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> There's an old cliché in English: give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. StackOverflow is filled to the brim with

> There's an old cliché in English: give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. StackOverflow is filled to the brim with people giving fishes. This hits the nail on the head, imo. While the SO system is (presumably) meant to reward "karma" based on the quality of answers, more often than not it seems that quantity is just as important. And it's not hard to see why this is the case -- there's an inherent risk in typing a well thought-out (read: time consuming and potentially long) answer, when a simple one-liner is probably all the questioner is really seeking. On the other hand, maybe that's what StackOverflow is really for -- getting things done, NOW. Even if that "getting things done" answer is just a band-aid, and the questioner hasn't really learned anything. In my experience, people who find themselves applying band-aid after band-aid to their code (myself included) rarely connect the dots all the way back and realize that all their subsequent problems were largely due to their initial "fix".

CWuestefeld 13y ago
more often than not it seems that quantity is just as important. And it's not hard to see why this is the case -- there's an inherent risk in typing a well thought-out (read: time consuming and potentially long) answer This is what turned me off from SO. The strategy to garner points (at least in the topics I'm expert in) is to lurk waiting for quickly-answered questions. Pounce on these, by entering a rough, approximate answer, so you can score the credit. Then, if you're feeling charitable, go back and flesh it out properly once you've got the karma in your pocket. Time and again I've entered a correct and complete answer, to score nothing because somebody beat me (and I'm a very fast typist, btw) with a quick one-liner that provides little value - and in many cases, hasn't even been completely correct. On more than one occasion, after reading the "winning" answer, I've been left frustrated, thinking "come on, that sample you posted won't even run, let alone do what you claim". I suppose that part of the blame lies with those seeking answers. The user interaction is such that they'll allocate upvotes when they see something that looks promising. Once they've actually tried it, and found that answer wanting, there's little incentive to go take back the undeserved rewards.
- schrodinger 13y ago
  I usually write the short answer and submit, and then edit to provide more detail to avoid this problem.
- aaronem 13y ago
  The green check mark is worth 25 points, one time, and an asker can reassign it (and the points) if a later answer proves more worthwhile than one already accepted. Every upvote is worth 10 points, and an answer can get upvoted for as long as it exists. If you're playing the game for points, the way to win it is to find questions with lots of Google juice, and then answer them with every bit of correctness and completeness you can possibly muster. This strategy requires patience and discipline, which the "throw off a quick stupid answer as fast as possible" strategy admittedly does not. Over time, though, it's bulletproof, and if you're going to play the game for points in the first place, then I think this is the best way to combine that and actually contributing something worthwhile.
infogulch 13y ago
Paraphrasing: 'the SO system rewards karma based on the quality of answers' Fixed: 'the SO system rewards karma based on the number of people that find an answer useful' The population of people needing answers is heavily biased towards newbies. 100% of new programmers need answers to simple questions. (And only a small fraction of them have learned how to use search Google or documentation properly.) 60% of those never move on to more advanced questions [0]. Therefore advanced questions cannot ever target more than 40% of the total user base, where basic syntax-questions target 100%. It's even worse when you consider that most of the really advanced questions that can generate the most awesome answers are never asked because the advanced users know how to teach themselves and don't need SO. [0] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programm...
- jordan0day 13y ago
  I totally agree with the general gist of your comment, but I think that it's entirely possible to have high-quality answers that aren't necessarily advanced.

CWuestefeld 13y ago

more often than not it seems that quantity is just as important. And it's not hard to see why this is the case -- there's an inherent risk in typing a well thought-out (read: time consuming and potentially long) answer This is what turned me off from SO. The strategy to garner points (at least in the topics I'm expert in) is to lurk waiting for quickly-answered questions. Pounce on these, by entering a rough, approximate answer, so you can score the credit. Then, if you're feeling charitable, go back and flesh it out properly once you've got the karma in your pocket. Time and again I've entered a correct and complete answer, to score nothing because somebody beat me (and I'm a very fast typist, btw) with a quick one-liner that provides little value - and in many cases, hasn't even been completely correct. On more than one occasion, after reading the "winning" answer, I've been left frustrated, thinking "come on, that sample you posted won't even run, let alone do what you claim". I suppose that part of the blame lies with those seeking answers. The user interaction is such that they'll allocate upvotes when they see something that looks promising. Once they've actually tried it, and found that answer wanting, there's little incentive to go take back the undeserved rewards.

schrodinger 13y ago
I usually write the short answer and submit, and then edit to provide more detail to avoid this problem.
aaronem 13y ago
The green check mark is worth 25 points, one time, and an asker can reassign it (and the points) if a later answer proves more worthwhile than one already accepted. Every upvote is worth 10 points, and an answer can get upvoted for as long as it exists. If you're playing the game for points, the way to win it is to find questions with lots of Google juice, and then answer them with every bit of correctness and completeness you can possibly muster. This strategy requires patience and discipline, which the "throw off a quick stupid answer as fast as possible" strategy admittedly does not. Over time, though, it's bulletproof, and if you're going to play the game for points in the first place, then I think this is the best way to combine that and actually contributing something worthwhile.

infogulch 13y ago

Paraphrasing: 'the SO system rewards karma based on the quality of answers' Fixed: 'the SO system rewards karma based on the number of people that find an answer useful' The population of people needing answers is heavily biased towards newbies. 100% of new programmers need answers to simple questions. (And only a small fraction of them have learned how to use search Google or documentation properly.) 60% of those never move on to more advanced questions [0]. Therefore advanced questions cannot ever target more than 40% of the total user base, where basic syntax-questions target 100%. It's even worse when you consider that most of the really advanced questions that can generate the most awesome answers are never asked because the advanced users know how to teach themselves and don't need SO. [0] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programm...

jordan0day 13y ago
I totally agree with the general gist of your comment, but I think that it's entirely possible to have high-quality answers that aren't necessarily advanced.