What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph • Hacker News Board

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#521

Post by psd1 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 9:45 AM UTC

webnrrd2k wrote: post #389

Chris_Newton wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media has been a fascinating experiment in human behaviour. We’ve long had discussion forums built around technical topics, from the early days of Usenet, through the likes of Slashdot and Digg, the arrival of Stack Overflow, and today the popularity of Reddit and some smaller sites like HN. Each has developed its own culture. Each has dealt with the need to prioritise the most valuable contributions and reduc…

Re: quis custodiet ipsos custodes... Slashdot has a meta-moderation setup where random users (with at least a minimum tenure and rating on the site) would get to vote on the quality of the moderation for randomly selected posts. I still think that this has a lot of potential for improving moderation, even if it's just used as a way of ferriting out problematic moderation.

OT, but "ferriting” made me think of a steel stoat, or a magnetic mink. (I did also appreciate the insight in your comment.)

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#522

Post by psd1 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 9:51 AM UTC

dalyons wrote: post #499

zahlman wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who came into the industry in college, the problem with SO was simply that it was too hard to ask a question. That's because you were intended to use the site like GP describes, and not by asking simply because you want to know something. > They were up your ass about minutia that really didn't matter. What you consider "minutia" were critically important, because the entire point was to optimize for GP'…

and how did that work out? the site is dead now because of it

- industry pivots to AI - SO traffic tanks - "lol, they killed themselves with their shitty moderation"

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#523

Post by psd1 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 10:06 AM UTC

ConorSheehan1 wrote: post #515

dfabulich wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The graph proves the cause of their decline was AI, and not aggressive question moderation. Ask yourself: in what year did it become difficult to ask questions on Stack Overflow? 2014? 2016? 2018? 2020? Aggressive question-closing was part of their design from the very beginning. Their high barriers to question-asking was the cause of their rise , as their primary user was never question writers: it was Google, and a…

And what was the alternative to stack overflow before AI? People were desperate for an alternative, and ran with the first semi-viable one that emerged. AI is arguably worse than SO for precision. It will hallucinate, and agree with you when you're wrong. But stack overflow is so unwelcoming to newcomers that people switched anyway.

> People were desperate for an alternative

Sure, why not. They were looking for a community that would let them speak. But that's like complaining your product review on amazon got deleted. It may be part of the amazon experience, but it's not the point.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#524

Post by inigyou » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 10:54 AM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #450

inigyou wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can write a self-answered question.

Knowing SO you’d get marked as a duplicate of your own question, then deleted.

A question can't be a duplicate of itself. There is no reason to make up reasons why SO is bad when there are plenty of real reasons.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#525

Post by r721 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 11:26 AM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #423

Snoopfrogg wrote: post #115

Sadge

I tried looking it up but "“sadge” The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary." Care to say more than whatever slang I presume this is?

I think they meant https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sage

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#526

Post by scotty79 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 11:31 AM UTC

ChatGPT was released in November 2022 so only the last decisive blow was dished by AI. Stack Overflow was already 40% below its peek when it was struck.

However looking at the shape of this last drop, I think it wouldn't matter if the SO was in its prime when it happened. SO would die regardless, at the schedule dictated more by strengthening AI rather than its own.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#527

Post by scotty79 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 11:32 AM UTC

TomMasz wrote: post #89

I never had an LLM tell me my question was already answered and imply I was stupid for not finding it. SO dug its own grave and jumped in.

I guess AI sycophancy does contribute to its success.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#528

Post by scotty79 » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 11:38 AM UTC

sph wrote: post #311

I used to read Coding Horror, I have been a programmer for longer than I had high speed Internet, yet somehow I never felt the urge to create a StackOverflow account. I have literally never browsed the site, always landed from Google and left when I found my answer. There was an era of the Internet where moderators were seen as the solution to all the problems of Internet communities. Then we discovered that those pe…

> were seen as the solution to all the problems of Internet communities

And the solution turned out to be putting every user in their own safety bubble of recommended conten and expanding the bubble only when user gets adventurous. And TikTok became gold standard for that that everone tries to emulate with varying degrees of success

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#529

Post by rwmj » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 1:18 PM UTC

Chris_Newton wrote: post #437

CoastalCoder wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I really like Slashdot's approach to both regular and meta moderation. I don't understand why it never caught on elsewhere.

The big downside of the moderation system on Slashdot is that you can’t both participate in a discussion and moderate at the same time. I want people who are interested and well informed on a subject doing both in the same discussion! Meta-moderation was an interesting idea, though they seemed to have stopped promoting it much by the time I stopped posting there often. I’m not convinced it’s as effective as having a…

I actually think the participate XOR vote behaviour of Slashdot was a great feature! It stops people pettily downvoting comments that don't agree with them on the same discussion.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#530

Post by bombcar » Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 1:27 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #524

bombcar wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing SO you’d get marked as a duplicate of your own question, then deleted.

A question can't be a duplicate of itself. There is no reason to make up reasons why SO is bad when there are plenty of real reasons.

Reminds me that they also seem to really not like sarcasm/humor.