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Which directly resulted in the answers (and even the questions) to get quickly out of date, providing jQuery w/IE11 compatibility still being the non-dupe appro

Which directly resulted in the answers (and even the questions) to get quickly out of date, providing jQuery w/IE11 compatibility still being the non-dupe approved "answer" in 2025. They drove people away, on purpose, who were creating their content. Which was a successful strategy until it wasn't.

socalgal2 10mo ago
Sounds like Reddit to me. Topics closed, answers out of date, ask again, closed as dupe
- Someone1234 10mo ago
  I would agree, Reddit is in a slow death spiral. I'd point at bad management primarily. The main thing keeping them afloat may be lack of good competition.
  - cogman10 10mo ago
    The reddit death spiral is AI, bots, and brigading. I think they've accelerated it by making it easy to make all comments private and by hamstringing moderators. Part of that directly ties back to AI as well. The API limiting has a lot to do with making it hard to scrape reddit for data.
    - Someone1234 10mo ago
      I definitely think that has made it worse, but Reddit was on the downward spiral before LLNs/Bots/etc for years. Keep in mind that ownership changed twice in the years before ChatGPT et al appeared, and the new owners didn't really understand the site.
      - zahlman 10mo ago
        > but Reddit was on the downward spiral before LLNs/Bots/etc for years. Keep in mind that ownership changed twice in the years before ChatGPT et al appeared, and the new owners didn't really understand the site. Stack Overflow's situation, of course, is totally different. It only changed ownership once.
- sph 10mo ago
  The dream of decentralised moderation that came with Web 2.0. In reality, the Venn diagram of people wishing to moderate online spaces for virtual points and petty bureaucrats that get off on making arbitrary rules is pretty much a circle.
zahlman 10mo ago
> the answers (and even the questions) to get quickly out of date, providing jQuery w/IE11 compatibility still being the non-dupe approved "answer" in 2025. You are supposed to go to the existing question and post a new answer on it. Answer approval means almost nothing and should never have been implemented. In the early days it helped experts spread out their attention, as there was an immediate signal that a question had at least one answer good enough for the OP. But there is really no reason to prioritize the OP's opinion like this. (The reputation system has been misaligned with the site's goals in many ways.)

socalgal2 10mo ago

Sounds like Reddit to me. Topics closed, answers out of date, ask again, closed as dupe

Someone1234 10mo ago
I would agree, Reddit is in a slow death spiral. I'd point at bad management primarily. The main thing keeping them afloat may be lack of good competition.
- cogman10 10mo ago
  The reddit death spiral is AI, bots, and brigading. I think they've accelerated it by making it easy to make all comments private and by hamstringing moderators. Part of that directly ties back to AI as well. The API limiting has a lot to do with making it hard to scrape reddit for data.
  - Someone1234 10mo ago
    I definitely think that has made it worse, but Reddit was on the downward spiral before LLNs/Bots/etc for years. Keep in mind that ownership changed twice in the years before ChatGPT et al appeared, and the new owners didn't really understand the site.
    - zahlman 10mo ago
      > but Reddit was on the downward spiral before LLNs/Bots/etc for years. Keep in mind that ownership changed twice in the years before ChatGPT et al appeared, and the new owners didn't really understand the site. Stack Overflow's situation, of course, is totally different. It only changed ownership once.
sph 10mo ago
The dream of decentralised moderation that came with Web 2.0. In reality, the Venn diagram of people wishing to moderate online spaces for virtual points and petty bureaucrats that get off on making arbitrary rules is pretty much a circle.

zahlman 10mo ago

> the answers (and even the questions) to get quickly out of date, providing jQuery w/IE11 compatibility still being the non-dupe approved "answer" in 2025. You are supposed to go to the existing question and post a new answer on it. Answer approval means almost nothing and should never have been implemented. In the early days it helped experts spread out their attention, as there was an immediate signal that a question had at least one answer good enough for the OP. But there is really no reason to prioritize the OP's opinion like this. (The reputation system has been misaligned with the site's goals in many ways.)