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I used to participate in SO but it is really turning into a hit n run site for me now. Overzealous duplicate and notconstructive flags combined with the dumbing

by tus88 7y ago

I used to participate in SO but it is really turning into a hit n run site for me now. Overzealous duplicate and notconstructive flags combined with the dumbing everything down for new users policy made it frustrating and unrewarding experience. It still is to be frank when the "answer matches actual question in title" rate is about 10%, but what else is there?

mistermann 7y ago
It's sad what it's become. Are Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky still involved? It seems hard to believe they could mismanage SO as thoroughly as this without having a complete change in personality.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- SyneRyder 7y ago
  It looks like Jeff Atwood left in 2012 to create Discourse [1], and Joel Spolsky recently stepped down as CEO [2]. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/jeff-atwood-bids-adieu-to-stack-exchange-for-the-best-reason-ever/ https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/jeff-atwood-bids-adieu-to-... [2] https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/09/24/announcing-stack-overflows-new-ceo-prashanth-chandrasekar/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/09/24/announcing-stack-overf...
karlshea 7y ago
I agree, I was actually watching this situation with glee, hoping every moderator on the entire site would quit en-masse. Maybe then it would be useful again.
- MauranKilom 7y ago
  Anyone who thinks that moderators quitting will stop questions being closed as dupes doesn't understand how StackOverflow works. The moderators are the ones doing the absolute dirtywork of handling cases of abuse, harassment, vandalism, spam, vote fraud, and so on. If half the mods quit, all you get in return is more spam and hostile comments. The remaining community will keep closing questions like before - that's simply not the job of moderators.
mhuffman 7y ago
> Overzealous duplicate This one is really killing me lately. In almost all cases it points to something only tangentially related and is of no help. SO used to be a place that smart people could go to get other smart people to help them with a problem. Now it mostly seems to be a place where people help students with their high-school CS homework and then bitch about not being there to help with homework! Quora is even worse! I am eagerly waiting for whoever comes up with the next reasonable knowledge-sharing site to leave these two POS sites where they belong!
- jen729w 7y ago
  Who would have thought that organising literally all of human knowledge in a linear Q&A format would have been so hard? /s
- wodenokoto 7y ago
  With great fear of this, I opened a question on SO a while ago and at the bottom linked to several other SO questions under the heading "similar but different, because ...", and it went quite well, although moderation was quite angry that I didn't choose an accepted answer within a day.
  - segfaultbuserr 7y ago
    > although moderation was quite angry that I didn't choose an accepted answer within a day. I don't know about Stack Overflow, which is the largest SE site, and may have some cultural differences. But I'm pretty sure that accepting an answer within a day is strongly discouraged on all Stack Exchange sites in general. You should wait, at least one day before accepting it - some users may still want to answer it. I only accept answers when nobody posts new answers. Also, a user doesn't have to accept an answer, if none of the answer is helpful for solving the question - it has been discussed on Meta before. Personally, if I asked a question and none of the answer solves the question, I'll accept the most helpful one. If none is helpful, I don't accept any answer, and usually I will be able to answer my own question and accept myself in the future.
  - GordonS 7y ago

by tus88 7y ago

mistermann 7y ago

It's sad what it's become. Are Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky still involved? It seems hard to believe they could mismanage SO as thoroughly as this without having a complete change in personality.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
SyneRyder 7y ago
It looks like Jeff Atwood left in 2012 to create Discourse [1], and Joel Spolsky recently stepped down as CEO [2]. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/jeff-atwood-bids-adieu-to-stack-exchange-for-the-best-reason-ever/ https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/jeff-atwood-bids-adieu-to-... [2] https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/09/24/announcing-stack-overflows-new-ceo-prashanth-chandrasekar/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/09/24/announcing-stack-overf...

karlshea 7y ago

I agree, I was actually watching this situation with glee, hoping every moderator on the entire site would quit en-masse. Maybe then it would be useful again.

MauranKilom 7y ago
Anyone who thinks that moderators quitting will stop questions being closed as dupes doesn't understand how StackOverflow works. The moderators are the ones doing the absolute dirtywork of handling cases of abuse, harassment, vandalism, spam, vote fraud, and so on. If half the mods quit, all you get in return is more spam and hostile comments. The remaining community will keep closing questions like before - that's simply not the job of moderators.

mhuffman 7y ago

> Overzealous duplicate This one is really killing me lately. In almost all cases it points to something only tangentially related and is of no help. SO used to be a place that smart people could go to get other smart people to help them with a problem. Now it mostly seems to be a place where people help students with their high-school CS homework and then bitch about not being there to help with homework! Quora is even worse! I am eagerly waiting for whoever comes up with the next reasonable knowledge-sharing site to leave these two POS sites where they belong!

jen729w 7y ago
Who would have thought that organising literally all of human knowledge in a linear Q&A format would have been so hard? /s
wodenokoto 7y ago
With great fear of this, I opened a question on SO a while ago and at the bottom linked to several other SO questions under the heading "similar but different, because ...", and it went quite well, although moderation was quite angry that I didn't choose an accepted answer within a day.
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  > although moderation was quite angry that I didn't choose an accepted answer within a day. I don't know about Stack Overflow, which is the largest SE site, and may have some cultural differences. But I'm pretty sure that accepting an answer within a day is strongly discouraged on all Stack Exchange sites in general. You should wait, at least one day before accepting it - some users may still want to answer it. I only accept answers when nobody posts new answers. Also, a user doesn't have to accept an answer, if none of the answer is helpful for solving the question - it has been discussed on Meta before. Personally, if I asked a question and none of the answer solves the question, I'll accept the most helpful one. If none is helpful, I don't accept any answer, and usually I will be able to answer my own question and accept myself in the future.
- GordonS 7y ago