Why I no longer contribute to StackOverflow
michael.richter.nameThe blog post contains a contradiction.
The author says many questions are simple and could be answered by a simple web search.
The author then complains that easy questions get very many upvotes.
But those upvotes come from people doing a simple web search.
That's one of the aims of StackExchange - to create a website that has good quality answers for questions, and to have those answers show high in search engine results.
EDIT: " This is not the way a community of mature users acts." Well, it is, because it clearly happens on any site that has mature users and voting. It happens on SE; it happens on HN; it happens on Reddit (event the sub-reddits that have older readers). It's probably not useful to think about what an ideal adult will do with vote buttons.
If there is a pointing system there will be people who abuse it. You can't create a "perfect" pointing system (at least it never worked out). Look at impact factors in science, page rank or anything else.
Having said that I really like StackOverflow. I didn't contribute to them ever but whenever I google some difficult question it's really often that a StackOverflow link is the first or second result. It may not be perfect but it is really a step forward compared to tech forums.
Nvm, I fixed it
I sent the solution in pm
Download this script from megaupload
Thread derailed / answers one or multiple different questions
etc.
edit:
Further to the XKCD is when there is an answer to that post, saying JFGI.
Or simply "use the search function" in every thread that posted this question...
I don't do SO any more because of the attitude of the moderators. Time and time again, there is the 'This is not a suitable question and so we are closing it.' statement on questions.
If somebody has a query, they need an answer. There is an old saying "There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers." I evaluate 'This is not a suitable question' as a stupid answer.
At one point all the scores and accounts were lost due to poor backups, mine included. I never bothered to rejoin.
This isn't entirely accurate. The "not a suitable question" response is generally "This is not a suitable question for Stack Overflow".
Stack Overflow is unashamedly narrow in the questions it permits. If it's for a different topic, there are probably other Stack Exchange sites that cover that topic. If it's not a question with a possible definitive answer, then it's just not suited to this format. Stack Overflow is not the place to have technical discussions with smart people, despite the fact that your question will have a smart audience.
This blog post is painfully stupid. His point #1 is that posting answers to trivial questions one could easily answer themselves with a Google search is detrimental to good pedagogy. He then goes on to claim that most of his points came from doing this very thing. What's the logic here? Behaviour x is bad, I do x on StackOverflow, therefore StackOverflow is bad? No, SO in itself is not the problem, the author of that post is the problem, and judging by his score, one of the biggest contributors to said problem.
His second point is on the poor reward system. There is no reward system, there are only fake Internet points (and maybe a few things like additional posting or moderation privileges, but nothing of any consequence). Any "reward" system you feel there to be is what your imagination makes of the fake Internet points. The gripe about the "cool kids table" just demonstrates a basic ignorance of supply and demand. The complaint that he's scored many points after being inactive on the site is just as inane; if your "work" has value to people even years after producing it, why should you not be "rewarded" for it?
Last is his prediction that his 14k reputation would be diminished by the "petty children" who make up the SO community, presumably after they read and became angry with his blog post. Well, his reputation is now over 19k, so... I suppose it's possible that his current score is actually the work of petty children up-voting his questions and answers out of spite for him and his prediction.
SO heavily rewards:
- asking questions that on the spike of industry interest;
- answering those kind of questions good enough but very quick and then expanding the answer.
Example (please don't up-vote):
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24003918/does-swift-have-...
The post is over a year old. Previous discussion[0].
He does have a point about difficult/time consuming questions not being worth the effort but only if you are just looking to increase your SO score.
it's a 'don't hate the player, hate the game' scenario. Sure, I've been on the receiving end of school corridor 'where's your tie?' antics but as a source for finding out how x can do y, it's the best we've got. Remember experts exchange?