Why StackExchange will eventually fail – Control-Freak-ism | Hacker News Reader

Why StackExchange will eventually fail – Control-Freak-ism

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13 pointsnsoonhui16 comments

I love stack overflow, I love the idea, etc. What I don't like, and what I think is the real problem, which the author gets at, is that the site is becoming more and more fragmented. Programming is a very broad topic and it drives me NUTS when I post a question on SO, and get several replies telling me its more suitable for another SE site, then eventually someone decides to close it and I have to find the other site to re-ask. More effort gets put in by the control freaks to tell you what stack overflow is for and that you're wrong for posting your question there than to actually just answer it in the first place.

Yeah I was thinking about this. The obvious counter-example where control-freakism works is wikipedia. But it works there because there is only one wikipedia, and it is supposed to be about anything that's important. So there's no fragmentation, and there's no higher ambition for the site creators.

Stack Overflow is a great site, but I don't see the value of a federated series of sites for all manner of topics... at least not on a mass scale. I get the feeling that SO was just a bit too easy for Joel and Jeff, what with the sad state of the competition, and their mindshare amongst the target audience. So they needed to find a bigger challenge. I guess more power to them in their entrepreneurial efforts, but I think success will be elusive.

"there is only one wikipedia, and it is supposed to be about anything that's important. So there's no fragmentation ..."

There is fragmentation. See Wookiepedia, for one, where Star Wars fans have a different idea of what "important" means.

anyone can open a new wikipedia clone, they're not all centrally controlled

People on the main wikipedia site aren't going to tell you to go post your Star Wars article on the Star Wars-specific spinoff wiki site though are they?

Absolutely. I searched Deletionpedia (pages deleted from Wikipedia) for "Wookiepedia" and easily found that "Force Lightning" was deleted. One of the reasons for deletion (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion... for discussion) was "this is precisely why we have outlets such as Wookiepedia for this sort of stuff." The page on Wookiepedia is http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Force_lightning .

Today I posted a simple non-programming question on Quora after I skimmed an article by MG Siegler espousing its greatness. Ten hours later and I still don't have an answer.

The same thing happens to me with Stackoverflow. Sometimes I get argumentative answers but most of the time I get no answer. Maybe I am an idiot but I think sites like this will fail when they are overwhelmed by people who have questions but aren't necessarily in the position to contribute back themselves (hey we are busy!)

The utility in these types of sites is the range of questions that will be archived and served off search results for years to come.

StackOverflow is my first port of call when I run into a programming problem that I can't solve. I've started mucking around with Unity 3d (a game engine) and was quite relieved when I found a solid StackExchange forum for the engine.

The main complaint I have about StackOverflow is how the reputation system negatively affects peoples' behaviour. Although the net effect of the system is very positive, I find that people rush to answer easy questions to get some up-votes. If they take too long to craft a detailed answer, they miss out. Answers to difficult questions take longer and get less views and up-votes, so people don't bother trying.

Many of the questions that show up on StackOverflow can be answered with a quick google. They only serve to dilute the quality questions and answers, and cheapen the reputation system. I also get the impression that people who couldn't be bothered to google a question first also couldn't be bothered responding to the comments and answers that they get.

Having said that, StackOverflow is still the best programming forum for languages that I use and I don't see it failing any time soon.

Control issues never struck me as significant, either on SO or Area51, and I have trouble buying the argument that correcting typos and merging similar sites are unnecessary and evidence that Jeff,Joel, and the site's users are control freaks. On the other hand, I'm surprised he didn't bring up the Community Wiki police.

The most common thing I hear about SO lately is along the lines that all the questions worth asking have been asked, or are esoteric enough that the quality/quantity of answers is low, and few points are given - if anything kills those sites, I'd imagine that'd be it. There seems to be a diminishing ROI for time spent on the site, and scores seem to be fairly biased toward those who spent time on the site early on. Maybe other subjects won't have this issue.

My takeaway:

"StackExchange did something I didn't like, so I'll write a blog post about why it will fail for (get this!) the exact same reason why it did the think that I didn't like. What are the chances?!?!"

"If I wanted people editing my words, looking down at me, and deciding to change stuff, I’d start a wiki. as is, my answers are my own, and they reflect my mood, and my typos. and if they want me ot fix them they should ask me."

Sounds like the author is suffering from exactly what he is accusing Joel and Jeff of.

He admits it's likely.

control freaks are all around us – I’m one probably

If you put your name to a comment on a public website, there should be some guarantee that nobody else can edit your words to say something that you didn't say and maybe disagree with. An editorial feedback system would be a more respectful way to achieve the same result.

Disclaimer: I've not spent much time on SO so I don't know how this feature works. If the comment is clearly marked as having been edited by a more senior member, that would mitigate somewhat.

Comments (on both questions and answers) cannot be edited by anyone except the author, but can be made at any time.

Questions and answers can be edited by anyone with enough rep, and a clear and detailed edit history is shown, including the names of all those involved. Anyone with enough rep or the author himself can also roll back any edits with two clicks.

It works very well, in my experience. I don't know what anyone is complaining about.

Moreover, editorial feedback on how the website works can be done on a "meta" site that is linked with the stack site in question.

The title says StackExchange, but the article is about StackOverflow...

The article appears to cover both StackOverflow (programming community) and StackExchange (community sites using Stack software).

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