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I’m gonna catch some flak for this... Listening to Jeff try to describe what stack overflow is and the “fundamental misunderstanding” by all of us millions of

I’m gonna catch some flak for this... Listening to Jeff try to describe what stack overflow is and the “fundamental misunderstanding” by all of us millions of unwashed masses is amazing. It’s also a bit like listening to a muskox describe why it decided to grow long hair after so much time in the snow; IOW, a complete and total lack of understanding of emergence and a rewriting of history at the behest of Jeff’s enormous ego. This is what happens when you raise massive amounts of money for what is a simple question and answer site and you have to find some kind of philosophically transcendent exclamation of what it is that you have created. Instead of saying “we created yahoo answers for programmers, but with a better interface”, you come up with something like “We’ve created a valuable resource for the future of the planet and all the programmers hereafter”. Stack overflow is and always was a question and answer site. To attempt to take credit for the following value of search results containing stack overflow questions that have already been answered that sound like what you’re asking is to take credit for search engines and to take credit for your users’ hard work. That last bit doesn’t surprise me at all, given that Jeff’s post ends with an insulting meme that implies we are a dumb mob.

kevinherron 8y ago
This post was written by Jeff Atwood, not Joel...
dgritsko 8y ago
On the subject of fundamental misunderstandings, you do realize that Jeff Atwood wrote this post and not Joel Spolsky, right?
- gonational 8y ago
  Oops, thanks - corrected. Also makes my deleted last paragraph’s speculation a little bit irrelevant, nominally, while also remaining entirely relevant.
michaelbuckbee 8y ago
IDK, Jeff (edited) explicitly calls out that they were lucky and the they do not deserve all the credit for SO. "I am honored and humbled by the public utility that Stack Overflow has unlocked for a whole generation of programmers. But I didn't do that. You did, when you contributed a well researched question to Stack Overflow. You did, when you contributed a succinct and clear answer to Stack Overflow." You did, when you edited a question or answer on Stack Overflow to make it better.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- gonational 8y ago
  I meant to say Jeff. It’s morning here and my brain wasn’t fully awake. I got the two’s names mixed up.
Flimm 8y ago
I don't think you are giving Stack Overflow's leaders enough credit. There were many Q&A sites before it, but Stack Overflow was much better for the lurkers, and all of that content is licensed under Creative Commons, similar to Wikipedia. Also, Jeff is not trying to take credit for the users' hard work, I'm a contributor and I don't feel that way, especially after reading this part: > I am honored and humbled by the public utility that Stack Overflow has unlocked for a whole generation of programmers. But I didn't do that. > You did, when you contributed a well researched question to Stack Overflow. > You did, when you contributed a succinct and clear answer to Stack Overflow. > You did, when you edited a question or answer on Stack Overflow to make it better.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- gonational 8y ago
  Stack overflow was instrumental in my early programming career, because without it I would have had to read entire volumes of information to solve simple problems in some cases. The issue that I have is the attempt to pretend to have guided the course more than was the case. SO was a Q&A with a tremendous UX, and the users used it to help each other. That’s it. Even this nonsense of “gamification” is just ego-driven marketecture. Up and down voting has been a staple of the Internet for a long time. Voting up an answer is not gamifying it. The only thing even remotely game like about SO is that each question can have just one selected “corrct” answer... which is also basically the case on most Q&A sites, including yahoo answers. Also, the extent to which Jeff and Joel attempted to curate this process is the exact extent to which the process tended to get in our way; deleting questions because they are “off-topic”, even though hundreds of people up vote them and want to know the answer, etc. These are the decisions that ruined SO for manny developers.
  - dasil003 8y ago
