6 ms·
The author's main problem stems from his desire to use Stack Overflow as a mechanism for gaining internet points - as is illustrated by his confession that "
by crntaylor 13y ago
The author's main problem stems from his desire to use Stack Overflow as a mechanism for gaining internet points - as is illustrated by his confession that
"I saw a simple Java question, hit Google, read briefly, then
synthesized an original answer."
Why bother? Instead, I use Stack Overflow predominantly for three reasons --
1. To ask interesting questions that I think will get a better answer there than anywhere else (eg [0,1,2]).
2. To help educate other programmers about languages that I like very much, and would like to see in wider use. I endeavour not to just give a "how to do X" answer, but instead explain what the different approaches are, and why some approaches are better than others (eg [3,4,5])
3. To stay in touch and build a reputation among the wider community of Haskell programmers - not by amassing internet points, but by asking interesting questions and giving interesting, thoughtful answers.
If you just game Stack Overflow for imaginary internet points, it's no wonder you don't find it very fulfilling.
[0] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9190352/abusing-the-algebra-of-algebraic-data-types-why-does-this-work http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9190352/abusing-the-algeb...
[1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10753073/whats-the-theoretical-basis-for-existential-types http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10753073/whats-the-theore...
[2] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19177125/sets-functors-and-eq-confusion http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19177125/sets-functors-an...
[3] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11684321/how-to-play-with-control-monad-writer-in-haskell/11684566#11684566 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11684321/how-to-play-with...
[4] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12968351/monad-transformers-vs-passing-parameters-to-functions/12969991#12969991 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12968351/monad-transforme...
[5] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20857165/move-or-copy-in-haskell-vs-c/20859731#20859731 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20857165/move-or-copy-in-...
- agon 13y agoI agree. I view SO in a similar manner as you. Several times I've been able to find explanations of bizarre behavior from different frameworks that weren't listed in the official documentation.
- shortstuffsushi 13y agoThat actually seems to be just the opposite of what he was saying. He stated that he believes this mechanism is broken, to the point that after two years of inactivity, the votes he receives his old answers have kept him in the top 3% of scorers. He's not looking for votes, he's saying it's silly how trivial it is to get them, and also how many points he gets off of a simple LMGTFY answer (your quote), vs how few he gets off a well thought out and explained one (the kernel answer, I believe).
- crntaylor 13y agoMy point is that it's silly to care about how many points you have in the first place.
- Sssnake 13y agoIt doesn't matter how silly you think it is. You don't create a system that reinforces bad behavior and then say "oh, but you should magically turn off your human nature and do the opposite of the what the system teaches you to do". Systems need to be designed to reinforce good behavior, otherwise we get reddit and HN and wikipedia and SO.
- klodolph 13y agoAll systems that reinforce some behaviors reinforce some bad behaviors.
- shortstuffsushi 13y agoI agree with that. Whenever I use the site, the 'description' from "Whose Line is it Anyway?" plays in my head.[0] However, it's the same as any website where there is a "karma" system (like this one for instance ;) ). It feel good getting points, it feels bad losing points. It feels good knowing you have tons, and are in the "Top x% of answerers" or whatever. Do I think that's necessarily the right way to get people to come to your site and answer programming questions? Maybe not (no, I don't really), but it certainly does keep people coming back to the site. That and the fact that it's probably the biggest answer repository on the net. Oh, and here's an upvote for you to show no hard feelings. I believe your general statement is correct, I'm just not sure that's what the author is going for. [0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAGwNtI26w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAGwNtI26w
- VLM 13y agoThe people in charge of where the site "goes" via moderator tools are the people who play the game to accumulate points to get mod powers. What you reward, you get more of. Therefore the site will move in the direction of point collecting game players. Doesn't particularly matter what they "should" do, what the site is designed to do, intentionally or otherwise, rightly or wrongly, is what the site will do. Telling everyone including the people in charge not to do what they are designed to enjoy doing is basically abstinence based sex ed. "Here's something you haven't seen, it's a lot of fun, now don't do it" Good luck with that. Lets say HN karma points were rewarded on the basis of using the F word in posts. I don't think advising people the moral high ground would be to abstain would clean the place up, if the whole purpose of the design is to encourage it. This might actually be a funny April fools joke to think about...
