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I'm not sure why duplicates were ever considered an issue. For certain subjects (like JS) things evolved so quickly during the height of SO that even a year old

I'm not sure why duplicates were ever considered an issue. For certain subjects (like JS) things evolved so quickly during the height of SO that even a year old answer was outdated. That and search engines seemed to promote more recent content.. so an old answer sank under the ocean of blog spam

ceejayoz 1y ago
SO wanted to avoid being a raw Q&A site in favor of something more like a wiki. If a year-old answer on a canonical question is now incorrect, you edit it.
- MoreQARespect 1y ago
  That's a valid goal, but they should have adapted the software to the community instead of trying to adapt the community to the software. SO's biggest asset was its community and while they treated it with some respect in the beginning they took it for granted and trashed it later.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    I think this policy was, in large part, intended to respect the user base, who get exhausted answering the same question over and over. I do agree they later trashed that relationship with the Monica incident and AI policies.
    - PeterStuer 1y ago
      Sounds like they optimised for a select 1% class of self appointed gatekeepers rather than the broad user base. Classic mistake of nearly every defunct social site.
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        To a certain extent, you have to. Same reasons Wikipedia has a core clique of editors; they do a lot of the work. It worked beautifully for quite a while. I don't think anyone anticipated ChatGPT when planning it all out.
- PeterStuer 1y ago
  But the answer has not become incorrect. It is still correct for that question in that specific context. More likely, the 'canonicalization process' was overly coarse (for SEO?), inconsistent and confused.
- moi2388 1y ago
  Then they should have made a wiki instead of a Q&A site
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    They did, really. That's why I can edit anyone else's questions and answers.

ceejayoz 1y ago

SO wanted to avoid being a raw Q&A site in favor of something more like a wiki. If a year-old answer on a canonical question is now incorrect, you edit it.

MoreQARespect 1y ago
That's a valid goal, but they should have adapted the software to the community instead of trying to adapt the community to the software. SO's biggest asset was its community and while they treated it with some respect in the beginning they took it for granted and trashed it later.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  I think this policy was, in large part, intended to respect the user base, who get exhausted answering the same question over and over. I do agree they later trashed that relationship with the Monica incident and AI policies.
  - PeterStuer 1y ago
    Sounds like they optimised for a select 1% class of self appointed gatekeepers rather than the broad user base. Classic mistake of nearly every defunct social site.
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      To a certain extent, you have to. Same reasons Wikipedia has a core clique of editors; they do a lot of the work. It worked beautifully for quite a while. I don't think anyone anticipated ChatGPT when planning it all out.
PeterStuer 1y ago
But the answer has not become incorrect. It is still correct for that question in that specific context. More likely, the 'canonicalization process' was overly coarse (for SEO?), inconsistent and confused.
moi2388 1y ago
Then they should have made a wiki instead of a Q&A site
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  They did, really. That's why I can edit anyone else's questions and answers.