I've been with SO since the very early days when Joel and Jeff were very involved. In the first few years, I visited daily because it was like a community of developers working together to help each other in a professional yet cheerful fashion. Now that Joel and Jeff aren't as involved (if at all), its like the focus of the site has changed. As many have said, moderators appear too stringent. So much to the point of removing value from the site. Removing value removes users. I now rarely visit SO because it doesn't feel like a group of developers wanting to help it's community. Asking a question has almost become a provocation of hostility from either moderators or 'answerers'. There are many controls to limit the asker. Perhaps controls should be put in place to limit negative answerer sentiment or moderator dominance or SO could lose it's place in the developer community.