3 ms·

While StackOverflow is still an outstanding resource, they never really solved the “why bother?” problem for the really difficult subjects. Your choices are: a

While StackOverflow is still an outstanding resource, they never really solved the “why bother?” problem for the really difficult subjects. Your choices are: answer a trivial JavaScript question and get a million points, or spend an hour painstakingly explaining a hard problem for maybe one point (where, half the time, the original submitter doesn’t even bother to “accept” your answer so you lose even that small point boost). There needs to be some scaling factor. For example: if the number of questions anywhere on a certain topic is quite small then popular answers in that area could receive more credit; or, perhaps individual parts of a post could be voted on to increase value (say, you see a really detailed example so you “tip” that answer for taking the time to write it all out).

notyourwork 10y ago
> Your choices are: answer a trivial JavaScript question and get a million points, or spend an hour painstakingly explaining a hard problem for maybe one point (where, half the time, the original submitter doesn’t even bother to “accept” your answer so you lose even that small point boost). I don't agree with this, there are long winded answers with a massive amount of points and/or bounty awarded to them. The problem you describe exists in any market, majority of an audience will always go for a low hanging fruit. That's why the few who answer those complicated questions are usually subject matter experts and sit in the >1% of SO.
greenhatman 10y ago
You can use bounty for difficult, niche or obscure questions. http://stackoverflow.com/help/bounty http://stackoverflow.com/help/bounty
IshKebab 10y ago
I usually answer the difficult questions because I've been googling how to do the same thing, found an unanswered SO question and eventually worked out how to do it myself. May as well post the answer.
ourmandave 10y ago
There's a lot of people that don't care about points or badges. They like to answer questions for the challenge or to learn the language themselves. And they are being actively discouraged.
the8472 10y ago
have a counterexample: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11227809/why-is-it-faster-to-process-a-sorted-array-than-an-unsorted-array/ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11227809/why-is-it-faste...

notyourwork 10y ago

> Your choices are: answer a trivial JavaScript question and get a million points, or spend an hour painstakingly explaining a hard problem for maybe one point (where, half the time, the original submitter doesn’t even bother to “accept” your answer so you lose even that small point boost). I don't agree with this, there are long winded answers with a massive amount of points and/or bounty awarded to them. The problem you describe exists in any market, majority of an audience will always go for a low hanging fruit. That's why the few who answer those complicated questions are usually subject matter experts and sit in the >1% of SO.

greenhatman 10y ago

You can use bounty for difficult, niche or obscure questions. http://stackoverflow.com/help/bounty http://stackoverflow.com/help/bounty

IshKebab 10y ago

I usually answer the difficult questions because I've been googling how to do the same thing, found an unanswered SO question and eventually worked out how to do it myself. May as well post the answer.

ourmandave 10y ago

There's a lot of people that don't care about points or badges. They like to answer questions for the challenge or to learn the language themselves. And they are being actively discouraged.

the8472 10y ago

have a counterexample: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11227809/why-is-it-faster-to-process-a-sorted-array-than-an-unsorted-array/ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11227809/why-is-it-faste...