
Stack Exchange Is Now Stack Overflow - jonhmchan
https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2015/09/were-changing-our-name-back-to-stack-overflow/
======
skybrian
Buried in there is an announcement [1] that they're going to start accepting
documentation and particularly examples of API usage, not just Q&A.

It seems like a good place to put stuff that isn't a question.

[1] [http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-
of-d...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-of-
documentation-a-proposed-expansion-of-stack-overflow)

~~~
paulmd
That's smart. Programmers do a lot of searching for examples, there was a
recent Google study on the topic. [1]

One of my personal favorites lately has been bropages [2] - it's a
crowdsourced set of usage examples for Unix command-line tools. Instead of
wading through fifty pages of obtuse manpages or googling for usage, you just
use "bro [command]" and you get some working examples.

[1]
[https://research.google.com/pubs/pub43835.html](https://research.google.com/pubs/pub43835.html)

[2] [http://bropages.org/](http://bropages.org/)

~~~
samplusplus
I have always been a huge fan of [http://Readme.io](http://Readme.io) I wish
StackOverflow would integrate with some of these existing platforms instead of
creating a new one. One of the biggest problems I have with documentation is
fragmentation across platforms. I fear StackOverflow adding another platform
will add to the fragmentation problem.

~~~
paulmd
As always, there's an XKCD about it :)

[https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

------
freshyill
Names don't matter much. As long as they still have a community willing to
shame users for asking a question vaguely similar to one that was asked a few
years earlier, then it's all good with me.

~~~
0xffffabcd
Either make a post on meta about the problem and provide a solution if you
have on how to fix it OR make your own SO with your own rules. I'm really
tired of seeing these off topic (whining) comments whenever SO comes up. It's
useless and doesn't add anything to the discussion here.

~~~
isotropy
There is an endless supply of new users who need to learn, but only limited
patience among senior people to repeat themselves. The "safeguards" put in
place against repetition, n00bs, decay, etc, really serve the interests of the
users who have stuck around, not the users who need to learn something. Newer
users talking about getting a different experience than the original users,
and not getting the usefulness that the site's reputation implies, is not
simple whining.

Any solution has to have the support of the long-term, high-rep community, but
the long-term, high-rep community creates the problem - by sticking around so
long, they accumulate influence even as their incentives changed. You can see
why meta might have a lot of people who don't think there's a problem at all.

The senior-friendly design of SO ignores the fact that the graveyards are full
of indispensible people. One huge change would simply be to age out the users
who have been around the longest, or have the highest rep. The newest can (and
_should_ ) be taught by the slightly-more-experienced who aren't yet jaded by
the repetition.

~~~
DanBC
I don't understand your first para. New users don't want to ask questions.
They want an answer to their questions, and only if there is no answer they
want to ask a question.

SO is not just a question-asking site, it's also a repository of already asked
questions.

Many (but admitedly not all) questions closed as dupes make no effort to
distinguish themselves from previously answered questions.

(I'm someone who thinks there are problems with some of the SO sites. I'm not
a fan.)

------
wiremine
Was just thinking what it was like to develop before Stack Overflow... and
before github... Yikes!

Kudos to the team over at SO to continue to iterate the business.

I do wish they'd add an "out of date" button to flag questions/answers that
are no longer relevant or just plain wrong. I think the amount of cruft
they're going to deal with in the next 10 years is going to be HUGE.

~~~
EliRivers
I have to resort to SO a couple of times a month, so before SO (and other
such) it was 95% the same as it is now.

I probably would have found much more use for it in my first year or so as a
programmer, but at least from my own experience, once I had familiarity with
my tools and libraries, the kind of problems that require digging on the
internet aren't the kind easily put into bite-sized Q&A.

Maybe it's different for people who did start with SO available; perhaps
they're saving their cognitive load by outsourcing various snippets of
information to SO, and I only internalised them because SO wasn't available.

That said, it IS good for more open-ended historical or state-of-the-art type
questions; "why did language X adopt this paradigm?" or "how do people
producing commercial software go about supporting multiple graphics hardware
today?" kind of questions. If I get lucky, there are a handful of people with
a real depth of knowledge who can give a valuable overview and insight, but
those are a long way from the typical SO question.

