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Quota. ?share=whatever That to me sums up the site in its entirety. A content SEO Google cheater that tries to con people into signing up to boost its user num

by junto 12y ago

Quota. ?share=whatever That to me sums up the site in its entirety. A content SEO Google cheater that tries to con people into signing up to boost its user numbers They should have looked to StackOverflow as a good example of how you build a proper community, and more importantly, nurture it. Good ridance.

dozenal 12y ago
Stackoverflow has of a lot of terrible answers that get voted up by people who aren't equipped to evaluate them properly, and closed threads when anyone starts actual substantive discussions. It also suffers from lack of decent rewards for contribution. That's not what I would consider a good community.
- junto 12y ago
  Whilst StackOverflow also has its failings, it isn't deliberately obstructive. It isn't the perfect model but it is certainly a better one.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  Stack Overflow could be better net citizens if they'd stop polluting Google's search results with closed discussions. They're welcome to set whatever rules they want for what's "on topic" or a "good fit". Their site, their rules. No harm, no foul. It's just irritating as hell to waste your time clicking over there from a Google link and finding a closed discussion at the other end. Telling Google to not index a topic would be a minor tweak. If they've found the discussion unworthy, why do they want Google to index it anyway?
  - avn2109 12y ago
    Well, very often I will click through to SO from Google to a closed thread that got downmodded like crazy, but that nevertheless exactly solves my problem in less than a minute from the first answer. Perhaps on some level SO knows this, and also knows that their mods are perhaps somewhat overzealous, and therefore has adopted the current state of affairs as a sort of compromise/duct-tape solution.
    - slantyyz 12y ago
      This. I too, have found so many downmodded questions to have the exact answer I needed for a particular problem. It's by far the most frustrating part of using Stack Overflow. The overzealous modding has had a chilling effect on my desire to ask a question on SO, because nobody wants their question to be downmodded as a stupid or pointless question.
      - DanBC 12y ago
        The overzealous modding is a feature not bug of SE sites. I find some of the moderation really frustrating but it's worse when the people closing threads and answers are also the ones leaving zero-content comments.
      - junto 12y ago
        It would be quite interesting to know which topics you find this happening. I don't tend to see this kind of toxicity on SO. I'm frequenting C# and .NET. Maybe Jon Skeet drags the C# community up to his level!
        slantyyz 12y ago
        I see a lot of this in the web development oriented areas. So mainly in the CSS/JS areas.
- hnriot 12y ago
  this is absolutely not true, stackoverflow is an invaluable resource and what you say might happen very occasionally, but the vast majority of upvoted answers actually helped a lot of people. Despite what you claim as lacking rewards it seems to have thrived and attracted contributions. I don't really care what you consider a good community, or even accept the premise that there needs to be any notion of community. Why attribute labels, the model seems to work just fine.
- mmahemoff 12y ago
  While I also whine about Stack's broken moderation, I still contribute because its heart's in the right place as a site that genuinely wants to help people learn and get answers. The problems you mention are more like implementation details that are subject to ongoing experimentation and can't be changed overnight. The good thing about Stack is anything I write there will be as easily accessed as if I'd posted it on my own blog, not re-purposed as SEO-bait and blurred or hidden until the user signs up. Furthermore, it's licensed under Creative Commons instead of serving as a donation to the site owner. Quora is actually a great site once you're logged-in and I find a lot of the content fascinating, but I also wonder why people continue to contribute to such a closed system.
booruguru 12y ago
> StackOverflow StackOverflow's community is toxic waste compared to Quora. The site is somehow successful despite the founders/community's best efforts to destroy it.
kamaal 12y ago
>>tries to con people into signing up to boost its user numbers I never understood this. As long as there is a infinite supply of free email accounts available. Any body who asks people to sign up merely to read content is just fooling themselves into thinking people are going to supply genuine email id's to read stuff. These days I keep a email id handy for purposes like these. Want me to sign up? Sure why not? But don't expect it to be the id which I use to do serious stuff.

by junto 12y ago

dozenal 12y ago

Stackoverflow has of a lot of terrible answers that get voted up by people who aren't equipped to evaluate them properly, and closed threads when anyone starts actual substantive discussions. It also suffers from lack of decent rewards for contribution. That's not what I would consider a good community.

junto 12y ago
Whilst StackOverflow also has its failings, it isn't deliberately obstructive. It isn't the perfect model but it is certainly a better one.
Turing_Machine 12y ago
Stack Overflow could be better net citizens if they'd stop polluting Google's search results with closed discussions. They're welcome to set whatever rules they want for what's "on topic" or a "good fit". Their site, their rules. No harm, no foul. It's just irritating as hell to waste your time clicking over there from a Google link and finding a closed discussion at the other end. Telling Google to not index a topic would be a minor tweak. If they've found the discussion unworthy, why do they want Google to index it anyway?
- avn2109 12y ago
  Well, very often I will click through to SO from Google to a closed thread that got downmodded like crazy, but that nevertheless exactly solves my problem in less than a minute from the first answer. Perhaps on some level SO knows this, and also knows that their mods are perhaps somewhat overzealous, and therefore has adopted the current state of affairs as a sort of compromise/duct-tape solution.
  - slantyyz 12y ago
    This. I too, have found so many downmodded questions to have the exact answer I needed for a particular problem. It's by far the most frustrating part of using Stack Overflow. The overzealous modding has had a chilling effect on my desire to ask a question on SO, because nobody wants their question to be downmodded as a stupid or pointless question.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      The overzealous modding is a feature not bug of SE sites. I find some of the moderation really frustrating but it's worse when the people closing threads and answers are also the ones leaving zero-content comments.
    - junto 12y ago
      It would be quite interesting to know which topics you find this happening. I don't tend to see this kind of toxicity on SO. I'm frequenting C# and .NET. Maybe Jon Skeet drags the C# community up to his level!
      - slantyyz 12y ago
        I see a lot of this in the web development oriented areas. So mainly in the CSS/JS areas.
hnriot 12y ago
this is absolutely not true, stackoverflow is an invaluable resource and what you say might happen very occasionally, but the vast majority of upvoted answers actually helped a lot of people. Despite what you claim as lacking rewards it seems to have thrived and attracted contributions. I don't really care what you consider a good community, or even accept the premise that there needs to be any notion of community. Why attribute labels, the model seems to work just fine.
mmahemoff 12y ago
While I also whine about Stack's broken moderation, I still contribute because its heart's in the right place as a site that genuinely wants to help people learn and get answers. The problems you mention are more like implementation details that are subject to ongoing experimentation and can't be changed overnight. The good thing about Stack is anything I write there will be as easily accessed as if I'd posted it on my own blog, not re-purposed as SEO-bait and blurred or hidden until the user signs up. Furthermore, it's licensed under Creative Commons instead of serving as a donation to the site owner. Quora is actually a great site once you're logged-in and I find a lot of the content fascinating, but I also wonder why people continue to contribute to such a closed system.

booruguru 12y ago

> StackOverflow StackOverflow's community is toxic waste compared to Quora. The site is somehow successful despite the founders/community's best efforts to destroy it.

kamaal 12y ago

>>tries to con people into signing up to boost its user numbers I never understood this. As long as there is a infinite supply of free email accounts available. Any body who asks people to sign up merely to read content is just fooling themselves into thinking people are going to supply genuine email id's to read stuff. These days I keep a email id handy for purposes like these. Want me to sign up? Sure why not? But don't expect it to be the id which I use to do serious stuff.