Despite what SO states, the karma system does matter. And it's flawed, as the vast majority of karma that will ever be awarded, has already been awarded. Very simple questions have thousands of upvotes, as do the answers, and all of the basic, common questions have been covered extensively. The only path for a new, energetic, enthusiastic user to grow his/her karma score (and associated credibility) is via a massive grind. The likelihood of a new question or answer gaining hundreds of upvotes, is very slim.
I don't claim to have all of the answers, but a decay function seems quite obvious to me. For one thing, technology evolves. The jquery way of doing something shouldn't have 10x the upvotes as the ES6 way. Old answers should lose a percentage of their upvotes over time, if they remain relevant they will gain new upvotes, but if not, they will get surpassed by newer, more relevant responses.
> I don't claim to have all of the answers, but a decay function seems quite obvious to me.
I don't have a super-informed opinion here, but a decay function sounds reasonable. I'd also suggest that the decay be uncoupled from the user's karma (i.e., the user keeps his/her karma, but the value of the votes decay over time to make way for changes in technology). I don't claim that this is a well thought out idea, but at first blush, it seems reasonable. Also, I just don't give a shit what my karma percentile is.
Finally, FWIW, I find SO ~85% useful and ~15% problematic. And I feel like sometimes we fixate on the 15% without acknowledging the genuine utility of the 85%.
I don't think it works anymore. I was very engaged in Stackverflow a few years ago (got ~55K reputation) but stopped using it (not sure why). Now, last week I opened a question in ServerFault (where I got ~100 reputation or so) and my "silly" question was just answered with "what are you asking? Please ask the question the right way".
I didn't even bother fixing my question. I deleted all my stack exchange accounts.
Is there some reason why people are so extremely rude on StackOverflow?
I understand sometimes questions can be worded poorly or miss out important pieces of information, but moaning at people (often those new to the site) to do something the right-way seems like the wrong approach. Most people don't spend all day on StackOverflow and know the "correct" way to format a question.
I just don’t value it enough to be reprimanded by an unknown internet person about how my question was worded. If I have a question I’m obviously not an expert in the matter, so I may not be able to word it perfectly the first time. Sometimes I need someone to ask a clarifying question to understand that I was looking at the situation from the wrong angle, but in SO you just get either ignored or just “that’s stupid”
That “what animal provides milk at the supermarket?” and “what animal goes moo?” are marked as duplicate questions because they have the same answer. They’re clearly not duplicates and have very different concerns.
The misuse of the site. The amount of people not following the rules and/or skipping tour is astonishing.
Open SO, choose any popular tag and just wait. In a hour you will see a dozen of "do homework for me", "what's wrong with my code" and "explain this very basic thing to me eli5". Not to mention things explained in introductory lessons of any decent tutorial or things answered by first search result.
Not to mention bad grammar and even worse formatting.
StackOverflow users are constantly complaining about duplicate questions. The real problem is that the onus for better question asking is placed on the asker, who is only really motivated and prepared to express their confusion.
The whole reason most questions are asked is because the asker isn't familiar enough with the problem domain to find the answer. That also means they aren't familiar enough with the problem domain to find a duplicate/related question.
It's much easier for question answerers to find duplicate and related discussion. Instead of antagonizing the asker by closing their post as "pointless discussion that has already happened", answerers should be continuing discussion with the asker.
Every StackOverflow question (duplicate or not) provides two opportunities:
1. Answering the question.
2. Finding what information to better advertise so that confusion can be avoided in there future.
Frontend JavaScript frameworks are actually a good example. If you wanted to use ENYOjs, an amazing but seemingly defunct framework. You couldn’t go to the website because the whole thing was turned into a react fork and the original documentation was deleted. Besides stackoverflow you’re stuck and what if you have to maintain an old enyo project on roku or another web based platform? What if you are basing your project on some open source work from the past? Anyway there are many cases where old answers are useful and sometimes more useful then new answers.
I do agree it’s extremely helpful when answers are continually updated with the times. But that doesn’t always happen but it’s nice.
I agree, and it unnerves me because the solutions seem to be easy. Just allow users to tag an answer as outdated, or to add a "valid until YYYY" tag. This would provide a quick indication when skimming answers, without removing old ones. It could also allow to reopen an old question in case the accepted answer or all its answers are marked as outdated.
The bureaucracy. I understand that they want some rules and processes, but their community is extremely hostile towards newcomers who don't do things correctly.
Not directly with StackOverflow but when I search for something, usually I meet with outdated results on google. For e.g. if I search for something on iOS/Android, I usually get results from 2011-13 which don't add any value because frameworks have been updated since then.
Stackoverflow is a very toxic community. It's not a welcoming place for beginners who are basically want to learn how to learn. An alternative was to use discuss forums (e.g. https://forums.fast.ai/).
