7 ms·

Ask HN: How would you improve Stack Overflow?

13 points by harrychenca 10y ago

therealgimli 10y ago
tag posts as #deprecated where the question/responses refer to older versions of packages/software
- Jeremy1026 10y ago
  So, every answer about Facebook's API? I like this proposal.
cpg1111 10y ago
Allow you to filter out certain topics you are uninterested for the questions page. (i.e. Right now you can choose what you want to see, but say I want to see all things that having nothing to do with windows, I can filter that out)
_RPM 10y ago
The <textarea> place where you write your answer really needs to be improved. It would be nice if they could make it wider, or allow for it be expanded by native browser functionality. Also, it would be great if when I pressed the tab key, it inserts a tab into the text buffer.
- neilsimp1 10y ago
  The tab key thing more than anything else drives me crazy about SO.
WorldMaker 10y ago
This is a hard one: Drop the gamification (badges, points) and find a way to intrinsically motivate a healthy community rather than extrinsically motivate people to game the system.
- DCRichards 10y ago
  Inclined to agree with this, I totally understand trying to maintain a standard of answers and being able to quantify expertise in some way to ensure quality content, but I feel like it can be more of a hinderance than a help. Reddit is a good example, although it's often littered with poor content, there's an overall high quality of discussion amongst more focussed threads and subreddits and those with expertise and knowledge to offer are for the most part respected and drive some good discussions.
mancerayder 10y ago
Up the barrier to entry to being able to be an off-topic/duplicate question Nazi. Sometimes those low-lying fruit are too tempting for some of the more OCD types not to pick. Don't get me wrong, we need to police and remove / flag off topics and dups. But sometimes the flaggers don't understand what they're flagging and nuances get lost. Make it harder for people to do what can amount to useful information being lost, which in my opinion is a costlier risk than a duplicate question or whatnot.
- loumf 10y ago
  The biggest offenders (IMO) have tons of rep, badges, etc (or will get them if need be). My idea on this same problem is to make downvoting harder on questions by brand new users. 1. Can't downvote to less than 0 if the question is asked by a user with less than 20 rep 2. Someone with enough rep can adopt the question, which temporarily makes it only possible to be edited by them and the questioner -- the purpose is to improve the question. The adopter cannot answer the question (perhaps only with a wiki answer -- so they can't adopt to get rep) 3. Downvotes past -1 should cost the downvoter a LOT more rep to stop pile-ons. There are many times where I think the best course of action for a question is to just help the questioner and close the question as being off-topic. I am fine not getting rep if I do it -- I just hate the way new users are treated -- I am not in SO to help build a database of useful questions -- I am more interested in helping newbies.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  Also, the rules would need to be changed. A lot of the IMO crazy moderation that goes on over there is strictly according to the rules :-/
brudgers 10y ago
More better answers.
gilleain 10y ago
Make it clearer WHY so called 'homework questions' are not allowed and maybe come up with a different terminology. I see so many questioners get annoyed and say "But it's not homeowrk!!!" - it may not literally be homework, but it's a trivial question that you are just asking someone else to churn through for you. On the other hand, more and more lazy questioners are just hiding the fact that it's a homework question. Confusingly, of course, there is the help-vampire/point chaser feedback that encourages this whole mess. Furthermore, the rules that require MVC (minimal, verifiable, complete) examples don't work in all areas. The [algorithm] tag, for example tends to attract speculative questions where the questioner naturally hasn't written any code because they don't have an algorithm yet! Finally, it might be nice to be able to combine answers to make one comprehensive one where two different answerers have different parts of the answer.
wvenable 10y ago
Make it possible for me to contribute. I'm a busy experienced software developer and I can't contribute anything to Stack Overflow because I haven't done enough piddly bullshit elsewhere to be able to upvote an answer or provide my own. It's a vicious cycle of non-participation.
- jaydles 10y ago
  I work at SO, and we couldn't agree more. This is one reason we're so excited about our upcoming launch of [Documentation](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-of-documentation-a-proposed-expansion-of-stack-overflow http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-of-d...). We think that together with developers like you, we can do for docs what the last generation kicked off for Q&A. To your point: Today, many of the questions devs encounter are already covered, and covered pretty well on SO Q&A. This is obviously good for devs looking for solutions. But combined with the fact that most new questions - that haven't been asked before - are answered quickly,it's hard for users trying to get involved and contribute. That'll all change with Docs. There will be tons of need for contributions, plus the system has more checks and peer support baked in, so it'll be easier to know your contribution will help, even if you're not sure it's complete, etc. We're really excited about how Docs will let more devs like you who want to pitch in be a part of it. I hope you'll give it a try.
