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I don't think a purge would get to the root of the problem, which is an incentive system that rewards adding early answers, rather than editing existing answers
by michael_dorfman 16y ago
I don't think a purge would get to the root of the problem, which is an incentive system that rewards adding early answers, rather than editing existing answers.
One of Joel's stated goals in the early days was that the answers would converge, Wikipedia-like, toward some Platonic ideal-- but the system in place doesn't encourage that.
- wisty 16y agoNeither does Wikipedia, but at least Wikipedia doesn't have "cold" articles.
- sprout 16y agoSo you think that Wikipedia content gets worse or stagnant over time? Definitely, I think it's more effective than the SO model.
- rquirk 16y agoThe WP pages on Chrome or Git only mention major features of those pieces of software. Features don't change that much. Part of the articles talk about the historic aspects of the projects, and again the past doesn't really change. SO tends to go into minute detail on a particular aspect of something, so the staleness effect is amplified. For example, questions on how to write a Chrome extension tend to be stale, as do ones on specific features of Git such as integration with Subversion, or submodule support.