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It must be a little soul-crushing to be one of the old-time users and seeing the same questions over-and-over. I think instead of booting those elite users, SO
by ianmcgowan 7y ago
It must be a little soul-crushing to be one of the old-time users and seeing the same questions over-and-over. I think instead of booting those elite users, SO should have a quarantine (or nursery) where badly-asked/homework/do-my-job questions can be shunted off to the side instead of closed immediately. Probably with do-not-crawl robots.txt.
I use SO multiple times a day and sometimes feel the urge to contribute back. I don't have enough expertise to help with deep problems, but am patient enough to work a newbie through their bash/awk/sql questions and it's enough for me to hopefully make one struggling person's day a little better.
- Kaiyou 7y agoThose aren't the only types of questions being hunted down. It's gotten really bad. Also, it's just natural that most questions are repeated. Every year there's a new generation needing to ask those same questions. Looking back doesn't always work, as technology moves to fast, last years advise can already be obsolete. I think part of the problem is that those old users think of the place as something for eternity, when in reality it's transient. Repeating questions is desirable. Instead of closing the new questions as duplicates, it should be occasion to retire the old question. Sure, there are some answers that still hold true 10 years later, but how is the one looking for an answer supposed to know that?