7 ms·

To be honest: I think SO is in a difficult position here. They're absolutely essential to the software dev community, but their service is incredibly hard to mo

To be honest: I think SO is in a difficult position here. They're absolutely essential to the software dev community, but their service is incredibly hard to monetize without alienating users.

everyone 7y ago
"They're absolutely essential to the software dev community" Posting a question there has been pointless for years. I also dont think I've seen any answers there via duckduckgo useful to me in a long time. I dont think I'd even notice if it disappeared tomorrow. (I am not a web dev btw)
- jasonhansel 7y ago
  I think it's more useful for new devs than for experienced ones. I've also found it a useful source for snippets of code that I have trouble remembering on my own.
- lordnacho 7y ago
  > Posting a question there has been pointless for years. Isn't that mainly because it's already been answered? (Apart from new tags) I've got dozens of questions on my SO account, but it's been quite a while since I wrote one now.
  - everyone 7y ago
    No, The trend I noticed starting years ago, which according to various articles Ive seen is now complete and institutionalized there, is that: High ranked mod/troll types, who seem to spend all day there trying to get more karma for some reason, constantly cruise for new questions. They dont know much about programming in general, and have zero knowledge of my specialist field for example. If they see a question that superficialy resembles or shares certain keywords with another one they will close it as being answered already (pretty much acting like particularly dumb bots) even if it has nothing to do with the existing question, or if the existing question is massively out of date and irrelevant because of updates to the software in question.
    - lordnacho 7y ago
      You may have a point there. It happens quite often that I google for something, and the article containing the answer is marked closed or off-topic.
      - patrick5415 7y ago
        Yes. Some of the best, most valuable questions and answers are closed for pedantic reasons.
        chessturk 7y ago
        I upvoted you and the gp, but I also would like to point out that the useful answer often still arrives before the pendatic closure. Some of my own questions followed that route, without being dupe questions and while being a code-based success or fail state. The closure of tickets is detrimental to the site, but somehow, it's still worth asking a question.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  It could also be survivor bias. You don’t rely on it as much because you’re experienced. I do the same for the programming language I’ve now got 7 years worth or experience. The picture was much different when I started out, and I feel like StackOverflow is still an invaluable resource for juniors/mid-levels or for those transitioning to an unfamiliar technology.
ForHackernews 7y ago
Just charge big companies $500,000/year or whatever for an "Enterprise Stack Overflow subscription" or something. Have their lawyer sign a licensing agreement that SO will promise to never sue BigCorp if BigCorp's engineers incorporate a SO answer into their precious proprietary software.
- jasonhansel 7y ago
  But I think that incorporating SO answers into proprietary software is already legal, right? And if it is illegal, then the copyright is owned by the person who posted the answer, not by SO itself.
  - snazz 7y ago
    The answers have always been CC-BY-SA 2.5 licensed.
    - shagie 7y ago
      That is a... complicated statement. If you look at https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing - the license that it points to is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ A 2010 wayback http://web.archive.org/web/20100701152609/http://stackoverflow.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20100701152609/http://stackoverfl... links to 2.5 While a 2011 wayback links to 3.0 http://web.archive.org/web/20110703111023/http://stackoverflow.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20110703111023/http://stackoverfl... A blog post from 2011 on attribution required : http://web.archive.org/web/20110717145827/http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/attribution-required/ http://web.archive.org/web/20110717145827/http://blog.stacko... - that links to 2.5 The current blog post - https://stackoverflow.blog/2009/06/25/attribution-required/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2009/06/25/attribution-required/ links to 3.0 The 2.5 license : http://web.archive.org/web/20100630092909/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ http://web.archive.org/web/20100630092909/http://creativecom... > A new version of this license is available. You should use it for new works, and you may want to relicense existing works under it. No works are automatically put under the new license, however. IANAL reading of this suggests that posts from 2010 should be under 2.5 and post from whenever the 2.5 to 3.0 change was made would be under 3.0. Unfortunately, this isn't made clear on the posts themselves (or the site).
danShumway 7y ago
