
Five Years of Stackoverflow.com - aritraghosh007
http://www.stum.de/2013/06/21/5-years-of-stackoverflow-com/
======
InclinedPlane
I used to be a heavy stackoverflow user in the early days, and I have enough
karma to put me in the moderator tier now. However, I don't use the site much
anymore, except for getting questions answered.

In a way I suppose that's a testament to the fact that the site still works,
and works well. They solved most of the problem they set out to solve
originally, which is a major achievement. Nevertheless, I still have a nagging
feeling that some further iterative improvements could turn stackoverflow into
something that would be even more useful, and would be more inviting for
people to continue to participate in actively even without having expert
knowledge in some tiny sub-category or a desire to constantly tidy everything
up day-in day-out.

Edit: to clarify I mean that it's hard to visit stackoverflow on a regular
basis instead of just using it as an answer generating machine. Which I think
is something not unique to myself and probably hurts the overall quality of
the site considerably, notwithstanding the many experts who use the site
heavily. Specifically I find it hard to peruse interesting topics to comment
on, since the site is now very aggressively tightly focused. Even worse I find
it difficult to use the site as a learning tool. Often times when I want to
learn something new I'll get it in my head to go to stackoverflow first, but
that's never worked very well for me. It's just too difficult to sort or
filter all the data into something that is actually useful.

Overall I think the biggest problem is that the people behind the site(s) have
decided they've done their jobs, that what they've presented is good enough
and at most needs only minor tweaking. I think that's a huge mistake
personally and I think the result is going to be that the stackexchange sites
end up as a footnote in history after having been rapidly eclipsed by "the
next big thing" in a similar vein.

~~~
jeremyt
PM of the Stack Exchange sites here.

I can understand why it appears this way from outside, but we've never been
moving faster than we are now.

I have been on board for about six months, and in that time we have rolled out
lots of usability and layout improvements: streamlined sign-up process, a new
anonymous homepage, a consolidated and curated help center, completely
rewritten search, new badges page, upcoming new privileges page...

In the next couple of months, we will be finishing sitewide SSL, redesigns of
our more high-traffic pages, and a complete re-factor around closing to make
that process more clear.

Stay tuned, because I'm excited about where we're headed.

~~~
SeanDav
I like SO, but its focus is just too narrow. Any question that seems to
involve an opinion is shut down as not constructive, yet I can assure you that
the vast majority of questions that bring me to SO are of this type.

You already rely on the users to vote up the good answers and vote down the
bad ones - why don't you trust them to continue doing this, rather than
shutting down useful and interesting topics?

~~~
jeremyt
Without addressing the broader question, which we are well aware of and
continue to discuss internally, "not constructive" will no longer be a close
reason as of next week. It's being replaced, in this case, by "primarily
opinion based", which is a slightly higher bar. The result should be a small
decrease in questions closed for opinion based reasons.

[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/171732/help-us-
make-...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/171732/help-us-make-not-
constructive-and-not-a-real-question-closures-more-effectiv)

------
planetjones
A fantastic site that has helped me immensely. It's a little hard to gain
reputation so much now, due to the amount of people who jump in as soon as a
question is asked. But the vast database of answers to common problems it has
created have added immense value. I much prefer using SO rather than dedicated
forums which are often badly designed and slow e.g. Oracle, IBM.

Some of the other sites that SO spawned are useful too e.g. I like reading the
English language stack exchange. There is definitely room for both Quora and
the Stack Exchange sites on the Internet (Quora more subjective and discussion
based, whereas Stack Exchange sites I use for more definitive / right or wrong
answers).

~~~
blisterpeanuts
I second that. SO is a fantastic resource. Just when I feel I'm starting to
become an expert, I look something up on SO and discover how much I still have
to learn. Keeps ya' humble!

