Overflow. Duplicate questions are linked together - that's what "duplicate" means in the system. Beyond that, logged-out users who land on a duplicate question that doesn't have its own answers, will be automatically redirected to…

Maybe "answered by duplicate" would have been a more friendly way to say it--but I hear you, yeah, the closed questions were linked, which is what I was asking for. Whatever the case, a lot of people decided to never use the site because their questions were closed. > People who want to give the same easy answers over and over to the same easy questions, so as to get imaginary internet points that move them up a lead…

Ah, I forgot I was going to address this one...

> Maybe "answered by duplicate" would have been a more friendly way to say it

That's why the current banner template starts off with "This question already has answers here:" and the link.

> more often people just like interacting with other humans and teaching.

Most people eventually get fed up of troubleshooting for others with the same basic problems, and trying to decipher their overall poor communication, and noticing that they never pick up basic skills when those services are available to them.

This is the failure mode of trying to teach on discussion forums: you don't get to teach because the humans you're interacting with don't actually come to learn.

The few who want to learn, rarely need much interactivity. That's bad for getting basic ground covered, but it's good for actually producing something of value.

> the day may soon come that StackOverflow isn't even hosted anymore.

I'm absolutely confident that the company will make something of the information in the long run. But more importantly, they have been releasing data dumps (mostly as promised - check out https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/data-dump ) that others may pick through in the future, and maybe even re-host. The content is under Creative Commons license; and while the company may reserve additional rights, they can't take those rights away from others.

But beyond that - alternatives exist. I'm a moderator now at https://software.codidact.com/ and while it's been slow going I continue to believe in the project.

> StackOverflow was in steady decline long before AI was competent at answering questions

This is true, but the data trends show clearly that LLMs were an "aggravating" (I would say the opposite; it relieves curators who can now do something more important) factor, and the meta archive shows clearly that it's been a policy flashpoint.

> even in 2025 the competence of AI is still in question

I see only two possible futures: the one where it's always in question, and the one where it's in question right up until shortly before the apocalypse and/or rapture. And I don't consider the latter because there would be no meaningful way to prepare (and I'm a skeptic anyway).

Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#268

Post by stormblooperz »

zahlman wrote: post #227
stormblooperz wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading between the lines, this is extremely telling. Of course, nobody is a villain in their own story. Members of online communities who drive others away are often just simply blind to the impact they are having - an existential impact in the case of Stack Overflow sadly.

When someone new comes to Stack Overflow, and tries to get something from it that it's explicitly not there to provide , and I politely say "hey here are some documents about what the site is and what we expect from questions, I'm sorry but we can't allow people to answer this without addressing these problems, because the purpose of questions here isn't actually to work with you one-on-one and get your code to work"…

I'm sorry you've been swore at, that's obviously not on.

I guess I would say: look at the big picture, Stack Overflow is almost dead. It's a bit like driving a car off a cliff because there's a post-it note on the wheel that describes that purpose of the car as to go inexorably in this one cardinal direction. At least the standards are established and thoroughly documented! The document objectively exists!

Also: I know several kind and smart people who have sworn off Stack Overflow forever, not because they misunderstand the purpose of the site, but because of the unkindness and nonsensical nature of the moderation. You are aware of the "popular art form" reporting these experiences - those with empathy pay attention to it.

Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#269

Post by daedrdev »

Arnt wrote: post #245
daedrdev wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

surely the answer is to tell him his language is wrong, if enough people have that problem that is the answer.

Show, don't tell. Try answering some of the recently closed questions on SO, see how much time you're willing to spend on them. (As a practical matter: You can do it with the comment function, or search for questions that have two votes to close already.) Any mode of answering is okay. If you find out that it's not deathly tiring, let us know how.

This seems to somehow work fine on discord, where people ask the dumbest of questions on project discords yet get prompt responses even if it's just a link to a faq or wiki. I don't know how this happens, maybe something about the chat format or SO not retaining responders as well as discords do, but you really can see this it on discord servers for projects.

Re: Stack Overflow is almost dead

#270

Post by [deleted] »

zahlman wrote: post #255
int_19h wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's comical because it has been explained to you specifically dozens of times by several different people already right here in HN comments, but every time you do the equivalent of "la la la can't hear you" in response. It's sad because most of us remember how much more useful SO used to be.

> It's comical because it has been explained to you specifically dozens of times by several different people already The only thing that any of you have explained is that the site doesn't measure up to your standards. You have given me no reason why I should evaluate the site by your standards.

[deleted]
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