This is complicated, because it's not really SO that's the essential part. The knowledge on SO is essential. That's not to say that SO isn't playing an extremely valuable role in helping to collect that knowledge and organize the community. Community management is hard. I do want SO to make money, I want the devs to be successful, I think they should be compensated for their work. But products that are built on (what I would call) the commons are in a weird place. I'm cognizant of the fact that most of SO's value comes from the fact that ordinary people contribute to it without any compensation, and that part of the reason ordinary people contributed to it in the first place was because the developers were able to capitalize on a kind of social spirit. That's not to say that SO is wrong here. TBH, I don't think advertising your own products on a home page is crossing any reasonable line, particularly when most people are getting to SO from search engines anyway. But I do want to push back a little bit against the idea that SO created something magical out of the ether. (Not that I think you're saying that, or trying to say that). SO is essential only because the devs were able to get ordinary people to give up large swaths of information, for free. And part of the reason they were able to do that was because they projected a kind of business style that resonated with those people. Would SO be as successful today if it had run ads with trackers in them from the beginning? I don't know where the line is, but there has to be some degree of give-and-take, or there's no point in complaining when that same community decides, "nah, we don't think we want to give you free information any more."
GordonS 7y ago
I thought Jobs was meant to fix this, providing a route to profits while also being something devs want. I wonder how much revenue it generates? EDIT: Answering my own question: Their cheapest package (which allows max 1 job ad at any time) is around $7,500/year. They have 5572 jobs advertised right now, so I guess it's pulling in 30-41M a year.
quantummkv 7y ago
I don't think so. Wikipedia has a model that works. And unlike Wikipedia, a whole lot of professionals working in some of the most high paying jobs across the globe frequent and love stackoverflow. All stackoverflow has to do is to bite the bullet and officially turn into what most of its users consider it as anyway - The wikipedia of programming.
- hacym 7y ago
  And become a nonprofit? So they can do fundraising drives where people will complain about them asking for money? I don’t think that will/should ever happen.
verisimilitudes 7y ago
>They're absolutely essential to the software dev community I disagree. I'm of the opinion that it's useful only if you're doing something you've no clue about and also don't want to gain a clue about. It's no surprise, then, that WWW garbage is typical, since it's poorly documented and a ''living standard'' and other nonsense. If you're like me and use real languages with real standards and good books available, you're probably not going to need something such as this. I've never asked a question there and I've never needed to look at a Common Lisp question and answer; I don't think there are many Common Lisp questions and answers in general, actually. Similarly, I don't see these for APL, either. I don't believe it's a coincidence that these languages are well-documented and encourage understanding to use. Meanwhile, ''Why does JavaScript do this?'' or ''I can't get my CSS to do this in Safari.'', sure, I can see that.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Disagreed. Even if you are lucky to use a language where the official documentation is very good, there’s still a chance that you run into some issue that isn’t covered by it or is out of scope. My personal example is an issue installing a third-party Python library on a certain macOS version. I wouldn’t expect this to be in the official docs considering it’s a bug in the OS (more specifically where the unofficial package manager puts C libraries), but it’s still an issue that’s preventing me from getting stuff done. StackOverflow had an unanswered question about it, and similar questions (with answers) for other libraries. With those answers I was able to solve my problem and post an answer to that original library. It’s still earning upvotes 2 years later suggesting it’s being useful to quite a few people. There’s also the issue where you have to work with languages where documentation isn’t ideal or the behaviour is implementation-dependent (JavaScript and CSS come to mind). In a perfect world we would have one authoritative source for docs and all implementations would follow it. We’re not in a perfect world, so the next best thing is a site where new people can ask questions and people experienced with the issue at hand can share their knowledge.
  - verisimilitudes 7y ago
    In my opinion, Python doesn't belong in the same category as Common Lisp and APL. >There’s also the issue where you have to work with languages where documentation isn’t ideal or the behaviour is implementation-dependent (JavaScript and CSS come to mind). I already agreed that JavaScript and CSS are good languages for Stack Overflow.
Grue3 7y ago
Their service is incredibly easy to monetize. Just add bounties to questions. The asker can put a bounty on the question and the bounty is given to the correct answer. SO gets a cut.