  - wvenable 10y ago
    I have actually found questions with no answer that I eventually found the answer for myself (either from another site, trial and error, luck, or frightening insight). I have zero ability to add an answer for these tough problems. The easy questions get answered quickly because it's a game. I don't play that game, I work for a living. I have the knowledge to contribute the long tail value of SO if I was able but I am not. I'm not sure there's a solution but that's the gripe I have.
    - ruraljuror 10y ago
      Not sure I understand what you mean "zero ability to add an answer." Why can't you answer the question that does not already have an answer? Or ask the question yourself and then answer it yourself?
detaro 10y ago
Find a place for all those interesting questions that are "not a good fit for our Q&A format", because it's frustrating to end up on those all the time.
SmokyBorbon 10y ago
Every time I search for something, the first results are inevitably my exact question followed by comments saying "this has already been asked before" and "use the search". It's fucking useless. If someone rejects a question, they should have to provide a URL to where it's been answered before.
dyeje 10y ago
Allow editing comments past the 5 minute grace period.
- brudgers 10y ago
  I sometimes copy the text from my comment needing edits to the clipboard, delete the original, and post a new edited version.
alexAME 10y ago
There should be a real difference between good questions and questions which could be solved by having a look at the docs. People are just too lazy, SO became a replacement for many references, docs and trivial things. At the current state, it's not possible to judge a developer by the SO points, we have to check the profile, browse through a few given answers and eventually create an opinion based on the quality of the answers. It's simply because they might have answered a question called "How do I fill an array with 4 elements". Thousand of people are lazy and voted that question up and also the answer. What we have now, is a guy who got a ton of points by asking a stupid question and a guy who answered a trivial stupid question and got 120 up votes on that. Why should we change that? SO is a great huge site, developers can show what they have to offer, you can set up resume and you can search for jobs over SO. SO just establish itself as an important tool for recruiter and companies looking for top notch developers but the points are misleading, someone who has answered lots of trivial questions isn't necessarily a good developer because of those trivial answers to trivial questions. On the other hand, we got many people with below the 3k mark, who just answered really hard questions with 3-4 up votes. What I'm afraid of is that someone with more points gets preferred in a decision between two developers from SO for a job position.
- brudgers 10y ago
  I've listened to pretty much all the back catalog of Stackoverflow podcasts. From the early days the big idea was to surface information. The answer to a question may be in the documentation, but MSDN, for example, is a really big site and the dependency graph to understand any particular page can be enormous. Reading the documentation is a long term solution, but it is not always a useful one in the near and medium term. On the other hand, there's always been a tension over how simple a question is appropriate. Spolsky and Atwood fell on different ends of the spectrum...See Spolsky's "How do I move a turtle in LOGO?" [1]. [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-the-turtle-in-logo http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-the...
- hasenj 10y ago
  > People are just too lazy, SO became a replacement for many references, docs and trivial things. That was its original purpose. It wasn't meant to be a place for answers to detailed questions. It was designed with the aim of being the first Google result for things like "How do I collapse border tables?". Trivial questions where the answer is buried deep inside technical documentation.
bpowah 10y ago
The reputation system should be overhauled. A user-based PageRank-style system would highlight the quality of work over quantity and a high rank would give a user voting power that would take some burden off of moderation. A monetary voluntary "tip" system (or cash "bounty" system) would be nice too. Talented people would be more willing to contribute if it supplemented their income. Wrought with unforeseen consequences I'm sure...
reitanqild 10y ago
Up the barrier for asking: I see moderators complaining about an endless stream of low quality questions. By requiring users to lurk or something they get an idea before being allowed to "spam".
tmaly 10y ago
I would come up with a better way to organize the information and also maybe have a filter to only show entries that have an accepted answer. Many times there are a ton of duplicate questions just because the information on existing posts is not well organized and people cannot find it.
fiftyacorn 10y ago
The good answers are often linked to in blog posts. You know the answers that have taken time to construct. Use the link back to improve the standing of the author

