/var/log/mind - Latest Comments in StackOverflow is SpiritUnderflow - A plea to not deprioritise content and spirit

Re: StackOverflow is SpiritUnderflow - A plea to not deprioritise content and spirit

lvs — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:51:34 -0000

A song would definitely help people like me make sense of this tough topic.

Re: StackOverflow is SpiritUnderflow - A plea to not deprioritise content and spirit

dnene — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:57:59 -0000

@shariff,

Very apt observations. I largely concur. The only remark I would still make is that even under the app objectives and and format, there is a potential for a much greater spirited discussions.

Re: StackOverflow is SpiritUnderflow - A plea to not deprioritise content and spirit

shariff — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:33:44 -0000

So to summarize this post in 2 lines, these are the 'cons' of StackOverflow:
1. the information architecture is not brilliant
2. the discussions lack of spirit
For 1, that's a personal opinion, which I share, but eh that's a new service, it's difficult to get everything right the first time, especially if you can't afford to work with a great IA. (Aside: I am not in favor of an alternative skin though, they should rework the real estate of the elements on the page for everybody's sake.)
For 2, let's have a look at why a developer would want to interact with another developer in the first place:
- share some useful findings/information
- express an opinion / learn about other people's opinions
- ask for help when you struggle with something / help back
My theory is that there is a shift where blogs are increasingly used to fulfill the first 2 actions. Because, with blogs like yours, developers express themselves with a richer medium and at the same time they follow opinions and experiences of peers they esteem (avoiding the joy of trolls and so on). Now remains the 3rd action which still happens in forums but StackOverflow fulfills this task specifically and with effectiveness, as said Anjo. So, again IMO, the lack of spirit has a correlation with the voting system but it is not a cause-effect relation, the nature of the app itself is the real cause.

Re: StackOverflow is SpiritUnderflow - A plea to not deprioritise content and spirit

Anjo — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:56:15 -0000

StackOverFlow is just unbeliveably good. There is nothing that beats it in effectiveness and resource consumption (I'm talking about humans too).

Re: StackOverflow is SpiritUnderflow - A plea to not deprioritise content and spirit

FYI — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:11:21 -0000

no stackoverflow is a blow hard site

Re: StackOverflow is SpiritUnderflow - A plea to not deprioritise content and spirit

dnene — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:43:10 -0000

I agree it is focused more on q&a. But there are still threads that can call for some spirited exchange of views. Even under such situations, it just seems to be an extraordinarily civil bunch of programmers. This is definitely not the programming community I have seen for the past 15+ years. Its rare to see any animation in the responses. The responses by the way are extremely informative and thats why I still like to go to the site. Its just that I get a feel that the overall importance to voting and points and badges etc. just seems to be so much high, that everyone is making that extra attempt to be a little well behaved .. a good outcome but with some (at least to me) undesirable side effects. Thats why I said it seems like a busy place of worship (thats one of the places we are the most restrained and well behaved but also sometimes least spontaneous and natural .. at least I am).

Re: StackOverflow is SpiritUnderflow - A plea to not deprioritise content and spirit

washort — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:00:02 -0000

Stackoverflow isn't a discussion site, though: it's an answers site. The idea is to produce pages that address a particular problem so that future programmers can find them more easily. Discussion is important only to the extent that it produces better answers.