Stack Overflow was never about helping people out; right from the start. It was a response to searching the internet trying to find a solution to your problem,

Stack Overflow was never about helping people out; right from the start. It was a response to searching the internet trying to find a solution to your problem, ending up with a forum thread with three pages of discussions, and the OP coming back with "nvm i figured it out", but no solution. It was always about long-term documentation. Go read some of Jeff and Joel's old stuff from 2008-2009; it uses exactly those kind of examples. And stuff like this: > I think repetition of answers is healthy. Yeah ... try answering questions for a few months and come back to me on that. I was never on Stack Overflow to be an unpaid tutor, to "teach the next generation", or to be a free debugger-as-a-service. Most people aren't. And no doubt Stack Overflow is far from perfect, and that at times people interpret the rules (far) too strictly, but this is the same ol' bollocks that's been doing the rounds since 2008, mostly propagated by people who have rarely spent any time answering questions.