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The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

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Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#31

Post by zajd »

tlogan wrote: post #24
Latty wrote: post #3

People always talk about how SO is so terrible, and yet it's still the best resource by a mile. People have just forgotten that the lack of that carefully curated environment created the complete mess that was all the forums we used to have before. Sure, it's not ideal - SO could do better in terms of helping people understand the site's goals and enforcing the rules in a less hostile way, but they are working on tha…

The SO is in decline. And decline is caused by its own success. - The SO was great because answers for noob questions where hard to find. At this point of time (thanks to SO and their knowledge database) there are so many other resources to get these noob questions answered or they are already answered. And some of these other resources are updated to reflect the most recent technology changes while SO answers are st…

What evidence do you have that SO is in decline?

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#34

Post by sklivvz1971 »

Disclaimer: I work in the Q&A team at Stack Overflow.

What people don't understand is that SO serves literally all developers. No matter what choices we make there will be upset people. Do we reduce moderation? Help vampires take over. Do we keep moderation as is? People complain we are too strict (or not enough). Do we allow only English? We are elitist. Do we allow SO in other languages? We are fragmenting the community.

After a few years, I've heard it all.

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#36

Post by bdcravens »

firefoxd wrote: post #19

No,SO is not declining. All the common questions have already been answered. The main problem is people don't research their problem for more then a minute before asking a question.

> All the common questions have already been answered.

This is true if there are no new languages or frameworks.

> The main problem is people don't research their problem for more then a minute before asking a question.

This has been true since the beginning of time. However, it does feel that the responses on SO have gotten more trollish over time.

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#37

Post by mhurron »

martinald wrote: post #18
dismantlethesun wrote: post #4

I've found that if you go to Stackoverflow for a fast-moving topic like Javascript, the first answer isn't correct in modern terms. The next set of answers, without check marks, are likely more correct. So you have to read the entire page to get a glimpse of the truth. This can be bad if you're just looking for an immediate solution, however for learning its fantastic because it shows you a recorded history of how th…

Agreed. I usually use 'site:stackoverflow.com [[query]]' in Google with search terms limiting pages that have been updated in the last year or so. Filters a lot of the very old answers out which often can send you on a totally wrong direction because the ecosystem has changed so much. Perhaps SO will end up getting overtaken by a new similar site, not because it is intrinsically better, just because they reset the co…

> Perhaps SO will end up getting overtaken by a new similar site

It will, and then in 5 or so years we'll be hearing the same complaints about that service.

SO's problem is people, so unless you can come up with a service that removes them you're going to have the same issue.

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#38

Post by reitanqild »

firefoxd wrote: post #19

No,SO is not declining. All the common questions have already been answered. The main problem is people don't research their problem for more then a minute before asking a question.

As someone who sometimes ask non-trivial questions that other people sometimes find useful I don't think this is the complete answer:

I, and I guess others, can easily hesitate a full day, doing search after search after search, before asking on SO.

On the other hand SO makes it really simple to create new accounts and ask questions.

If they really were concerned about answering the same questions again and again they would implement some basic rules like limiting new users from asking questions untilntyey had been active for a full day or something.

Weirdly enough it seems people like to complain about the workload while at the same time refusing to do anything to reduce it.

In fact it is almost as if they enjoy moderating noobs :-|

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#39

Post by city41 »

joekrie wrote: post #15
Latty wrote: post #3

People always talk about how SO is so terrible, and yet it's still the best resource by a mile. People have just forgotten that the lack of that carefully curated environment created the complete mess that was all the forums we used to have before. Sure, it's not ideal - SO could do better in terms of helping people understand the site's goals and enforcing the rules in a less hostile way, but they are working on tha…

I find it to be a great resource if someone has already answered your question, especially if I find it via Google. As for asking questions, it's a bit off-putting to be immediately downvoted without explanation, and to not get a single answer. Point is, it's good resource to free-ride but not actively participate.

That's basically the point of the site. I think SO's owners are ok with this trade off.

FWIW it wasn't always like this. I have a lot of points on SO mostly acquired about 5 years ago. Back then SO was a much friendlier, and much more interesting place to participate in. I haven't actively participated in about 3 years or so.

Re: The decline of Stack Overflow (2015)

#40

Post by yladiz »

Sure, Stack Overflow kind of sucks sometimes and people are sometimes really up their own asses about things being exactly right and having a question worded explicitly, but it is by far the best resource for programmers to find help from other programmers due to its ubiquitousness in the programming community. I haven't found any other alternatives better; Quora isn't useful for programming questions (a general Q&A/opinion style question is better suited for Quora, but not "What's wrong with my code?"), and I wouldn't use ExpertsExchange. Are there any other notable places to ask these kinds of questions?

So it sucks, but there's no resources to replace it. You might not like it and because it's not something that you have to help with you are free to stop contributing (e.g. you can't just say, "I don't like this, I'm going to stop working on it" at work), but why not help everyone and contribute, either to Stack Overflow or by making a new, better resource, rather than being grumpy and only helping your pessimistic self feel better?

An aside: The header image lags considerably when I scroll (on Safari 10)... Why isn't it just a static image on the page, and have JS to detect when the aspect ratio changes on a page level rather than an image level?

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