------
stinos
Been a member for over 3 years I still think it's the one and only. Like the
usenet groups for programming used to be, but better organized. While the
moderation of quesitions works very well, which is what probably makes it as
good, there's two things that bothers me: the vast amount of questions that
shouldn't be there but don't reach the close vote threshold. Not a problem per
se, but annoying when searching sometimes, and more annoying when you're like
"hey lets review some and see there's 55k of such questions" :] Second,
sometimes it doesn't feel fair. I've ansered questions with one-liners that
are a no-brainer and gained massive amounts of rep for it, while I've also
answered questions spending more than an hour and trying to pass on some
deeper knowledge about a large topic and got only an accepted answer, not even
knowing if it really helped the author.

------
columbo
SO is great for what it is, direct answers from questions. It is hard to think
back to the days of pre-SO when most answers had to come from books (!)

It is not designed, and will never be a place to foster discussions, or
encourage exploration. I'm NOT complaining about SO, this is just how it is
designed.

This kind of content, for example, is not something SO would create:

[http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/05/17/frameworks-
round-...](http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/05/17/frameworks-round-5/)

[https://github.com/skx/static-site-generators](https://github.com/skx/static-
site-generators)

Since we don't have a SO for discussions we still rely on information from
individual research and/or the modern-day newsgroup (reddit, forums). I wish
there was a place to fully explore nebulous unanswerable questions like "Which
web UI framework is fastest to develop in?" or "What is the best way to start
a 2d platform game today (in 2013)?"

This isn't an easy problem to solve, the questions above aren't really there
to get an answer but to start a discussion. For both questions I want to know
what is popular (TODAY, not in 2006), active, has been tested, and personal
experience. I want to see a collection of people submitting their own takes
until a top-five is produced where further study can be made.

~~~
StuieK
We're trying to do this. Examples:

[http://www.slant.co/topics/217/~best-css-
preprocessor](http://www.slant.co/topics/217/~best-css-preprocessor)

[http://www.slant.co/topics/95/~what-is-the-best-search-
engin...](http://www.slant.co/topics/95/~what-is-the-best-search-engine-for-
web-applications)

------
ronilan
Stack Overflow belongs to a very small elite group of sites (Wikipedia
obviously being another) who's existance is what creates the quality of Google
search results. Nough said :)

~~~
possibilistic
Would it be a threat to Google if all useful information was well-curated,
semantic, etc? If developing a search engine became nontrivial, would the
hypothetical loss of Google's search product cause them serious problems?

I would like to see this happen. Not to harm Google, but rather to make search
a problem that doesn't require billions to tackle.

~~~
ronilan
Well-curated, semantic information is the opposite of a threat. It will make
the results better, making the service provided by the provider of the results
of higher quality.

A threat can only come if the searching audience moves elsewhere to search for
[something]; and if [something] is very popular among the searching audience;
and if [something] is also very important to individual searcher.

Because the reason for moving away can only be if [something] is not available
from Google there aren't that many threats. I think last time there was a
glimpse of such thing happening was in the summer of 2006, but there are other
opinions.

------
MrDOS
StackOverflow is being killed by its overzealous moderation, as was Wikipedia
a year or so ago before they backed off a bit. Let's sample a random question
from the `php` tag: [1]. The question is not particularly well-asked, but I
think it's fairly obvious that the answer is a union of the three tables. And
yet, because he phrased his question as a requirement (it's the last sentence)
and not an absolute question, it's been closed – even though I understand the
question and possess the ability to give an answer (and maybe even edit the
original question to improve its readability), I've been rendered unable to do
so.

I think the big problem I have with quickly-closed questions is that they get
just as thoroughly indexed on Google as answered questions. This becomes a
particular problem with niche topics; last summer, I was tasked with some
Salesforce development and the number of unanswered, closed APEX questions I
found was astonishing.

[1] [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17237166/sql-query-
query-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17237166/sql-query-query-
from-3-tables)

~~~
jackmaney
Stack Overflow is not a bargain-basement alternative to Elance, Odesk, or
rent-a-coder.com, whereby people can get code snippets vomited at them for
free. As was made evident in the comments, the OP of the question needed to
show what he tried.

