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I used to be a heavy stackoverflow user in the early days, and I have enough karma to put me in the moderator tier now. However, I don't use the site much anymo

I used to be a heavy stackoverflow user in the early days, and I have enough karma to put me in the moderator tier now. However, I don't use the site much anymore, except for getting questions answered. In a way I suppose that's a testament to the fact that the site still works, and works well. They solved most of the problem they set out to solve originally, which is a major achievement. Nevertheless, I still have a nagging feeling that some further iterative improvements could turn stackoverflow into something that would be even more useful, and would be more inviting for people to continue to participate in actively even without having expert knowledge in some tiny sub-category or a desire to constantly tidy everything up day-in day-out. Edit: to clarify I mean that it's hard to visit stackoverflow on a regular basis instead of just using it as an answer generating machine. Which I think is something not unique to myself and probably hurts the overall quality of the site considerably, notwithstanding the many experts who use the site heavily. Specifically I find it hard to peruse interesting topics to comment on, since the site is now very aggressively tightly focused. Even worse I find it difficult to use the site as a learning tool. Often times when I want to learn something new I'll get it in my head to go to stackoverflow first, but that's never worked very well for me. It's just too difficult to sort or filter all the data into something that is actually useful. Overall I think the biggest problem is that the people behind the site(s) have decided they've done their jobs, that what they've presented is good enough and at most needs only minor tweaking. I think that's a huge mistake personally and I think the result is going to be that the stackexchange sites end up as a footnote in history after having been rapidly eclipsed by "the next big thing" in a similar vein.

gus_massa 13y ago
Most of that is by design. It was designed as a questions-answer site, to collect every question of every programming language and provide the correct answer. It was not designed as a forum, where you go to talk with friends. The problem is what to do when all the questions had been answered?
- bigiain 13y ago
  Cynical me thinks "it's time to _monetize!_" How long till it follows expert sexchange.com's model?
  - balpha 13y ago
    We can't, and that's why: http://www.clearbits.net/creators/146-stack-exchange-data-dump http://www.clearbits.net/creators/146-stack-exchange-data-du.... And did you really think the ads on the site and the http://careers.stackoverflow.com/ http://careers.stackoverflow.com/ job listings are free?
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    One of the GREAT things about stackoverflow has been that they HAVE monetized from day one, and monetized well, without being intrusive to the community or the content.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  Yes and no. The focus on tangible questions with definitive answers is certainly intentional, however they've missed the mark on some of their original goals. Here's a description of those goals: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/09/stack-overflow-none-of-us-is-as-dumb-as-all-of-us.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/09/stack-overflow-none... They've achieved a lot, but if you look at that diagram of what stackoverflow is supposed to be you'll see it's still not that. It's very much not wiki-like, and it's very much not blog-like. And part of the reason to support those aspects was to provide precisely the experiences that I've found lacking, such as being able to use the site as a general education resource (like wikipedia).
jeremyt 13y ago
PM of the Stack Exchange sites here. I can understand why it appears this way from outside, but we've never been moving faster than we are now. I have been on board for about six months, and in that time we have rolled out lots of usability and layout improvements: streamlined sign-up process, a new anonymous homepage, a consolidated and curated help center, completely rewritten search, new badges page, upcoming new privileges page... In the next couple of months, we will be finishing sitewide SSL, redesigns of our more high-traffic pages, and a complete re-factor around closing to make that process more clear. Stay tuned, because I'm excited about where we're headed.
- yajoe 13y ago
  Huge SO fan, and I have no doubt that there is serious ongoing work at SO. Each of the items you listed sounds like it will improve someone's life and is not so simple with 5 years of legacy. Based on these descriptions I would bucket that work as "improvements" and not "disruptive." I think what GP was commenting on, which I agree with, is that SO doesn't appear to evolve its core mission from question-answers to something else -- perhaps a worthy HN/Slashot/Reddit replacement with discussions? Or expert-based code-reviews? Or documenting best-of-breed frameworks/platforms/service providers/etc/etc/etc (like GP posted)? I don't necessarily believe that SO should change its mandate, and I certainly don't know what would be a worthy change, but without an appearance of change then I can't help but fear SO will be relegated to the top google search result for me instead of a regular destination every day (like HN is).
- SeanDav 13y ago
  I like SO, but its focus is just too narrow. Any question that seems to involve an opinion is shut down as not constructive, yet I can assure you that the vast majority of questions that bring me to SO are of this type. You already rely on the users to vote up the good answers and vote down the bad ones - why don't you trust them to continue doing this, rather than shutting down useful and interesting topics?
  - jeremyt 13y ago
    Without addressing the broader question, which we are well aware of and continue to discuss internally, "not constructive" will no longer be a close reason as of next week. It's being replaced, in this case, by "primarily opinion based", which is a slightly higher bar. The result should be a small decrease in questions closed for opinion based reasons. http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/171732/help-us-make-not-constructive-and-not-a-real-question-closures-more-effectiv http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/171732/help-us-make-...

