this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
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[–] ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Stack Overflow has been nearly useless as anything other than an archive of old questions for a long time. It's a case study in how gamification can backfire.

For me it was over was before the peak as shown. The gamification that got it started in the first place eventually led to it becoming almost unusable for its intended purpose. Instead it functioned as more of an online-only augmented reality game where people worked to moderate away new questions as efficiently as possible rather than actually answer questions.

[–] delmain@beehaw.org 0 points 1 month ago

Exactly, and the data shows that too. The number of questions were falling ever since the 'game' of the site became being able to shut down new questions with a variation of "this is a duplicate" in the exact mix of mean/demeaning/dismissive that would get the most clicks.

[–] inari@piefed.zip 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

People were so rude there, we shouldn't mourn its end

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Indeed, they were the OG powertrippingbastards

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 0 points 1 month ago

Going to have to go much further back than that to find the OGs. Bastards have been power-tripping since long before the internet even existed.

[–] vividspecter@aussie.zone 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Right, but there isn't really a good alternative, as shitty as it is. And I don't think relying on slop generators is a good alternative

[–] ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org 0 points 1 month ago

There are lots of good alternatives, just nothing that mirrors Stack Overflow's goal exactly. Lemmy instances, subreddits, forums like code ranch, platforms like dev.to, etc.

[–] jcolag@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It needs more traffic (and that'll require better servers and more moderation with training to make sure that it doesn't follow the same arc) to become a standard place to go, but I've become fond of Codidact. If I remember correctly, the founder left Stack during one of their bigger moderation blow-ups.

[–] Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I wouldn't say "left"; she was fired for requesting clarification. I also recommend Codidact for asking new questions!

[–] jcolag@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 month ago

Thanks for the reminder! I probably knew that at one point, but with so many Free Software/Culture organizations lighting themselves on fire over the past year or so, they start to all blur together...

[–] someone_01@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 month ago

Apocalyse sign...

[–] modeh@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Tried using StackOverflow back in my college days and was confronted by a barage of people practically telling me I am stupid fuck in subtle and not so subtle ways. I am sure people on there being rude and demeaning didn't help their case.

[–] dropdrip@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well... were they correct? Did you graduate?

[–] modeh@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Graduated summa cum laude...no thanks to them. I dedicated my degree to all the random Indians who had STEM related topics on youtube. Those guys dragged my ass throguh college for sure.

[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 0 points 1 month ago

I dedicated my degree to all the random Indians who had STEM related topics on youtube.

This is the most relatable thing I've read all week. No way in hell I would have graduated had they not dragged me by my feet screaming through the math courses. For all of YouTube's faults, those videos are true gems.

I also ended up relying quite a bit on random old lectures from professors who can actually teach. No idea what schools they were lecturing at, but I wish the one I was at had more professors like them. Instead, they were all research professors who were being forced to lecture (or grad students in the same boat).

[–] anotherandrew@lemmy.mixdown.ca 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I rather liked stackoverflow, and was fairly popular in the electronics one. I never found it overly rude, but there absolutely were certain individuals who were.

I mourn its inevitable passing; I haven’t found anything that worked as well as it did, and the fact that you can get the data dumps is awesome.

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I did like browsing the Popular page and diving into interesting questions in the various sub-sites. One sad, under-discussed consequence of AI is that people no longer turn to each other for expertise (since the AI knows it all), which previously brought people together into communities like SO.

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 month ago

What made it inevitable in your opinion?

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Silver lining of the AIpocalypse, honestly. That place could be pretty awful.

*Closed and marked as duplicate of [deleted].

[–] mpdarkguy@piefed.world 0 points 1 month ago

Why ask when You can search? If You don't find it, then you probably thought about the problem the wrong way!

I was only ever taught to search. Asking was for the class

[–] RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I asked a handful of questions there and allways got really nice answers. Does it matter that people need less help these days?

Seems good to me that AI can take care of the easy questions.

[–] Kissaki@programming.dev 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A popular book doesn't receive new pages either.

Maybe Stack Overflow is "complete" or "stable"? :)

[–] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 month ago

This is the issue.

It wanted to be a repository of knowledge. People used it like a forum. Instead of capitalizing on that disconnect by having a place for those questions they just shut it down, which alienated many people.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Might be worth a preservation effort.

[–] jcolag@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 month ago

I forget whether it's through the data page or somewhere else, but I gather that they've always made it pretty straightforward to grab the questions/answers/comments. For a while, web searches were a mess, because of all the fly-by-night outfits syndicating all conversations with SEO trickery to sell ad space.

[–] TroublesomeTalker@feddit.uk 0 points 1 month ago

There's a kiwix archive of it out there somewhere.

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 1 month ago

Or worded more positively: Stack Overflow is closer to being complete.

[–] Trincapinones@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago

Didn't Stack Overflow sell their own data to AI companies before the crash?

[–] Yeller_king@reddthat.com 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The graph shows me that Chatgpt had almost nothing to do with the stagnation and decline.

[–] Quexotic@beehaw.org 0 points 1 month ago

Maybe it was all the assholes.

[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 month ago

they got what they wanted