Also, closed questions can be edited. That's the main point of closing a
question: to send a signal to the OP that the question needs to be edited and
improved.

~~~
jeremyt
A result of the new close reasons re-factor is that closed questions will be
called "on hold" for five days before they become finally closed to encourage
the OP to improve the question.

------
mwfunk
SO is sort of like Wikipedia in that they're tremendously useful sites that
are widely misunderstood. So many of the complaints about them seem to be
based on misunderstanding their purpose. People see SO for the first time and
jump to the conclusion that SO is sort of like Reddit, and that Wikipedia is
someplace where anybody can write anything about anything. When the moderation
works against them, they blame "asshole mods" instead of their own ignorance
of the purpose of the sites themselves.

(not that there aren't asshole mods, but that's beside the point)

Anyway, hooray for SO (and hooray for Wikipedia), pretty much the rest of the
web is composed of anything-goes sites and I love that they actively try to
craft a particular experience.

------
geertj
Stackoverflow .. where all the useful questions are marked as "off topic".

~~~
sublimit
Yeah, the moderation gets on my nerves. They might just lock the question
before you have time to explain yourself better. And by then, they've already
edited your question to what they falsely believed it was asking, even if
there was nothing ambiguous about it. I've quietly decided to never use the
site again because of things like that.

------
quizotic
Raising my glass to stackoverflow! It had done more to improve my productivity
than anything else. Jeff Atwood and the whole community have changed the world
for the better. Why is it that stackoverflow is so much more useful than
expertsexchange or quora?

~~~
adventured
Experts Exchange has betrayed their users / community numerous times over the
years in experimenting with how to make money. So far I would say that Stack
Overflow has done a great job of not compromising their mission in the name of
revenue. That's a very difficult balancing act.

------
markdown
Maybe it's just me, or the type of questions I ask, but I've found SO to be a
little elitist.

I love it for the fact I very often find answers there, but almost every time
I've asked a question, the responses or lack thereof have been pretty brutal.

~~~
ygra
It's a little messy sometimes. Trivial beginner questions are usually answered
within a minute and you get about three correct answers immediately.

But there are those nagging questions where you pondered two days and
researched and then pour everything you know into a long, elaborate question,
asking for help. And then, nothing. 16 views, no votes, no answers. Can be
very frustrating.

If you have mostly questions of the latter kind then there's a bit of luck
involved whether the right person sees your question or whether it just goes
unnoticed and dies.

~~~
markdown
> But there are those nagging questions where you pondered two days and
> researched and then pour everything you know into a long, elaborate
> question, asking for help. And then, nothing. 16 views, no votes, no
> answers.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Even worse when a moderator comes along
and closes it, as if it would have cost him something to just leave it open in
case some kind soul came along and responded.

------
chrisvineup
I do love SO, but the moderation can be really hard to deal with when you
aren't sure how to articulate your question.

