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I still use SO out of habit, but they make it really difficult to use it. Everything on the web is gated behind ridiculous captchas now. More than the AI, the l

I still use SO out of habit, but they make it really difficult to use it. Everything on the web is gated behind ridiculous captchas now. More than the AI, the legacy websites will die because they are too busy trying to prevent AI companies from scraping the content and have ruined the product in the process.

bluefirebrand 1y ago
Seems pretty crappy to blame the websites for this instead of the AI companies, who are the really bad actors here
- Mars008 1y ago
  > Seems pretty crappy to blame the websites for this instead of the AI companies, who are the really bad actors here Not sure who is bad. AI companies trying to make public knowledge easily available or web sites trying to lock and monetize users' content. It's now capchas, JS, and tracking everywhere. I'm supposed to go through all of this to contribute to website so that others go through all of it to read. Add to that flashing and jumping adds which make even more unpleasant. And yes, my contribution will be locked instead of made public.
- anigbrowl 1y ago
  Agreed, but SO was bad before LLMs showed up. Almost all expert communities seem to develop problems with gatekeepers and ego trippers past a certain size.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    Ego trippers are bad, I agree But gatekeeping is actually good if you care about quality, and I think we're going to discover that more with LLMs They might democratize code but the code produced will be very low quality. Once coding communities start getting overrun with "Please help me fix my LLM generated code" we'll wish we did a bit more gatekeeping
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
      >But gatekeeping is actually good if you care about quality, and I think we're going to discover that more with LLMs The people who you might be justified in gatekeeping against are the very same who become the gatekeepers. They gravitate towards that role because deliberately or instinctively they understand that they either capture it, or get blocked by it.
    - fragmede 1y ago
      I'll take that job for the right pay, so I don't see the problem. Stack overflow gatekeepers close questions, with links to a similar question, and reasons why it's not a duplicate, as a duplicate. Better yet, the answer scoring system keeps accepted answers from 7 years ago as the top rated answer when the library and ecosystem's moved on, and that answer no longer works. Gatekeeping itself is not inherently bad, I agree, but Stack Overflow has become aggressively hostile to its original mission.
      - bluefirebrand 1y ago
        > I'll take that job for the right pay, so I don't see the problem The problem for me at least is that companies can be irrational longer than I can remain solvent, so "the right pay" feels like it is going to wind up being "whatever man I just need to pay my bills". I suspect I'm not alone. I actually suspect that I'm the very common case. And it's not because I'm bad with money or broke either. it's just because I can't afford to retire and companies can afford to be irrational a long, long time
        fragmede 1y ago
        Interesting. My thoughts are from the other direction. As someone who's been programming for a while, if we presume novices (with money) are using LLMs to write programs but that the LLMs are getting stuck, and they just need some (human) help fixing their code, then I'm happy to help them untangle their mess, if they pay me for my time.
        1y ago
- mrkeen 1y ago
  Nope. Stack Overflow partnered with OpenAI. It's just us humans that get the bad experience.

bluefirebrand 1y ago

Seems pretty crappy to blame the websites for this instead of the AI companies, who are the really bad actors here

Mars008 1y ago
> Seems pretty crappy to blame the websites for this instead of the AI companies, who are the really bad actors here Not sure who is bad. AI companies trying to make public knowledge easily available or web sites trying to lock and monetize users' content. It's now capchas, JS, and tracking everywhere. I'm supposed to go through all of this to contribute to website so that others go through all of it to read. Add to that flashing and jumping adds which make even more unpleasant. And yes, my contribution will be locked instead of made public.
anigbrowl 1y ago
Agreed, but SO was bad before LLMs showed up. Almost all expert communities seem to develop problems with gatekeepers and ego trippers past a certain size.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  Ego trippers are bad, I agree But gatekeeping is actually good if you care about quality, and I think we're going to discover that more with LLMs They might democratize code but the code produced will be very low quality. Once coding communities start getting overrun with "Please help me fix my LLM generated code" we'll wish we did a bit more gatekeeping
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
    >But gatekeeping is actually good if you care about quality, and I think we're going to discover that more with LLMs The people who you might be justified in gatekeeping against are the very same who become the gatekeepers. They gravitate towards that role because deliberately or instinctively they understand that they either capture it, or get blocked by it.
  - fragmede 1y ago
    I'll take that job for the right pay, so I don't see the problem. Stack overflow gatekeepers close questions, with links to a similar question, and reasons why it's not a duplicate, as a duplicate. Better yet, the answer scoring system keeps accepted answers from 7 years ago as the top rated answer when the library and ecosystem's moved on, and that answer no longer works. Gatekeeping itself is not inherently bad, I agree, but Stack Overflow has become aggressively hostile to its original mission.
    - bluefirebrand 1y ago
      > I'll take that job for the right pay, so I don't see the problem The problem for me at least is that companies can be irrational longer than I can remain solvent, so "the right pay" feels like it is going to wind up being "whatever man I just need to pay my bills". I suspect I'm not alone. I actually suspect that I'm the very common case. And it's not because I'm bad with money or broke either. it's just because I can't afford to retire and companies can afford to be irrational a long, long time
      - fragmede 1y ago
        Interesting. My thoughts are from the other direction. As someone who's been programming for a while, if we presume novices (with money) are using LLMs to write programs but that the LLMs are getting stuck, and they just need some (human) help fixing their code, then I'm happy to help them untangle their mess, if they pay me for my time.
        1y ago
mrkeen 1y ago
Nope. Stack Overflow partnered with OpenAI. It's just us humans that get the bad experience.