~~~
matwood
I find SO valuable for 'gotcha' types of questions. Update to the iOS9 sdk and
now suddenly my build breaks with error-235132. Check SO and find out, yeah
there is some flag that now needs to be YES instead of NO.

SO also lets me get by in frameworks and languages without having to know them
all super deep. I find it much more useful to spend my cognitive load on
algorithmic level or higher architectural level items instead of Spring
configuration values or random iOS .plist keys.

------
elmarschraml
Reading between the lines, it seems to confirm a change in business model. To
paraphrase: "Turns out software for running Q&A sites isn't that hot a
property, but having access to a large part of all the world's programmers is"

~~~
slantyyz
Serious question - do many people here actually use anything other than Stack
Overflow, Server Fault and Power User?

I occasionally get and click on a Google result for the photography stack
exchange, but I've rarely clicked on any results for the other Exchange sites
for my non-technical searches.

~~~
eterm
Workplace questions often get linked from stackOverflow, but nearly all of
those are in a context of developers. It really seems like much of the rest of
the stackExchange isn't that popular outside of developers who have an account
through SO.

------
greggman
This will probably get downvoted into oblivion but ...

I have a kind of love hate relationship with SO.

I love that I get answers. I hate that I spend so much time writing answers
and then see SO make bank from my work.

I've probably spent over 1000 hours writing answers on SO. Most of that time
is spent writing working samples for answers. In fact
[http://webglfundamentals.org](http://webglfundamentals.org) was started
because of answers I wrote on SO where it they seemed too long for SO.

But, now there's this feeling of conflict where for every answer I have on
webglfundamentals.org I really just want to paste a link to the article there
on SO when it's relevent. But, SO frowns on that. So, I have to basically give
SO all my content and work for free [or ignore it]. I supposedly get some kind
of benefit from their gamification rep which I can show on my resume or
something but conversely it feels like a treadmill that I must keep running on
or lose my rep. It's become an unpaid responsibility.

To be clear it's not just webglfundamentals.org. It's any tech blog post
period. I feel like an SO gets more popular they just suck up all content. Why
write anything tech on my blog when 99% of the people looking for an answer
will go to SO first? So it's become a negative influence for me in a way.
Because no one is going to look anywhere but SO I feel less compelled to write
tech articles.

Sorry for the rant. Maybe there's a solution? Maybe I've just got a bad POV.
Like I said I certainly appreciate the other answers. Random brainfart, maybe
like Youtube they should pay contributors? Yea, that will never work but
something just feels wrong to me at moment. Also it isn't about the money
really. I can't really put my finger on it.

~~~
WorldMaker
I too have a lot of complex feelings about Stack Overflow. I appreciate it as
a resource, but I also worry about what it incentivizes and why and how it
incentivizes them. Your example is great: why is it that complicated questions
with complicated answers you cannot just link to existing, well written how to
article. Some of my best resources have come from such links that could only
be appended as comments to the question, so they don't benefit from as much
Rep gain as an answer, nor can they be marked as the "accepted" answer, when
often they are the best answer...

It's a particular concern given they are exploring a "Documentation" site
designed for such long form answers and presumably there will be more answers
on the main page of the form "see this example of this Documentation page" and
it will be interesting to see if some of the Rep systems and moderation
policies adjust with that. On the flipside the Documentation site as proposed
still encourages people to (re)create content that could exist elsewhere for
Rep points and maybe to the detriment of useful community sites or existing
documentation sites. Some of that will be wait and see as they move forward
into the project, of course.

Finally, in a slightly different direction, as a somewhat unsuccessful game
designer in a past life, I spent a lot of time thinking about point systems
and incentive systems, and it's hard not to evaluate Stack Overflow's Rep
through some of those filters. From those respects, Stack Overflow Rep is not
bad, but sometimes _concerning_ , largely in part from a reactionary position
on myself that the "gamification" of the world is largely a bad thing,
incentivizing in people sometimes the worst OCD tendencies and
disincentivizing thoughtfulness or creativity. Stack Overflow Rep is
definitely OCD incentivizing.

I had interviewers ask me about my Stack Overflow Rep, and for one thing its
not hard to find, and for second thing many of my points are actually
elsewhere in the Exchange network, which can be fun to explain. But it's also
easy for me to worry what in fact they are really asking about if they are
interested in such an arbitrary metric, as well known and "extensive" as it
may be... (Particularly in a world of employers that forbid social media
participation entirely, which would include things like Stack Overflow.)

------
probdist
I guess I don't really understand this at least with respect to bothering to
change the name. I'd try to draw a parallel to what Google did in becoming
Alphabet but that doesn't seem to be a congruent situation.

The organization of the company around developers as core users makes sense.
Not sure if a name change is supposed to do much for the average developer in
caring about their product offerings more or less.