~~~
UnfalseDesign
It is somewhat like reading a magazine before you actually submit an article
for publication. Many new users don't bother reading through some of the
upvoted questions in the category they are seeking help on and hence never
bother understanding what makes a good question. However, it is true that some
of the users are brutal towards new users and downvote and move on without
ever going back to see if the question was ever improved. It takes an even
understanding on both sides to provide a meaningful -- and sometimes
enlightening -- experience.

~~~
chrisvineup
Nothing compares to the downvoting going on over at english.stack... Jesus,
you better have perfect English if you want anything other than a negative
rep.

------
adventured
Stackoverflow has made my life a lot easier. They've saved me an immense
amount of time over the years, and for that I have to say a big thank you. I
remember what it was like hunting for answers before they existed. Almost
reminds me of what it was like switching to Google from AltaVista.

The site has some flaws of course, as others have pointed out, but it's leaps
and bounds above every other Q&A site in their segment.

------
DanBC
I love Stack Overflow.

I'm interested in fragmentation. Reddit has it, and Stack Overflow has it too.
I have no idea how they'll fix it.

If you want to ask a question you need to ask the right SE site. Some are
obvious, but others have overlapping sites and it's confusing for the target
audience.

What's worse is that some of these sites have made agreements with each other
to funnel the "wrong questions" to the right site - that's great, but a bit
confusing; while others have just decided independently that some particular
style of question is "off topic" and they'll shunt you off to another site,
and that other site will close your question.

I love SE, but I understand the frustration that some people have with it.

They have the Main sites, and the Meta sites, and the chat stuff. I think they
could also have a branch off "discussion site". Any questions deemed as wrong
questions go to that discussion site. You re-brand it, so as not to dilute the
strict question only format of the main sites.

And, for all the "META IS DEATH" (true) sentiment there's a heck of a lot of
meta going on over there.

But I do like SE.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
The worst part of such fragmentation is the "fiefdoms" that can often form.

We see this at Stack Overflow, we see it at reddit, and even at Wikipedia to
some extent.

A relatively small number of users end up as moderators of one form or
another, and can exert disproportionately more control over other, non-
moderator users.

While this may not necessarily be a bad thing in terms of maintaining a
certain minimum standard of quality, it does take responsible moderators for
this to happen.

More often than not, we see people with very little power or influence in the
real world using their moderation abilities on some online forum to try to
compensate. They use their power just for the sake of using it, and perhaps
for the emotional high it may bring them, rather than out of a sense of
bettering the community.

I think that this kind of behavior is far more harmful than the fragmentation
itself.

------
ape4
You need to edit at least a certain number of characters (might be 6). So if
you want to correct a = into a == you can't. Well, you can... you have to make
a few other bogus changes. This bugs me.

~~~
balpha
Once you've earned the 2000 reputation to edit without peer-review, you can
edit as little as you like. But until then, your edits are reviewed by other
users before they're applied, and there has to be a certain threshold so these
(volunteer!) reviewers don't just waste time by reviewing tons of mini-edits.

~~~
ygra
In my experience reviewing tiny edits creates little to no burden on the
reviewers. The backlog of ~500 flagged posts (where you often have to read the
question, the answer and then decide whether the flag was really warranted) is
much worse.

And then there is the other problem where edit reviewers have no clue of what
they are rejecting and instead alienating the person who suggested the edit
(rightfully). But that's a completely different point, admittedly.

Still, I don't think less-than-six-character edits would be a particular
problem to handle as the edit review queue is often enough empty or very
short.

------
gregd
I was a heavy SO user during it's first year or so, until a user named RichB
started harassing me (and others) on the site, to the point where he got put
in the penalty box many, many times over the years. I guess I just realized it
wasn't worth getting so upset at a very small subset of the users/trolls and
investing my time & energy into the site and quit visiting regularly.

------
rschmitty
Author mentions following some .net people for good insights, are there any
rails users on stackoverflow that stick out as must reads?

~~~
UnfalseDesign
One way to find out: [http://stackoverflow.com/tags/ruby-on-
rails/topusers](http://stackoverflow.com/tags/ruby-on-rails/topusers)

------
moneyrich2
i personally hate it.

its great when learning a new api or whatever, but i've had 4 out of 5
questions (in 4 years i need to ask 5 questions) closed as off topic, i tagged
them with the tags from their own site also. example: config file management
question in linux, automation, automated-install closed as off topic.

it's just a big karma jerk-off

------
smackfu
Is there any way to find actual interesting questions/answers on SO? It seems
like the top questions by votes are always dominated by language spec arcana,
which interests me not at all. But then I find links to great answers and
questions from HN and elsewhere pretty regularly.

------
darrellsilver
Love the "RSS activity feeds" feature the OP mentions toward the bottom of
this post.

------
xradionut
I've placed Stackoverflow in my "mostly useful" list of programming sites.
Mainly because the over-zealous moderation, the gaming of karma, and lack of
elaboration/quality on many of the answers.

------
smaili
Congratulations SO! 5 years is a big number :)