gus_massa 13y ago

Most of that is by design. It was designed as a questions-answer site, to collect every question of every programming language and provide the correct answer. It was not designed as a forum, where you go to talk with friends. The problem is what to do when all the questions had been answered?

bigiain 13y ago
Cynical me thinks "it's time to _monetize!_" How long till it follows expert sexchange.com's model?
- balpha 13y ago
  We can't, and that's why: http://www.clearbits.net/creators/146-stack-exchange-data-dump http://www.clearbits.net/creators/146-stack-exchange-data-du.... And did you really think the ads on the site and the http://careers.stackoverflow.com/ http://careers.stackoverflow.com/ job listings are free?
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  One of the GREAT things about stackoverflow has been that they HAVE monetized from day one, and monetized well, without being intrusive to the community or the content.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
Yes and no. The focus on tangible questions with definitive answers is certainly intentional, however they've missed the mark on some of their original goals. Here's a description of those goals: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/09/stack-overflow-none-of-us-is-as-dumb-as-all-of-us.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/09/stack-overflow-none... They've achieved a lot, but if you look at that diagram of what stackoverflow is supposed to be you'll see it's still not that. It's very much not wiki-like, and it's very much not blog-like. And part of the reason to support those aspects was to provide precisely the experiences that I've found lacking, such as being able to use the site as a general education resource (like wikipedia).

jeremyt 13y ago

PM of the Stack Exchange sites here. I can understand why it appears this way from outside, but we've never been moving faster than we are now. I have been on board for about six months, and in that time we have rolled out lots of usability and layout improvements: streamlined sign-up process, a new anonymous homepage, a consolidated and curated help center, completely rewritten search, new badges page, upcoming new privileges page... In the next couple of months, we will be finishing sitewide SSL, redesigns of our more high-traffic pages, and a complete re-factor around closing to make that process more clear. Stay tuned, because I'm excited about where we're headed.

yajoe 13y ago
Huge SO fan, and I have no doubt that there is serious ongoing work at SO. Each of the items you listed sounds like it will improve someone's life and is not so simple with 5 years of legacy. Based on these descriptions I would bucket that work as "improvements" and not "disruptive." I think what GP was commenting on, which I agree with, is that SO doesn't appear to evolve its core mission from question-answers to something else -- perhaps a worthy HN/Slashot/Reddit replacement with discussions? Or expert-based code-reviews? Or documenting best-of-breed frameworks/platforms/service providers/etc/etc/etc (like GP posted)? I don't necessarily believe that SO should change its mandate, and I certainly don't know what would be a worthy change, but without an appearance of change then I can't help but fear SO will be relegated to the top google search result for me instead of a regular destination every day (like HN is).
SeanDav 13y ago
I like SO, but its focus is just too narrow. Any question that seems to involve an opinion is shut down as not constructive, yet I can assure you that the vast majority of questions that bring me to SO are of this type. You already rely on the users to vote up the good answers and vote down the bad ones - why don't you trust them to continue doing this, rather than shutting down useful and interesting topics?
- jeremyt 13y ago
  Without addressing the broader question, which we are well aware of and continue to discuss internally, "not constructive" will no longer be a close reason as of next week. It's being replaced, in this case, by "primarily opinion based", which is a slightly higher bar. The result should be a small decrease in questions closed for opinion based reasons. http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/171732/help-us-make-not-constructive-and-not-a-real-question-closures-more-effectiv http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/171732/help-us-make-...