I have spent time responding to questions on Stackoverflow, I think I spent 2-3 years providing answeers, and one time I answered a question that didn't follow a weird policy that I strongly don't agree with (https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/311442/opinion-base...). I got banned, and my account has been deleted, the answers still there. My only regret was that I could have spent that energy and drive to contribute to open source projects on github. Now, I have less time, but I answer questions -when I have time- on reddit or forums.
StackOverflow is one of the most toxic community out there. Asking a question is a miserable experience. Answering a question? Same.
It really seems no one is there to help each other. It's mostly status quo or reputation. Moderators have too much work to do or have serious ego problems (most users call them "StackOverlords"). Or a mix between the two.
One thing I noticed is that other sites of the Stack Exchange Network are doing quite well. Probably they should split up SO, at least with one site for backend related questions and one for frontend, or even for specific frameworks/platforms. But this would also split the value of the site, so I don't think it's gonna happen.
Eventually someone will disrupt the whole network, just like they did with Experts-Exchange.
That’s actually a really fantastic idea. Smash StackOverflow into hundreds of smaller StackExchange sites where people have a fighting chance of managing things. PHP.stackexchange, Wordpress.stackexchange (already exists interestingly enough) Python.stackexchange, Django.stackexchange, React.stackexchange, Java.stackexchange, JavaScript.stackexchange… some of these will still be very busy sites but at least they will be of more manageable size and better equipped to moderate outdated content.
> Moderators have too much work to do or have serious ego problems
As I mentioned in other comment, the amount of poor questions (e.g. of type "why my code not work"), with bad grammar and formatting on top, far outweighs the number of properly asked new questions.
Their business model conflicts with what would serve users best. It once was a place where I would trust answers, now I have to search multiple times, scroll through many results to find relevant answers.
Having massive amounts of questions gets more surface area for ads but a lot of programming Q&A that is a few years out of date is mostly useless. API's change, things become deprecated or better solutions emerge.
They need to cull massive amounts of content for it to be more helpful but that would likely drop revenue.
As someone who didn’t study anywhere near as much math or cs in college as I’d have liked, and had to spend a lot of time asking questions on Stack.* sites, I’ve had an extremely positive experience.
The only even mildly negative experience I’ve had was once a high-level user pattern-matched one of my questions to a much simpler already-answered question and closed it along with a dismissive comment, but as soon as I commented highlighting the discrepancy he apologized and answered my question.
I practically don't use StackOverflow. It can be useful sometimes to find references to bugs, or something, but many of the solutions I've seen are sub-par, or the problems I have are mostly some issue in GitHub/GitLab that I'll comment in or open myself.
On the rare occasions I find a useful question, some asshole closes it because it was asked before. What makes them an asshole is that it's not the same question at all, or the question was not answered.
It doesn't allow broad questions, only nuts and bolts questions. As in: is my approach to building this the best approach? I could really do with a site that lets me ask that kind of question.
The fact that anyone can post anything, so you could have a serious issue in your code and they give you an inefficient solution, which is then upvoted by users who don’t know better.
[+] [-] listenallyall|4 years ago|reply
I don't claim to have all of the answers, but a decay function seems quite obvious to me. For one thing, technology evolves. The jquery way of doing something shouldn't have 10x the upvotes as the ES6 way. Old answers should lose a percentage of their upvotes over time, if they remain relevant they will gain new upvotes, but if not, they will get surpassed by newer, more relevant responses.
Oh, and the new fonts.
[+] [-] busyant|4 years ago|reply
I don't have a super-informed opinion here, but a decay function sounds reasonable. I'd also suggest that the decay be uncoupled from the user's karma (i.e., the user keeps his/her karma, but the value of the votes decay over time to make way for changes in technology). I don't claim that this is a well thought out idea, but at first blush, it seems reasonable. Also, I just don't give a shit what my karma percentile is.
Finally, FWIW, I find SO ~85% useful and ~15% problematic. And I feel like sometimes we fixate on the 15% without acknowledging the genuine utility of the 85%.
[+] [-] nailer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdevonoes|4 years ago|reply
I didn't even bother fixing my question. I deleted all my stack exchange accounts.
[+] [-] kypro|4 years ago|reply
I understand sometimes questions can be worded poorly or miss out important pieces of information, but moaning at people (often those new to the site) to do something the right-way seems like the wrong approach. Most people don't spend all day on StackOverflow and know the "correct" way to format a question.
[+] [-] culopatin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nailer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jorengarenar|4 years ago|reply
Open SO, choose any popular tag and just wait. In a hour you will see a dozen of "do homework for me", "what's wrong with my code" and "explain this very basic thing to me eli5". Not to mention things explained in introductory lessons of any decent tutorial or things answered by first search result.
