StackOverflow: Retiring the Beta Site

Post by anakaine » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 4:48 AM UTC

ratg13 wrote: post #32

cpcallen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when it became impossible to ask on SO Can you explain what you mean by that?

At some point they got ultra aggressive about "duplicate" questions. Technology changes at a fast pace .. so new questions would get asked, and then closed by moderators and pointed to similar questions that might be 5 or 6 years old and no longer relevant.. essentially ending the discussion on many topics and actively preventing progress in certain areas.

Absolutely this. Later in the piece I learned that one of the mods in a place I'd occasionally asking questions on SO was from my local town and would occasionally attend industry social events. It was amusing to let a few people know and watch the "why did you close that question as a duplicate? That vendor module was only released 6 months ths ago but the duplicate was from 5 years back. Make it make sense!".

Post by AlexeyBelov » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 11:15 AM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #30

zahlman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are complaining about counterfactuals. Nobody is bullying anyone; the people active on meta aren't "chasing away" users (almost no users actually come to meta in the first place, the big names don't do a lot of personal interaction and when they do they don't leave comments unless they can be exceedingly polite about it); all that's happening is that with LLMs people finally have the thing they wanted all along[0…

As someone who had a fast high engagement for some time and then have dropped away, asking very few questions in that time, I disagree. I have seen far to many marked as duplicate for things that aren’t, nagging about rules and unsuitable questions instead of helpfulness and general allowing of some users to despise beginners without any consequences.

When I ask someone for an example, 90% just can't provide even one. From the remaining 10%, about two thirds are cases where it's very clear why the question was moderated. In another third it's questionable and can go either way.

Remember that SO is moderated by SO users.

Re: StackOverflow: Retiring the Beta Site

Re: StackOverflow: Retiring the Beta Site