

Stack Exchange grew from 16M to 32M uniques in 2011 - kamens
http://stackexchange.com/state-of-the-stack

======
dionidium
The main thing they got right is that pages on the Stack Exchange network
include (as primary content) exactly one question, followed by the answers to
that question. That's it. All other side discussion, requests for more info,
expressions of gratitude, etc, are secondarily attached as comments. They are
visually and conceptually separate.

In retrospect, this is totally, obviously what you want, but there was a lot
of momentum behind making Q&A sites look like a forum.

In other words, their success is well-deserved.

~~~
Stormbringer
Well, that's not strictly correct. In my experience every interesting question
ever asked at any of the Stack Overflow sites consists of:

(1) A single question (as you say)

(2) (Attached to the question) Some whiny git putting on his internet cop hat
and suggesting that the question is inappropriate

(3) An almost immediate locking of the question by said whiny git

(4) An interesting discussion

Almost every time I see some moderator putting on his 'big boy pants' I want
to reach down the internet and slap them.

I just wish they could find a way to send the gnomes back to wikipedia.

~~~
tikhonj
This really varies per site. For example, since StackOverflow is primarily for
concrete technical questions, overly subjective discussion questions are
liable to get moved or closed; however, if you're interested in something
_concrete_ but still broad (e.g. how to use existential types), you're likely
to be fine.

On programmers, on the other hand, most of the questions involve a good bit of
discussion; the majority have several answers. This is because the focus of
the site is different.

Finally, I think there's a lot of selection bias--you're more likely to
remember closed questions, and the sort of questions that get shared on HN are
the sort that don't really fit in StackOverflow.

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ThomPete
This is well deserved.

A little off topic but still about SE.

If you ever want to understand "social" not as in the buzzword but as in
"what's it really about" I can highly recommend the Stack Exchange podcasts.

I know this is not their aim but it's actually one of the most insightful
podcasts about social networks out there. So many great insights simply
stemming from the conversations they have. For instance the one with Chris
Poole from 4chan.

[http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/11/se-podcast-29-chris-
po...](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/11/se-podcast-29-chris-
poole/#comments)

Good stuff and I am glad to see them move up the ranks.

------
chrisacky
I'm 90% sure that 15M of those new users are just Jon Skeet clones that upvote
him!

But in all seriousness, stackexchange have completely stolen the parade from
all other community driven Q&A sites.

Joel was correct when he withdraw support for customer hosted Stack sites, and
went through the incubation process.

Stackoverflow has totally wiped out all of the other failing programming
websites, and the community is a great one to be apart of. (I hated those
sites that would obfuscate all the answers and try and get you to pay to sign
up, while cloaking everything on Google).

Congrats.

~~~
Turing_Machine
I certainly don't miss wading through all those crap Experts Exchange links in
the Google results (actually the advice on that site was often pretty good,
but the business model was repellant).

~~~
manojlds
Weird part was that though the answers were obfuscated, all you had to do was
to scroll down the page and get the answers - what a joke! But the answers
were good.

~~~
icebraining
That's to ensure Google could read them. If they hid the answers the Googlebot
wouldn't include them in the search index.

------
tikhonj
One of the things I love about StackOverflow is that I learn even when I'm the
one _answering_ the questions. People are always happy to point out how I can
make my code more clear, idiomatic or elegant all without trying to belittle
me. Not to say other communities are worse--it's just that the _absolute_
level of quality at SO is very good.

And, of course, since it's basically an MMORPG, it's addictive. Not that I
mind--one of the best ways to learn a technology at an intermediate level is
answering questions there. It's much more productive than a real MMORPG and
more convenient time-wise than just learning from a book or by having a
project (of course, I use those too: all the different methods augment each
other).

------
melling
Here's me trying to convince the Groovy mailing list to use StackOverFlow back
in 2008.

[http://osdir.com/ml/lang.groovy.grails.user/2008-09/msg00714...](http://osdir.com/ml/lang.groovy.grails.user/2008-09/msg00714.html)

Those guys wouldn't buy into it. It seemed liked such an obvious solution to
the existing solution. Walking down an email thread then getting to the end
with no answer. I think it's especially useful for a new or esoteric
technology because it allows new users to come up to speed quicker. Scala, Go,
Haskell can be learned in short order.

The one thing that could be improved is to partition answers that become
dated. Also, some questions could be asked every 3-5 years. For example, best
frameworks, etc. Tech changes fast.

------
WestCoastJustin
I decided to learn ruby on rails (via <http://ruby.railstutorial.org/> I
highly recommend it) and stackexchange.com has been an invaluable resource.
Both as I learn the ruby language, and troubleshoot issues as I'm coding.

~~~
manojlds
When I want to learn a new technology, I start following a tag and silently
lurk for a while and then start answering to the questions. I have been able
to learn so much by answering question on SO.

~~~
richardw
Same. I love using the most-voted question list to see what types of issues
I'm likely to face using the technology.

------
jc4p
Did anyone else notice that the page uses custom-made buttons for all
platforms other than G+? I wonder if those buttons were made with not allowing
Twitter and Facebook to track users in mind.

~~~
spolsky
I think it was because the default buttons were slightly different sizes and
looked terrible next to each other.

~~~
joelhaus
Joel, Curious about your opinion on HN culture vs. SE culture in the context
of growth. Both sites saw significant growth in 2011, but from my perspective,
HN culture has been far more affected than SE. If you agree, do you attribute
this to something specific that you are doing at Stack Exchange and is there
something you would do differently to improve things here?

Some people discussed the situation on HN earlier today[1], but I think you
bring a unique and valuable perspective to the issue. I have my own theory
(i.e. _SE has a superior technical solution for reputation_ )[2], but you have
some of the most directly relevant experience.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469453>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3354171>

------
chaz
I think that's the prettiest page I've ever seen on their network. Hopefully
we'll see some creative/design refreshes this year -- it makes a big
difference.

~~~
freiheit
If you look at some of the newer sites, they're generally prettier than the
original trilogy sites. Still have the same basic design and still all about
the text of questions and answers.

A few examples: \- <http://ux.stackexchange.com/> \-
<http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/> \- <http://scifi.stackexchange.com/> \-
<http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/> \- <http://tex.stackexchange.com/>

------
BadassFractal
Love StackExchange network, they deserve their success!

------
citricsquid
"Let that be a lesson kids: video games CAN make you succesful."

I agree.

------
james-fend
I was probably responsible for 100k of those views as I was learning Rails.
Cool note: I put a question on stack, went to do a Google search seconds
later, and my question (I just made) came up. Cray

------
fbuilesv
Have they published any revenue numbers? I'm happy to hear that they're
growing like crazy, but knowing that they'll still be around in a couple of
years would be even more awesome.

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smackfu
I wonder how their growth is within established sites, vs. adding new sites.

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ak2012
Lets get some revenues figures in here.

