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I've noticed searching the recent questions, the answer count and views are really low, there just seems to be not a lot of people on the site answering questio

I've noticed searching the recent questions, the answer count and views are really low, there just seems to be not a lot of people on the site answering questions anymore There is a big message telling users not to use AI generated content for answers I'm starting to wonder if the no AI answers rule is a good idea

pasc1878 3y ago
If you have AI answers then you get incorrect answers - why would this be good?
- mahkoh 3y ago
  How would this be different from not allowing Ai?
  - sbarre 3y ago
    I think because the effort bar becomes too low when providing answers. The gamification of the Stack Exchange sites is a double-edged sword, and I think it relies on an assumption about the effort threshold required to provide an answer. Typing out an answer, even a wrong one, takes time and effort that the system then rewards through points and badges. If you can just copy a question to Copilot and then paste the answer back, the effort threshold is likely then low enough that too many (or at least lots) of people will do only that in order to engage with the gamification and get points, rather than do it to try to help out the asker.
  - pasc1878 3y ago
    Volume. Most SO answers tend to be near the correct way as they explain why they answered. A good answer should also gove references as to why the answer is correct.
baq 3y ago
Moderation got extremely out of hand, to the point people are demotivated to ask questions. No questions, no answers, no traffic.
- pasc1878 3y ago
  I stopped viewing due to LACK of moderation. There were too many questions asking the same thing that had been answered many times before. Too many where the answer is RTFM. SO used to have interesting questions, questions that I needed answered or that I found interesting to spend time on to research.
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    > Too many where the answer is RTFM I think that is precisely the problem. A kid is teaching himself to program. He has an error which a million people before him have faced. He types it into google and gets SEO bullshit. He asks stackoverflow and they close his question immediately as a duplicate of a question which, to him, looks very different. He asks ChatGPT and he gets an answer immediately. Where does start next time he has a problem?
    - pasc1878 3y ago
      It should be with the manual but current ones are not that good. So it will be with the possibly wrong answer from ChatGPT. When learning nothing replaces a book or tutorial that has had some proof reading or editing. Just picking up small bits from the web here and there does make things difficult and does not really teach you. Learning in general needs you to fail and think not just google an answer.
  - nicoburns 3y ago
    > SO used to have interesting questions, questions that I needed answered or that I found interesting to spend time on to research. IMO a lot of the interesting questions got moderated away. Almost all of my favourite SO questions are closed as being off topic or subjective. I do think that the community struggled to scale with influx of a huge volume of users. But I also think that the strategy that they chose to deal with it was ultimately overzealous.
    - pasc1878 3y ago
      By interesting question I mean that ones that I did not know and were not a simple read the manual. They would be ones I would have find fun in researching the answer. Your definition of interesting is a discussion which is not what SO is for - even if they did then they do not have to tools to help this e.g. threading being able to vote on interim comments etc.
ciroduran 3y ago
They do advertise they want to do a lot of stuff with AI, while they explicitly do not allow AI in their answers. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.
- pasc1878 3y ago
  No it is not. The issue is that current AI answers invent 'facts' or produce wrong code. AI might help improve how people questions and possibly help them find an answer e.g. improve searching but to answer you must be correct and give correct references - not false ones as have been found in legal cases and others. How to use AI is an open question.
pasc1878 3y ago
The views being lower is partially due to StackOverflow implementing a legal cookie confirmation dialog, that is as easy to reject cookies as to accept them You need cookies to count the views.
- AndrewDucker 3y ago
  You don't need anything on a user's machine to look at your server logs and see how many requests you've had.
  - pasc1878 3y ago
    Better tell Stack Exchange that. See answer https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/391625/136010 https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/391625/136010 and a StackExchange employee saying the page count is down due to the cookie changes
KMag 3y ago
Maybe it's not a good idea for the company. However, avoiding the echo chamber feedback loop in AI training data is absolutely a good idea for society.

pasc1878 3y ago

If you have AI answers then you get incorrect answers - why would this be good?

mahkoh 3y ago
How would this be different from not allowing Ai?
- sbarre 3y ago
  I think because the effort bar becomes too low when providing answers. The gamification of the Stack Exchange sites is a double-edged sword, and I think it relies on an assumption about the effort threshold required to provide an answer. Typing out an answer, even a wrong one, takes time and effort that the system then rewards through points and badges. If you can just copy a question to Copilot and then paste the answer back, the effort threshold is likely then low enough that too many (or at least lots) of people will do only that in order to engage with the gamification and get points, rather than do it to try to help out the asker.
- pasc1878 3y ago
  Volume. Most SO answers tend to be near the correct way as they explain why they answered. A good answer should also gove references as to why the answer is correct.

baq 3y ago

Moderation got extremely out of hand, to the point people are demotivated to ask questions. No questions, no answers, no traffic.

pasc1878 3y ago
I stopped viewing due to LACK of moderation. There were too many questions asking the same thing that had been answered many times before. Too many where the answer is RTFM. SO used to have interesting questions, questions that I needed answered or that I found interesting to spend time on to research.
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  > Too many where the answer is RTFM I think that is precisely the problem. A kid is teaching himself to program. He has an error which a million people before him have faced. He types it into google and gets SEO bullshit. He asks stackoverflow and they close his question immediately as a duplicate of a question which, to him, looks very different. He asks ChatGPT and he gets an answer immediately. Where does start next time he has a problem?
  - pasc1878 3y ago
    It should be with the manual but current ones are not that good. So it will be with the possibly wrong answer from ChatGPT. When learning nothing replaces a book or tutorial that has had some proof reading or editing. Just picking up small bits from the web here and there does make things difficult and does not really teach you. Learning in general needs you to fail and think not just google an answer.
- nicoburns 3y ago
  > SO used to have interesting questions, questions that I needed answered or that I found interesting to spend time on to research. IMO a lot of the interesting questions got moderated away. Almost all of my favourite SO questions are closed as being off topic or subjective. I do think that the community struggled to scale with influx of a huge volume of users. But I also think that the strategy that they chose to deal with it was ultimately overzealous.
  - pasc1878 3y ago
    By interesting question I mean that ones that I did not know and were not a simple read the manual. They would be ones I would have find fun in researching the answer. Your definition of interesting is a discussion which is not what SO is for - even if they did then they do not have to tools to help this e.g. threading being able to vote on interim comments etc.

ciroduran 3y ago

They do advertise they want to do a lot of stuff with AI, while they explicitly do not allow AI in their answers. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.

pasc1878 3y ago
No it is not. The issue is that current AI answers invent 'facts' or produce wrong code. AI might help improve how people questions and possibly help them find an answer e.g. improve searching but to answer you must be correct and give correct references - not false ones as have been found in legal cases and others. How to use AI is an open question.

pasc1878 3y ago

The views being lower is partially due to StackOverflow implementing a legal cookie confirmation dialog, that is as easy to reject cookies as to accept them You need cookies to count the views.

AndrewDucker 3y ago
You don't need anything on a user's machine to look at your server logs and see how many requests you've had.
- pasc1878 3y ago
  Better tell Stack Exchange that. See answer https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/391625/136010 https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/391625/136010 and a StackExchange employee saying the page count is down due to the cookie changes

KMag 3y ago

Maybe it's not a good idea for the company. However, avoiding the echo chamber feedback loop in AI training data is absolutely a good idea for society.