13 points by harrychenca 10y ago

therealgimli 10y ago

tag posts as #deprecated where the question/responses refer to older versions of packages/software

Jeremy1026 10y ago
So, every answer about Facebook's API? I like this proposal.

cpg1111 10y ago

Allow you to filter out certain topics you are uninterested for the questions page. (i.e. Right now you can choose what you want to see, but say I want to see all things that having nothing to do with windows, I can filter that out)

_RPM 10y ago

The <textarea> place where you write your answer really needs to be improved. It would be nice if they could make it wider, or allow for it be expanded by native browser functionality. Also, it would be great if when I pressed the tab key, it inserts a tab into the text buffer.

neilsimp1 10y ago
The tab key thing more than anything else drives me crazy about SO.

WorldMaker 10y ago

This is a hard one: Drop the gamification (badges, points) and find a way to intrinsically motivate a healthy community rather than extrinsically motivate people to game the system.

DCRichards 10y ago
Inclined to agree with this, I totally understand trying to maintain a standard of answers and being able to quantify expertise in some way to ensure quality content, but I feel like it can be more of a hinderance than a help. Reddit is a good example, although it's often littered with poor content, there's an overall high quality of discussion amongst more focussed threads and subreddits and those with expertise and knowledge to offer are for the most part respected and drive some good discussions.

mancerayder 10y ago

Up the barrier to entry to being able to be an off-topic/duplicate question Nazi. Sometimes those low-lying fruit are too tempting for some of the more OCD types not to pick. Don't get me wrong, we need to police and remove / flag off topics and dups. But sometimes the flaggers don't understand what they're flagging and nuances get lost. Make it harder for people to do what can amount to useful information being lost, which in my opinion is a costlier risk than a duplicate question or whatnot.

loumf 10y ago
The biggest offenders (IMO) have tons of rep, badges, etc (or will get them if need be). My idea on this same problem is to make downvoting harder on questions by brand new users. 1. Can't downvote to less than 0 if the question is asked by a user with less than 20 rep 2. Someone with enough rep can adopt the question, which temporarily makes it only possible to be edited by them and the questioner -- the purpose is to improve the question. The adopter cannot answer the question (perhaps only with a wiki answer -- so they can't adopt to get rep) 3. Downvotes past -1 should cost the downvoter a LOT more rep to stop pile-ons. There are many times where I think the best course of action for a question is to just help the questioner and close the question as being off-topic. I am fine not getting rep if I do it -- I just hate the way new users are treated -- I am not in SO to help build a database of useful questions -- I am more interested in helping newbies.
reitanqild 10y ago
Also, the rules would need to be changed. A lot of the IMO crazy moderation that goes on over there is strictly according to the rules :-/

brudgers 10y ago

More better answers.

gilleain 10y ago

Make it clearer WHY so called 'homework questions' are not allowed and maybe come up with a different terminology. I see so many questioners get annoyed and say "But it's not homeowrk!!!" - it may not literally be homework, but it's a trivial question that you are just asking someone else to churn through for you. On the other hand, more and more lazy questioners are just hiding the fact that it's a homework question. Confusingly, of course, there is the help-vampire/point chaser feedback that encourages this whole mess. Furthermore, the rules that require MVC (minimal, verifiable, complete) examples don't work in all areas. The [algorithm] tag, for example tends to attract speculative questions where the questioner naturally hasn't written any code because they don't have an algorithm yet! Finally, it might be nice to be able to combine answers to make one comprehensive one where two different answerers have different parts of the answer.

wvenable 10y ago

Make it possible for me to contribute. I'm a busy experienced software developer and I can't contribute anything to Stack Overflow because I haven't done enough piddly bullshit elsewhere to be able to upvote an answer or provide my own. It's a vicious cycle of non-participation.