~~~
WorldMaker
It's kind of a reverse Alphabet situation: doubling down on (and returning to)
the brand people actually know/trust (Stack Overflow/Google) over the brand
people only met if they got involved in some meta-discussions (Stack
Exchange/Alphabet), even as they continue to diversify.

I'm not sure whose is the better approach. I think the name change has a
bigger impact on Alphabet (the shareholder shuffle, trying to get greater
focus on "side projects" outside of the Google core search products) than it
will on Stack Overflow. Certainly Stack Overflow doesn't seem to be doing it
for outside shareholders, it seems like they are simply doing it to help
coalesce their own corporate identity and how they talk about it amongst
themselves. It might not directly impact the average developer in caring about
their product offerings, but maybe it will help lead communications internally
for them in making those product offerings better and selling those product
offerings to themselves as important/core to their future. I certainly wish
them luck in that case that the name change will indeed benefit their cultural
stability and future.

~~~
POWERSTOMP
Spot on, WorldMaker!

------
emp_
Experts Exchange was the SO before SO and it was so bad, so bad that I can
imagine it was one of the reasons SO was built in the first place. When the
Exchange name appeared I cringed because it always reminded me of the worst QA
UX in history, sitting on IRC was better. Glad it went away.

~~~
arcatek
I still remember this "trick", where you just had to go at the extreme bottom
of the page to see the comments that were hidden only a few scrolls above.
Never understood why.

Despite this trick, I don't remember finding any solution to my issues on this
website.

~~~
abrichr
This is actually a function built in by Google originally to help newspapers
etc. It's called "first page free". News sites want their content to be
indexed by Google so they can get search traffic, however, Google does not
want to send users to a login page, so they compromised Google will index
content that is normally blocked by a pay wall in exchange the publication is
required to show the full content of that page to any visitor from Google. If
you try navigating to another set of answers it will probably require to you
login unless you go back to Google and search for it.

Source: [http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/3863/how-
does-...](http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/3863/how-does-experts-
exchange-get-away-with-tricking-google-users)

------
Taek
I was always confused by the difference between the two, even thought they
might be different entities. This will minimize confusion in the future, glad
to see the change.

------
chris-at
IMO Stack Exchange was more useful before it had moderators.

You could even ask questions like 'Do you know a useful library for this
problem' without having it closed.

~~~
Shog9
So... 6 years ago when it was just Stack Overflow the site?
[https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/welcome-new-
community...](https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/welcome-new-community-
moderators/)

------
Aardwolf
Interesting, I hadn't even noticed it renamed... I always kept calling it
stackoverflow. I noticed the name "exchange" in URLs, but thought that was
related to sub-stackoverflows like "math"

EDIT: After reading the article more properly I see it's about company name,
not website name. Still, not deleting my comment as it exemplifies the
confusion the naming gave

------
stephendedalus
Does this mean I can get a proper programming-centric Stack Overflow app for
my phone now? I installed the Stack Exchange app thinking it would be a fun
way to see random programming questions now and then. Instead, 99% of the time
it's questions like, "Was the Emperor always a Sith".

------
tertius
The logo change was predicted in 2012.

[https://goo.gl/maps/Ak3nl](https://goo.gl/maps/Ak3nl)

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mtpearce
I prefer their logo video to the google one.

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dblohm7
CLOSED for being off-topic!

------
fezz
They should buy Dash. Just because.