- corresation 13y agoWhile you call out the author, note that the primary motivator StackOverflow offers to users are those very internet points you decry: You can't blame someone for playing to the very mechanics of the site. Would StackOverflow be popular if it didn't have leader boards and reputation points and arrays of expertise-claiming badges? Would people spend their time working on other people's problems if it didn't earn them something they hoped to spin into professional credibility? I suspect no. And of course StackOverflow uses gamification to encourage people to do work for other people, for free. It is no big secret that many users are essentially free labor that do the dirty work of digging through a lot of terrible links on Google to try to find something that answers the question. For those who take advantage of this it is a wonderful resource. There are some supremely excellent questions that through the crowd and wiki-like editing the answer ends up being exemplary. But in the general case it does seem that it allows people to skip the boring work and get groups of people fighting for badges and imaginary credibility to do it for you.
- LanceH 13y agoThere is value in answering questions beyond just the points. A lot of answers require understanding the mechanics of the code and not just getting the right result. Then there is the matter of effectively communicating that to someone else. Last, there is feedback about your answer which further refines your skill. He wants it to be an educational site instead of the much more pragmatic site that it is clearly designed to be. He doesn't have fun working in 2 languages he hates. He thinks that obscure answers that few people care about should count more than answers seen and used by many. "Hey Doc, it hurts when I do this." "Stop doing that." -- He managed to play that out over a couple pages of bloated text and blames the site and not himself.
- moneypenny 13y agoYou still can't deny that the mechanics of the site are somewhat broken - I have answered questions, had the answers upvoted, only to see the question edited by a mod and changing the fundamental question and adding more specifics, at which point my answer becomes incorrect and is downvoted. This is plainly a stupid mechanic.
- mbq 13y agoPoints ain't fully imaginary; they sometimes give top~100 users stickers or t-shirts (;
- melling 13y agoHow many good questions do you see that are "CLOSED AS NOT A REAL QUESTION"? The site is fine for what it is, but there's definitely a market for building a better StackOverFlow.
- stefan_kendall 13y agoStackOverflow seems to have devolved into a bunch of shit questions. Anything too technical doesn't get answered, since the real veterans have left, and anything not technical enough (like an approach to a problem) gets closed. I loved SO in the beginning. Now it's a cesspool.
- mlvljr 13y agothe point on too technical not getting answers -- exactly
- nathan_long 13y ago>> the real veterans have left Evidence?
- orclev 13y agoThere are a few holdouts in certain areas. E.G. there's a pretty active and good Haskell community on SO currently.
- VLM 13y agoThat annoys the heck out of me, because if it truly is not a real question, then the "general masses" of answer authors would naturally agree. Instead some deletionist authoritarian jerk needs to force his idea on everyone else, because obviously no one else is worthy enough to make a judgment. Why feel the need to force what they call the truth on everyone, if it is in fact the truth? Or more likely they're full of it and just enjoy watching the world burn. The worst part is the selection of judges is based basically on who spends the most clock time googling for people too lazy to use google, it has nothing to do with taste or skill or ability or experience. Random selection would be more effective. A site could be designed that isn't based on an anti-social, exclusionary, classist, authoritarian philosophy. The tragedy is it wouldn't look too much different than SO. So close, and yet so far...
- CodeMage 13y ago> The author's main problem stems from his desire to use Stack Overflow as a mechanism for gaining internet points Nope. His argument is that the site encourages its users to behave that way and that this results in several very real, relevant, negative impacts on the usefulness of the site and the quality of the answers (and questions). Your suggestions are not a sufficient solution for the problems he describes.
- thearn4 13y agoIs there any tangible, real-world value to points on Stack Overflow (maybe some form of recognition when applying for jobs), or are they really just imaginary internet points (like reddit karma)?
- atmosx 13y agoSO makes an excellent CV, like github.