Not to mention bad grammar and even worse formatting.
Minimal, reproducible example is just a dream.
[+] [-] thomastjeffery|4 years ago|reply
StackOverflow users are constantly complaining about duplicate questions. The real problem is that the onus for better question asking is placed on the asker, who is only really motivated and prepared to express their confusion.
The whole reason most questions are asked is because the asker isn't familiar enough with the problem domain to find the answer. That also means they aren't familiar enough with the problem domain to find a duplicate/related question.
It's much easier for question answerers to find duplicate and related discussion. Instead of antagonizing the asker by closing their post as "pointless discussion that has already happened", answerers should be continuing discussion with the asker.
Every StackOverflow question (duplicate or not) provides two opportunities:
1. Answering the question.
2. Finding what information to better advertise so that confusion can be avoided in there future.
[+] [-] Jorengarenar|4 years ago|reply
It would be a valid point if only the answer wasn't so often the first result after pasting the title of their post into search engine.
[+] [-] quickthrower2|4 years ago|reply
Also it’s a trope that the select answer isn’t always the best so there is a meta conversation about what is the “really best” answer
[+] [-] egfx|4 years ago|reply
Frontend JavaScript frameworks are actually a good example. If you wanted to use ENYOjs, an amazing but seemingly defunct framework. You couldn’t go to the website because the whole thing was turned into a react fork and the original documentation was deleted. Besides stackoverflow you’re stuck and what if you have to maintain an old enyo project on roku or another web based platform? What if you are basing your project on some open source work from the past? Anyway there are many cases where old answers are useful and sometimes more useful then new answers.
I do agree it’s extremely helpful when answers are continually updated with the times. But that doesn’t always happen but it’s nice.
[+] [-] Udik|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] speedgoose|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdiw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ___luigi|4 years ago|reply
I have spent time responding to questions on Stackoverflow, I think I spent 2-3 years providing answeers, and one time I answered a question that didn't follow a weird policy that I strongly don't agree with (https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/311442/opinion-base...). I got banned, and my account has been deleted, the answers still there. My only regret was that I could have spent that energy and drive to contribute to open source projects on github. Now, I have less time, but I answer questions -when I have time- on reddit or forums.
[+] [-] UweSchmidt|4 years ago|reply
"Hot Network Questions" are a distraction and take up too much horizontal space.
[+] [-] david_allison|4 years ago|reply
Well worth blocking these with an adblocker, if you don't already
[+] [-] achairapart|4 years ago|reply
It really seems no one is there to help each other. It's mostly status quo or reputation. Moderators have too much work to do or have serious ego problems (most users call them "StackOverlords"). Or a mix between the two.
One thing I noticed is that other sites of the Stack Exchange Network are doing quite well. Probably they should split up SO, at least with one site for backend related questions and one for frontend, or even for specific frameworks/platforms. But this would also split the value of the site, so I don't think it's gonna happen.
Eventually someone will disrupt the whole network, just like they did with Experts-Exchange.
[+] [-] techdragon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jorengarenar|4 years ago|reply
As I mentioned in other comment, the amount of poor questions (e.g. of type "why my code not work"), with bad grammar and formatting on top, far outweighs the number of properly asked new questions.
[+] [-] matt_s|4 years ago|reply
Having massive amounts of questions gets more surface area for ads but a lot of programming Q&A that is a few years out of date is mostly useless. API's change, things become deprecated or better solutions emerge.
They need to cull massive amounts of content for it to be more helpful but that would likely drop revenue.
[+] [-] mooreds|4 years ago|reply
Is it the ads you object to?
[+] [-] wallscratch|4 years ago|reply
The only even mildly negative experience I’ve had was once a high-level user pattern-matched one of my questions to a much simpler already-answered question and closed it along with a dismissive comment, but as soon as I commented highlighting the discrepancy he apologized and answered my question.
[+] [-] Jugurtha|4 years ago|reply
On the rare occasions I find a useful question, some asshole closes it because it was asked before. What makes them an asshole is that it's not the same question at all, or the question was not answered.
[+] [-] freehrtradical|4 years ago|reply
2. Why aren't answers always sorted by the number of votes by default?
3. The "community edits" where people sometimes decrease the quality of an answer just to get points.
4. Some answers don't age well but they are perpetuated by their large vote count.
[+] [-] webmobdev|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikewarot|4 years ago|reply
2> You didn't ask the question in the right way, or are on the wrong platform, OS version, etc.
3> The tons and tons of ads.
[+] [-] DarrenDev|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Asraelite|4 years ago|reply
It's a shame, because these answers are usually more thorough, objective, and helpful than anything else that comes up in the search.
[+] [-] 4f77616973|4 years ago|reply