jaydles 10y ago
I work at SO, and we couldn't agree more. This is one reason we're so excited about our upcoming launch of [Documentation](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-of-documentation-a-proposed-expansion-of-stack-overflow http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/303865/warlords-of-d...). We think that together with developers like you, we can do for docs what the last generation kicked off for Q&A. To your point: Today, many of the questions devs encounter are already covered, and covered pretty well on SO Q&A. This is obviously good for devs looking for solutions. But combined with the fact that most new questions - that haven't been asked before - are answered quickly,it's hard for users trying to get involved and contribute. That'll all change with Docs. There will be tons of need for contributions, plus the system has more checks and peer support baked in, so it'll be easier to know your contribution will help, even if you're not sure it's complete, etc. We're really excited about how Docs will let more devs like you who want to pitch in be a part of it. I hope you'll give it a try.
- wvenable 10y ago
  I have actually found questions with no answer that I eventually found the answer for myself (either from another site, trial and error, luck, or frightening insight). I have zero ability to add an answer for these tough problems. The easy questions get answered quickly because it's a game. I don't play that game, I work for a living. I have the knowledge to contribute the long tail value of SO if I was able but I am not. I'm not sure there's a solution but that's the gripe I have.
  - ruraljuror 10y ago
    Not sure I understand what you mean "zero ability to add an answer." Why can't you answer the question that does not already have an answer? Or ask the question yourself and then answer it yourself?

detaro 10y ago

Find a place for all those interesting questions that are "not a good fit for our Q&A format", because it's frustrating to end up on those all the time.

SmokyBorbon 10y ago

Every time I search for something, the first results are inevitably my exact question followed by comments saying "this has already been asked before" and "use the search". It's fucking useless. If someone rejects a question, they should have to provide a URL to where it's been answered before.

dyeje 10y ago

Allow editing comments past the 5 minute grace period.

brudgers 10y ago
I sometimes copy the text from my comment needing edits to the clipboard, delete the original, and post a new edited version.

alexAME 10y ago

There should be a real difference between good questions and questions which could be solved by having a look at the docs. People are just too lazy, SO became a replacement for many references, docs and trivial things. At the current state, it's not possible to judge a developer by the SO points, we have to check the profile, browse through a few given answers and eventually create an opinion based on the quality of the answers. It's simply because they might have answered a question called "How do I fill an array with 4 elements". Thousand of people are lazy and voted that question up and also the answer. What we have now, is a guy who got a ton of points by asking a stupid question and a guy who answered a trivial stupid question and got 120 up votes on that. Why should we change that? SO is a great huge site, developers can show what they have to offer, you can set up resume and you can search for jobs over SO. SO just establish itself as an important tool for recruiter and companies looking for top notch developers but the points are misleading, someone who has answered lots of trivial questions isn't necessarily a good developer because of those trivial answers to trivial questions. On the other hand, we got many people with below the 3k mark, who just answered really hard questions with 3-4 up votes. What I'm afraid of is that someone with more points gets preferred in a decision between two developers from SO for a job position.

brudgers 10y ago
I've listened to pretty much all the back catalog of Stackoverflow podcasts. From the early days the big idea was to surface information. The answer to a question may be in the documentation, but MSDN, for example, is a really big site and the dependency graph to understand any particular page can be enormous. Reading the documentation is a long term solution, but it is not always a useful one in the near and medium term. On the other hand, there's always been a tension over how simple a question is appropriate. Spolsky and Atwood fell on different ends of the spectrum...See Spolsky's "How do I move a turtle in LOGO?" [1]. [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-the-turtle-in-logo http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-the...
hasenj 10y ago
> People are just too lazy, SO became a replacement for many references, docs and trivial things. That was its original purpose. It wasn't meant to be a place for answers to detailed questions. It was designed with the aim of being the first Google result for things like "How do I collapse border tables?". Trivial questions where the answer is buried deep inside technical documentation.

bpowah 10y ago

The reputation system should be overhauled. A user-based PageRank-style system would highlight the quality of work over quantity and a high rank would give a user voting power that would take some burden off of moderation. A monetary voluntary "tip" system (or cash "bounty" system) would be nice too. Talented people would be more willing to contribute if it supplemented their income. Wrought with unforeseen consequences I'm sure...

reitanqild 10y ago

Up the barrier for asking: I see moderators complaining about an endless stream of low quality questions. By requiring users to lurk or something they get an idea before being allowed to "spam".

tmaly 10y ago

I would come up with a better way to organize the information and also maybe have a filter to only show entries that have an accepted answer. Many times there are a ton of duplicate questions just because the information on existing posts is not well organized and people cannot find it.

fiftyacorn 10y ago

The good answers are often linked to in blog posts. You know the answers that have taken time to construct. Use the link back to improve the standing of the author