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SO is great for what it is, direct answers from questions. It is hard to think back to the days of pre-SO when most answers had to come from books (!) It is no

by columbo 13y ago

SO is great for what it is, direct answers from questions. It is hard to think back to the days of pre-SO when most answers had to come from books (!) It is not designed, and will never be a place to foster discussions, or encourage exploration. I'm NOT complaining about SO, this is just how it is designed. This kind of content, for example, is not something SO would create: http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/05/17/frameworks-round-5/ http://www.techempower.com/blog/2013/05/17/frameworks-round-... https://github.com/skx/static-site-generators https://github.com/skx/static-site-generators Since we don't have a SO for discussions we still rely on information from individual research and/or the modern-day newsgroup (reddit, forums). I wish there was a place to fully explore nebulous unanswerable questions like "Which web UI framework is fastest to develop in?" or "What is the best way to start a 2d platform game today (in 2013)?" This isn't an easy problem to solve, the questions above aren't really there to get an answer but to start a discussion. For both questions I want to know what is popular (TODAY, not in 2006), active, has been tested, and personal experience. I want to see a collection of people submitting their own takes until a top-five is produced where further study can be made.

Helianthus 13y ago
The flaw of StackOverflow, to me, is that activity is discouraged. What I mean by that is, rehashing previous discussions is verboten, shooting the shit rarely happens, and nebulous questions are never explored (even though some of the better questions linked to on SO are often closed topics!). As a result, StackOverflow is an authoritative source on a great many things. But the atmosphere of "ask any question" is absent. You're supposed to know what to look for instead of honestly throwing your query into the void trusting that someone will catch you. In other words, your question has to be novel in a specific sense. Which is great! But it doesn't mean it's an encouraging environment. Edit: I mean, witness this comment, posted at the same time as me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5919768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5919768 I dunno, I have never felt motivated to "hang out" at SO.
StuieK 13y ago
We're trying to do this. Examples: http://www.slant.co/topics/217/~best-css-preprocessor http://www.slant.co/topics/217/~best-css-preprocessor http://www.slant.co/topics/95/~what-is-the-best-search-engine-for-web-applications http://www.slant.co/topics/95/~what-is-the-best-search-engin...

by columbo 13y ago

Helianthus 13y ago

The flaw of StackOverflow, to me, is that activity is discouraged. What I mean by that is, rehashing previous discussions is verboten, shooting the shit rarely happens, and nebulous questions are never explored (even though some of the better questions linked to on SO are often closed topics!). As a result, StackOverflow is an authoritative source on a great many things. But the atmosphere of "ask any question" is absent. You're supposed to know what to look for instead of honestly throwing your query into the void trusting that someone will catch you. In other words, your question has to be novel in a specific sense. Which is great! But it doesn't mean it's an encouraging environment. Edit: I mean, witness this comment, posted at the same time as me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5919768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5919768 I dunno, I have never felt motivated to "hang out" at SO.

StuieK 13y ago

We're trying to do this. Examples: http://www.slant.co/topics/217/~best-css-preprocessor http://www.slant.co/topics/217/~best-css-preprocessor http://www.slant.co/topics/95/~what-is-the-best-search-engine-for-web-applications http://www.slant.co/topics/95/~what-is-the-best-search-engin...