    > The only thing even remotely game like about SO is that each question can have just one selected “corrct” answer Are you kidding me? Have you never seen the wall of badges?
awkward 8y ago
The two main pillars of the stack overflow experience as a contributor: - Gameify all metrics to an absurd degree, using gold-star-sticker style incentives for every given interaction type. - Take the metrics a seriously as possible, creating a baroque network of norms and code that a user is always, somehow, in violation of. So if it gets upvoted too much, it SHOULD be flagged as community wiki. There was a long discussion where users were complaining about answers that were posted too fast, preventing the complainers from getting points. If you misclick, then retract it, you can't vote again. Why? Because users were downvoting everyone who competed with them to float their answer to the top, then retracting. The overall culture the site has a deep aspect of working the referees as much as possible, and the extreme hands on nature of how they regulate people's Fake Internet High Scores is to blame for it.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
CodeCube 8y ago
> Stack overflow is and always was a question and answer site. To attempt to take credit for the following value of search results containing stack overflow questions that have already been answered that sound like what you’re asking is to take credit for search engines and to take credit for your users’ hard work. I don't know man ... while I can kind of agree with the general "thing" you're trying to convey here (that of SO hard-headedly blaming users for "doing it wrong"), this particular point is one that I'll have to defend him/them on -- SERP-as-an-interface was a primary consideration from day one. I listened to all the podcasts they did during development, and they were pretty explicit about it in all the blog posts. They knew that most people would arrive at a previously asked question via search engine, and they optimized the experience for that reality. That's why they wanted each question and answer page to be an "artifact", something that grows over time, gets edited, improved ... precisely because they thought of this ahead of time ;)
EGreg 8y ago
Before StackOverflow, this was Q&A for programmers: https://xkcd.com/979/ https://xkcd.com/979/
- caymanjim 8y ago
  Whenever that happens to me, it turns out that I'm the one who had the same question ten years earlier, and I still don't know the solution.
  - ldiracdelta 8y ago
    Ask it again. See if you get a duplicate flag pointing to your old question. Happened to me..
  - dagw 8y ago
    I once had it turn out to that the post was made by my project manager 5 year ago, trying to fix the same obscure bug he'd just assigned to me, and running into the same problem I just did. He'd completely forgotten about it.
- Humdeee 8y ago
  Or when they answer their own question simply with: "Nevermind, figured it out", and leaves it at that. Virtually sadistic.
toddh 8y ago
The SO strategy from the start was SEO driven, specifically so Google would pick up SO content. It worked like a charm. Sites before them were closed to Google or hid answers, so it was an important strategy and key differentiator. Maybe today you go directly to SO to search like you go directly to Amazon for product search, but at the time being open and leveraging Google was genius.
- gonational 8y ago
  I mean, stating “Google will index our answers! We should avoid duplicate content.” is about as transcendent as calling “select the best answer” a form of “gamification”. Again, stack overflow is just a better UX for the already proven Q&A model that’s worked for ages.
  - toddh 8y ago
    Easy to say in hindsight. But that's not how it worked previously.
mrfredward 8y ago
>Instead of saying “we created yahoo answers for programmers, but with a better interface”, you come up with something like “We’ve created a valuable resource for the future of the planet and all the programmers hereafter”. But StackExchange is incredibly different from a "Yahoo Answers for Programmers". A Yahoo Answers for programmers would be an endless stream of "How is Hello World babby formed?" For all the times I've stumbled on Yahoo Answers, it has almost never helped me solve a problem. StackExchange helps me almost every day, in spite of the fact that I'm not the one asking the question. Having an environment where contributors compete, askers are held to high standards, and moderators are aggressive can be harsh, but I have yet to see a gentle system that gets quality content out of anonymous volunteers on the internet.