To be honest: I think SO is in a difficult position here. They're absolutely essential to the software dev community, but their service is incredibly hard to monetize without alienating users.

everyone 7y ago

"They're absolutely essential to the software dev community" Posting a question there has been pointless for years. I also dont think I've seen any answers there via duckduckgo useful to me in a long time. I dont think I'd even notice if it disappeared tomorrow. (I am not a web dev btw)

jasonhansel 7y ago
I think it's more useful for new devs than for experienced ones. I've also found it a useful source for snippets of code that I have trouble remembering on my own.
lordnacho 7y ago
> Posting a question there has been pointless for years. Isn't that mainly because it's already been answered? (Apart from new tags) I've got dozens of questions on my SO account, but it's been quite a while since I wrote one now.
- everyone 7y ago
  No, The trend I noticed starting years ago, which according to various articles Ive seen is now complete and institutionalized there, is that: High ranked mod/troll types, who seem to spend all day there trying to get more karma for some reason, constantly cruise for new questions. They dont know much about programming in general, and have zero knowledge of my specialist field for example. If they see a question that superficialy resembles or shares certain keywords with another one they will close it as being answered already (pretty much acting like particularly dumb bots) even if it has nothing to do with the existing question, or if the existing question is massively out of date and irrelevant because of updates to the software in question.
  - lordnacho 7y ago
    You may have a point there. It happens quite often that I google for something, and the article containing the answer is marked closed or off-topic.
    - patrick5415 7y ago
      Yes. Some of the best, most valuable questions and answers are closed for pedantic reasons.
      - chessturk 7y ago
        I upvoted you and the gp, but I also would like to point out that the useful answer often still arrives before the pendatic closure. Some of my own questions followed that route, without being dupe questions and while being a code-based success or fail state. The closure of tickets is detrimental to the site, but somehow, it's still worth asking a question.
Nextgrid 7y ago
It could also be survivor bias. You don’t rely on it as much because you’re experienced. I do the same for the programming language I’ve now got 7 years worth or experience. The picture was much different when I started out, and I feel like StackOverflow is still an invaluable resource for juniors/mid-levels or for those transitioning to an unfamiliar technology.

ForHackernews 7y ago

Just charge big companies $500,000/year or whatever for an "Enterprise Stack Overflow subscription" or something. Have their lawyer sign a licensing agreement that SO will promise to never sue BigCorp if BigCorp's engineers incorporate a SO answer into their precious proprietary software.

jasonhansel 7y ago
But I think that incorporating SO answers into proprietary software is already legal, right? And if it is illegal, then the copyright is owned by the person who posted the answer, not by SO itself.
- snazz 7y ago
  The answers have always been CC-BY-SA 2.5 licensed.
  - shagie 7y ago
    That is a... complicated statement. If you look at https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing - the license that it points to is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ A 2010 wayback http://web.archive.org/web/20100701152609/http://stackoverflow.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20100701152609/http://stackoverfl... links to 2.5 While a 2011 wayback links to 3.0 http://web.archive.org/web/20110703111023/http://stackoverflow.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20110703111023/http://stackoverfl... A blog post from 2011 on attribution required : http://web.archive.org/web/20110717145827/http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/06/attribution-required/ http://web.archive.org/web/20110717145827/http://blog.stacko... - that links to 2.5 The current blog post - https://stackoverflow.blog/2009/06/25/attribution-required/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2009/06/25/attribution-required/ links to 3.0 The 2.5 license : http://web.archive.org/web/20100630092909/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ http://web.archive.org/web/20100630092909/http://creativecom... > A new version of this license is available. You should use it for new works, and you may want to relicense existing works under it. No works are automatically put under the new license, however. IANAL reading of this suggests that posts from 2010 should be under 2.5 and post from whenever the 2.5 to 3.0 change was made would be under 3.0. Unfortunately, this isn't made clear on the posts themselves (or the site).

