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Complaints about SO remind me of the Louis CK bit about WiFi outage on airplanes. "Everything is AMAZING and no one is happy." SO is a miraculous effort that to

Complaints about SO remind me of the Louis CK bit about WiFi outage on airplanes. "Everything is AMAZING and no one is happy." SO is a miraculous effort that took a mob of people and harnessed the best aspects of their social nature to build the best Q&A site ever seen. But it's a little annoying sometimes to people with Copenhagen morality love to have on it. SO tram knows this of course and they make a lot of UI tricks to be very friendly and gamified. The site was designed by a world class product manager and it really shows. (It's one of the biggest and best Microsoft/ASP/.Net(!) sites on the internet, especially for non-Microsoft content!). The parts where they aren't perfect (like the ego burn of getting a question closed) are highlighted by contrast to the rest of the experience.

Quarrelsome 9y ago
My annoyance is when a question is closed that I've understood and am answering by someone who hasn't understood it and has poorly marked it. Also the group think of librarians winning without a healthy conversation about it.
- rrauenza 9y ago
  There is also a tendency to try to mark something off-topic as quickly as possible... occasionally you see this in the Hot Question feed. A good question was initially voted to be off topic.
  - cnaeotnh34nh 9y ago
    I saw this once with a question where some kid was asking about something wildly off-topic like how to make friends or meet a girl or something. Tons of people jumped in to answer. It was quickly closed, and rightfully so despite being interesting to the readers of the site, as it has nothing whatsoever to do with programming. Being a hot question doesn't suddenly make it on topic.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
That kind of attitude is a recipe for stagnation. Sure, SO was better than everything else when it came out, but there's always room for improvement. And, as it shows, if they don't keep improving, then the quality and usefulness of the site goes down.

Quarrelsome 9y ago

My annoyance is when a question is closed that I've understood and am answering by someone who hasn't understood it and has poorly marked it. Also the group think of librarians winning without a healthy conversation about it.

rrauenza 9y ago
There is also a tendency to try to mark something off-topic as quickly as possible... occasionally you see this in the Hot Question feed. A good question was initially voted to be off topic.
- cnaeotnh34nh 9y ago
  I saw this once with a question where some kid was asking about something wildly off-topic like how to make friends or meet a girl or something. Tons of people jumped in to answer. It was quickly closed, and rightfully so despite being interesting to the readers of the site, as it has nothing whatsoever to do with programming. Being a hot question doesn't suddenly make it on topic.

s73v3r_ 9y ago

That kind of attitude is a recipe for stagnation. Sure, SO was better than everything else when it came out, but there's always room for improvement. And, as it shows, if they don't keep improving, then the quality and usefulness of the site goes down.