> SO decided you needed to earn the privilege of posting a question by answering questions posed by others
This is false. You can post both questions and answers without any rep.
How people get the basics of SO wrong and still have such a strong opinion on how it works baffles me all the time.
Oh I'm wrong. You get all of ONE karma point to use for either a question (that will get closed) or one answer. Earning karma is fundamentally impossible for anyone who isn't living on SO.
You were wrong. Accept it, don't be so toxic.
I'm sorry, when did I ask you for tone-policing? You seem to be taking any criticism of SO as overblown, and your comments are dismissive of how many user's post of how they felt they were treated on SO.
No, I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy. Complaining about SO in the way you're doing it is quite ironic.
Re:The Fall of Stack Overflow
by baud147258 on Monday July 31, 2023 @07:03PM
(#36950064)
> SO could have been a place where someone could post a question, and a decent search algorithm could offer answers from previously answered questions
It already does that, though. The current iteration of the 'Ask question' page finishes with box proposing existing questions
SO could have been a place where someone could post a question, and a decent search algorithm could offer answers from previously answered questions; if it was a unique question then it could be opened to answers. Instead, SO decided you needed to earn the privilege of posting a question by answering questions posed by others. That right off the bat excludes a ton of people who don't have the time to wait for a question in their domain, and answer it before 1000 other people.
Sure, it's the Eternal September for tech sites. Comes with the territory. If you don't want people to visit your site (and contribute moderation and content for free), be hostile to new users. Reward aggressive closing of questions. Sure is a good way to drive away anyone but the most pedantic control freaks.
I used to refer people to SO when they would come to me with a question I couldn't answer, (I even have an SO t-shirt hanging in my closet) but now I'd only do that to my worst enemies.