danShumway 7y ago

This is complicated, because it's not really SO that's the essential part. The knowledge on SO is essential. That's not to say that SO isn't playing an extremely valuable role in helping to collect that knowledge and organize the community. Community management is hard. I do want SO to make money, I want the devs to be successful, I think they should be compensated for their work. But products that are built on (what I would call) the commons are in a weird place. I'm cognizant of the fact that most of SO's value comes from the fact that ordinary people contribute to it without any compensation, and that part of the reason ordinary people contributed to it in the first place was because the developers were able to capitalize on a kind of social spirit. That's not to say that SO is wrong here. TBH, I don't think advertising your own products on a home page is crossing any reasonable line, particularly when most people are getting to SO from search engines anyway. But I do want to push back a little bit against the idea that SO created something magical out of the ether. (Not that I think you're saying that, or trying to say that). SO is essential only because the devs were able to get ordinary people to give up large swaths of information, for free. And part of the reason they were able to do that was because they projected a kind of business style that resonated with those people. Would SO be as successful today if it had run ads with trackers in them from the beginning? I don't know where the line is, but there has to be some degree of give-and-take, or there's no point in complaining when that same community decides, "nah, we don't think we want to give you free information any more."

GordonS 7y ago

I thought Jobs was meant to fix this, providing a route to profits while also being something devs want. I wonder how much revenue it generates? EDIT: Answering my own question: Their cheapest package (which allows max 1 job ad at any time) is around $7,500/year. They have 5572 jobs advertised right now, so I guess it's pulling in 30-41M a year.

quantummkv 7y ago

I don't think so. Wikipedia has a model that works. And unlike Wikipedia, a whole lot of professionals working in some of the most high paying jobs across the globe frequent and love stackoverflow. All stackoverflow has to do is to bite the bullet and officially turn into what most of its users consider it as anyway - The wikipedia of programming.

hacym 7y ago
And become a nonprofit? So they can do fundraising drives where people will complain about them asking for money? I don’t think that will/should ever happen.

verisimilitudes 7y ago

>They're absolutely essential to the software dev community I disagree. I'm of the opinion that it's useful only if you're doing something you've no clue about and also don't want to gain a clue about. It's no surprise, then, that WWW garbage is typical, since it's poorly documented and a ''living standard'' and other nonsense. If you're like me and use real languages with real standards and good books available, you're probably not going to need something such as this. I've never asked a question there and I've never needed to look at a Common Lisp question and answer; I don't think there are many Common Lisp questions and answers in general, actually. Similarly, I don't see these for APL, either. I don't believe it's a coincidence that these languages are well-documented and encourage understanding to use. Meanwhile, ''Why does JavaScript do this?'' or ''I can't get my CSS to do this in Safari.'', sure, I can see that.

Nextgrid 7y ago
Disagreed. Even if you are lucky to use a language where the official documentation is very good, there’s still a chance that you run into some issue that isn’t covered by it or is out of scope. My personal example is an issue installing a third-party Python library on a certain macOS version. I wouldn’t expect this to be in the official docs considering it’s a bug in the OS (more specifically where the unofficial package manager puts C libraries), but it’s still an issue that’s preventing me from getting stuff done. StackOverflow had an unanswered question about it, and similar questions (with answers) for other libraries. With those answers I was able to solve my problem and post an answer to that original library. It’s still earning upvotes 2 years later suggesting it’s being useful to quite a few people. There’s also the issue where you have to work with languages where documentation isn’t ideal or the behaviour is implementation-dependent (JavaScript and CSS come to mind). In a perfect world we would have one authoritative source for docs and all implementations would follow it. We’re not in a perfect world, so the next best thing is a site where new people can ask questions and people experienced with the issue at hand can share their knowledge.
- verisimilitudes 7y ago
  In my opinion, Python doesn't belong in the same category as Common Lisp and APL. >There’s also the issue where you have to work with languages where documentation isn’t ideal or the behaviour is implementation-dependent (JavaScript and CSS come to mind). I already agreed that JavaScript and CSS are good languages for Stack Overflow.

Grue3 7y ago

Their service is incredibly easy to monetize. Just add bounties to questions. The asker can put a bounty on the question and the bounty is given to the correct answer. SO gets a cut.