

Stack Overflow Is You - twampss
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/11/stack-overflow-is-you/

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alexandros
Stack overflow is tying its innovative QA format to its subject matter in a
way that results in both lost opportunities and dillution of their initial
mission.

Instead of encouraging the qa format use in different subject areas by either
segmenting the current website or creating a network of websites, they are
insisting on this 'programmer-only' mindset which necessarily expands the
amount of 'allowable' material to anything that could conceivably be thought
of as a programming question, including 'programmer jokes' and what not.

A good idea would be to spawn different sections for application-related
questions and maybe humour as well as anythng else they see as a viable
section and then let the users decide which question goes where. That way you
have both increased focus for each section and wider coverage.

~~~
mhp
To be fair, that team has tried to do this with tags. If you want to see a sub
view, you can.

I think it's a typical programmer fallacy to look at the technology behind SO
and say, "Hey, that could be used to answer anything, like plumbing related
questions!". The only reason SO is successful is because of the community that
it was incubated with. Much in the same way that this reddit is completely
different from reddit.com, and why a lot of the subreddits never have any
posts on them.

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swilliams
I've got a fairly high amount of karma over there (> 3000), but I've already
grown tired of the community because of "questions" like that one. Basically,
if I want to have fun online I'll go to a humor based site. If I want to learn
more about programming, I don't want to be interrupted by Internet memes that
were beaten to death over a year ago.

~~~
kylec
You do realize that you could add 'fun' 'off-topic' and 'not-programming-
related' to your ignored tags, then check "Hide Ignored Tags" in your
preferences? This will prevent you from having to see any posts with these
tags again.

~~~
swilliams
Yes I know that. However, that's a binary switch. I want to read _some_
subjective questions. A feature like reddit's hide would be great.

