It just occured to me, that I haven’t asked anything on SO for a while now. It might even be years, the last I asked for help.
Most of the problems I come across were already faced by someone else.
Do you guys feel the same?
When the number one result in Google is a site answering my exact question with “did you try googling it first?” I have no incentive to interact with that site.
i got that once, except it was my exact question with no response at all, then i noticed it was me that posted the question 4 years earlier.
i used to use stack overflow a lot back in 2007/08 but i cant remember the last time i actually got an answer.
I’ve stopped using most corporate message boards and forums since AI hysteria highlighted their greed and self-aggrandizement.
All of them act like they are indispensable and provide value, when their only value is the network effect, and their “products” are entirely user generated and moderated. It’s only a matter of time until they enshittify and rug pull.
“Have you tried formatting your PC and completely reinstalling Windows? That often fixes icon misalignment on the desktop. Please upvote if this helps you!” - every “volunteer Microsoft Support Forum” representative ever.
They all have that same irritatingly obsequious and simultaneously infantile dunning-Kruger customer support agent vibe when responding. Never posted there myself, but all the responses feel like they’re written in that tone.
Ha I once googled some question, found a great answer in some random forum and was like about to write a reply saying what a great answer it was when I realised it was me, like 10 years ago.
Never. Don’t have the patience to gather enough points to ask a question.
Oh, and,
Asking, answering, and editing require no reputation.
Funny story: when SO first started, started answering questions in domains I had experience in. The gamification was fun. After a year, questions got repetitive, so stopped.
A few years later. Googling a tech question. Top answer. Checked. Looks good.
Scroll down. It’s my own answer from way back when.
First time I felt old.
Never. IIRC, I also couldn’t upvote good solutions because I had never posted or something, though I may be mis-remembering.
I’ve never asked a question there. Typically if there’s no quick answer to my question already available, I’ll just dig through documentation.
Most of the responses on that site are toxic, so I tend to avoid it.
So which one are you using ?
By responses you mean to include comments and moderation, not just answers?
It’s sometimes there, but - from the [limited] use I have - I would certainly not qualify them as “most”.
I find SO too pissy to interact with. If I find something useful there, I’ll copy it, but otherwise I ignore it.
What do you mean by pissy? What do you find so pissy?
I would answer your question, but it’s too much like a previous question, that someone else hasn’t answered yet.
Never. For the most part i haven’t had a question that hasn’t already asked or that couldn’t be answered from reading the docs or some other source. For the cases i get stuck i ask the question to a more focused group
I asked and answered a small handful of questions in the mid 20-teens but not really much since. I still wind up finding good answers there on a semi regular basis, though.
I just looked in my profile and my last question was in 2017. I received a holier than thou “what you’re trying to do is wrong” type of response and finally solved it with the help of a coworker who actually cared.
Last time I asked was in 2019. I’ve asked 30+ questions total, only about half of those are ever answered. I’ve found that, the more experienced I get, the less my questions get answered on SO. Usually because my questions are well thought out, explained incredibly well, and the problem isn’t that I don’t understand something. It’s that my problem is one of a kind. E.g. no one else on the planet is having it. So of course I’m not going to get help for it.
yeah… that’s what I realized too.
If you ask basic questions - “google it yourself” … closed!
If you ask anything specific (like in your case) - it’s just crickets
I forgot that last time was in 2023, although the previous one was in 2016. SO had a lot of moderation drama and point-grinders that (imo) led to community becoming more toxic, to the point where it’s not too pleasant for me to participate in.
To be fair, they still have some good answers, and sometimes they can provide a useful answer, but edge-case rare obscure problems that seemed to be the very reason for SO are rarely answered now, as I see it
Never asked one. Answered my first one recently.
It must have been over 5 years ago. It turned me off. The culture there was so painful. People would refuse to answer a question just because they deemed the premise of your question unacceptable. Or even recommend you change your whole project’s language.
It was like that both in questions and in chat. I never tried again.
I think I’ve asked only two or three questions there, ever, and those were on topics obscure enough that the answers ended up coming from me.
There was a time when I answered other people pretty regularly, but that was more than a few years ago. I stopped mainly because I’m not very comfortable giving them free labour so they can be the gatekeepers of community knowledge.
I wonder if anyone is working on a fediverse Q&A platform.
Was somewhat active in the travel section, but left since 90% are now visa questions on how to get into the schengen area.
