I'll grant you that there are many high quality answers / discussions at SO. I also have no problem asserting that SO is infested with karma whores. They also have terrible moderation, and chippy pithy users with all manner of unproductive discussion habits. In other words, they suffer the same types of faults as other forums. I'm glad for you that you that you've had a positive experience on SO, obviously some users do; so have I, to the extent that I don't bother engaging in discussion, but rather just use the place to find the answer I want, and then just leave as soon as I am done with my research. As far as the anecdotes in that HN thread I posted earlier go, jfc isn't alone, there are pages of similar anecdotes in the same thread in addition to plenty of similar criticism elsewhere in the internet.