kevinherron 8y ago

This post was written by Jeff Atwood, not Joel...

dgritsko 8y ago

On the subject of fundamental misunderstandings, you do realize that Jeff Atwood wrote this post and not Joel Spolsky, right?

gonational 8y ago
Oops, thanks - corrected. Also makes my deleted last paragraph’s speculation a little bit irrelevant, nominally, while also remaining entirely relevant.

michaelbuckbee 8y ago

IDK, Jeff (edited) explicitly calls out that they were lucky and the they do not deserve all the credit for SO. "I am honored and humbled by the public utility that Stack Overflow has unlocked for a whole generation of programmers. But I didn't do that. You did, when you contributed a well researched question to Stack Overflow. You did, when you contributed a succinct and clear answer to Stack Overflow." You did, when you edited a question or answer on Stack Overflow to make it better.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
gonational 8y ago
I meant to say Jeff. It’s morning here and my brain wasn’t fully awake. I got the two’s names mixed up.

Flimm 8y ago

I don't think you are giving Stack Overflow's leaders enough credit. There were many Q&A sites before it, but Stack Overflow was much better for the lurkers, and all of that content is licensed under Creative Commons, similar to Wikipedia. Also, Jeff is not trying to take credit for the users' hard work, I'm a contributor and I don't feel that way, especially after reading this part: > I am honored and humbled by the public utility that Stack Overflow has unlocked for a whole generation of programmers. But I didn't do that. > You did, when you contributed a well researched question to Stack Overflow. > You did, when you contributed a succinct and clear answer to Stack Overflow. > You did, when you edited a question or answer on Stack Overflow to make it better.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
gonational 8y ago
Stack overflow was instrumental in my early programming career, because without it I would have had to read entire volumes of information to solve simple problems in some cases. The issue that I have is the attempt to pretend to have guided the course more than was the case. SO was a Q&A with a tremendous UX, and the users used it to help each other. That’s it. Even this nonsense of “gamification” is just ego-driven marketecture. Up and down voting has been a staple of the Internet for a long time. Voting up an answer is not gamifying it. The only thing even remotely game like about SO is that each question can have just one selected “corrct” answer... which is also basically the case on most Q&A sites, including yahoo answers. Also, the extent to which Jeff and Joel attempted to curate this process is the exact extent to which the process tended to get in our way; deleting questions because they are “off-topic”, even though hundreds of people up vote them and want to know the answer, etc. These are the decisions that ruined SO for manny developers.
- dasil003 8y ago
  > The only thing even remotely game like about SO is that each question can have just one selected “corrct” answer Are you kidding me? Have you never seen the wall of badges?

awkward 8y ago

The two main pillars of the stack overflow experience as a contributor: - Gameify all metrics to an absurd degree, using gold-star-sticker style incentives for every given interaction type. - Take the metrics a seriously as possible, creating a baroque network of norms and code that a user is always, somehow, in violation of. So if it gets upvoted too much, it SHOULD be flagged as community wiki. There was a long discussion where users were complaining about answers that were posted too fast, preventing the complainers from getting points. If you misclick, then retract it, you can't vote again. Why? Because users were downvoting everyone who competed with them to float their answer to the top, then retracting. The overall culture the site has a deep aspect of working the referees as much as possible, and the extreme hands on nature of how they regulate people's Fake Internet High Scores is to blame for it.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

CodeCube 8y ago

> Stack overflow is and always was a question and answer site. To attempt to take credit for the following value of search results containing stack overflow questions that have already been answered that sound like what you’re asking is to take credit for search engines and to take credit for your users’ hard work. I don't know man ... while I can kind of agree with the general "thing" you're trying to convey here (that of SO hard-headedly blaming users for "doing it wrong"), this particular point is one that I'll have to defend him/them on -- SERP-as-an-interface was a primary consideration from day one. I listened to all the podcasts they did during development, and they were pretty explicit about it in all the blog posts. They knew that most people would arrive at a previously asked question via search engine, and they optimized the experience for that reality. That's why they wanted each question and answer page to be an "artifact", something that grows over time, gets edited, improved ... precisely because they thought of this ahead of time ;)

EGreg 8y ago

Before StackOverflow, this was Q&A for programmers: https://xkcd.com/979/ https://xkcd.com/979/

caymanjim 8y ago
Whenever that happens to me, it turns out that I'm the one who had the same question ten years earlier, and I still don't know the solution.
- ldiracdelta 8y ago
  Ask it again. See if you get a duplicate flag pointing to your old question. Happened to me..
- dagw 8y ago
  I once had it turn out to that the post was made by my project manager 5 year ago, trying to fix the same obscure bug he'd just assigned to me, and running into the same problem I just did. He'd completely forgotten about it.
Humdeee 8y ago
Or when they answer their own question simply with: "Nevermind, figured it out", and leaves it at that. Virtually sadistic.

toddh 8y ago

The SO strategy from the start was SEO driven, specifically so Google would pick up SO content. It worked like a charm. Sites before them were closed to Google or hid answers, so it was an important strategy and key differentiator. Maybe today you go directly to SO to search like you go directly to Amazon for product search, but at the time being open and leveraging Google was genius.

gonational 8y ago
I mean, stating “Google will index our answers! We should avoid duplicate content.” is about as transcendent as calling “select the best answer” a form of “gamification”. Again, stack overflow is just a better UX for the already proven Q&A model that’s worked for ages.
- toddh 8y ago
  Easy to say in hindsight. But that's not how it worked previously.

mrfredward 8y ago

>Instead of saying “we created yahoo answers for programmers, but with a better interface”, you come up with something like “We’ve created a valuable resource for the future of the planet and all the programmers hereafter”. But StackExchange is incredibly different from a "Yahoo Answers for Programmers". A Yahoo Answers for programmers would be an endless stream of "How is Hello World babby formed?" For all the times I've stumbled on Yahoo Answers, it has almost never helped me solve a problem. StackExchange helps me almost every day, in spite of the fact that I'm not the one asking the question. Having an environment where contributors compete, askers are held to high standards, and moderators are aggressive can be harsh, but I have yet to see a gentle system that gets quality content out of anonymous volunteers on the internet.