Stack Overflow has been nearly useless as anything other than an archive of old questions for a long time. It’s a case study in how gamification can backfire.
For me it was over was before the peak as shown. The gamification that got it started in the first place eventually led to it becoming almost unusable for its intended purpose. Instead it functioned as more of an online-only augmented reality game where people worked to moderate away new questions as efficiently as possible rather than actually answer questions.
Exactly, and the data shows that too. The number of questions were falling ever since the ‘game’ of the site became being able to shut down new questions with a variation of “this is a duplicate” in the exact mix of mean/demeaning/dismissive that would get the most clicks.
People were so rude there, we shouldn’t mourn its end
Indeed, they were the OG powertrippingbastards
Going to have to go much further back than that to find the OGs. Bastards have been power-tripping since long before the internet even existed.
Right, but there isn’t really a good alternative, as shitty as it is. And I don’t think relying on slop generators is a good alternative
There are lots of good alternatives, just nothing that mirrors Stack Overflow’s goal exactly. Lemmy instances, subreddits, forums like code ranch, platforms like dev.to, etc.
It needs more traffic (and that’ll require better servers and more moderation with training to make sure that it doesn’t follow the same arc) to become a standard place to go, but I’ve become fond of Codidact. If I remember correctly, the founder left Stack during one of their bigger moderation blow-ups.
I wouldn’t say “left”; she was fired for requesting clarification (thus causing the biggest resignation wave ever). I also recommend Codidact for asking new questions!
Thanks for the reminder! I probably knew that at one point, but with so many Free Software/Culture organizations lighting themselves on fire over the past year or so, they start to all blur together…
And in about 2017 they started with “ThIs Is A DuPlIcAtE QuEsTiOn”, while pointing to a 10 years old answer.
- Looking answer for A.
- Find stack overflow post about it
- “This is a dublicate”
- Link goes to question with answer to B.
- And B while being close to A is not A.
Peak stack overflow experience.
It was around 2017 my questions just stopped getting answers. Even if it wasn’t closed, I’d just get nothing. Eventually gave up asking.
Like every experience, where I tried to actively engage with StackOverflow, was entirely negative. It was good for finding knowledge, but the moderators eventually killed it by this very behavior. This is also why you see the growth stalling, which should not happen. ChatGPT was only the final nail in the coffin and even made the existing knowledge disposable.
Sometimes I wonder how many of the StackOverflow moderators were also Reddit moderators.
IMO this just never made sense with how fast software evolves. There are now very often different and better solutions available using more recent features that didn’t exist 10 years ago.
Tried using StackOverflow back in my college days and was confronted by a barage of people practically telling me I am stupid fuck in subtle and not so subtle ways. I am sure people on there being rude and demeaning didn’t help their case.
Well… were they correct? Did you graduate?
Graduated summa cum laude…no thanks to them. I dedicated my degree to all the random Indians who had STEM related topics on youtube. Those guys dragged my ass throguh college for sure.
I dedicated my degree to all the random Indians who had STEM related topics on youtube.
This is the most relatable thing I’ve read all week. No way in hell I would have graduated had they not dragged me by my feet screaming through the math courses. For all of YouTube’s faults, those videos are true gems.
I also ended up relying quite a bit on random old lectures from professors who can actually teach. No idea what schools they were lecturing at, but I wish the one I was at had more professors like them. Instead, they were all research professors who were being forced to lecture (or grad students in the same boat).
The graph shows me that Chatgpt had almost nothing to do with the stagnation and decline.
Maybe it was all the assholes.
I rather liked stackoverflow, and was fairly popular in the electronics one. I never found it overly rude, but there absolutely were certain individuals who were.
I mourn its inevitable passing; I haven’t found anything that worked as well as it did, and the fact that you can get the data dumps is awesome.
I did like browsing the Popular page and diving into interesting questions in the various sub-sites. One sad, under-discussed consequence of AI is that people no longer turn to each other for expertise (since the AI knows it all), which previously brought people together into communities like SO.
What made it inevitable in your opinion?
A popular book doesn’t receive new pages either.
Maybe Stack Overflow is “complete” or “stable”? :)
This is the issue.
It wanted to be a repository of knowledge. People used it like a forum. Instead of capitalizing on that disconnect by having a place for those questions they just shut it down, which alienated many people.
Or worded more positively: Stack Overflow is closer to being complete.
Why ask when You can search? If You don’t find it, then you probably thought about the problem the wrong way!
I was only ever taught to search. Asking was for the class
Silver lining of the AIpocalypse, honestly. That place could be pretty awful.
*Closed and marked as duplicate of [deleted].
Might be worth a preservation effort.
I forget whether it’s through the data page or somewhere else, but I gather that they’ve always made it pretty straightforward to grab the questions/answers/comments. For a while, web searches were a mess, because of all the fly-by-night outfits syndicating all conversations with SEO trickery to sell ad space.
There’s a kiwix archive of it out there somewhere.
they got what they wanted
Didn’t Stack Overflow sell their own data to AI companies before the crash?
Apocalyse sign…
I asked a handful of questions there and allways got really nice answers. Does it matter that people need less help these days?
Seems good to me that AI can take care of the easy questions.
