Stack Overflow announces 28% headcount reduction

Re:Stack Overflow announces 28% headcount reduction by Waterluvian on Monday October 16, 2023 @08:13AM (#37898735)

I was a bit amazed to see this same antisocial behaviour in the gaming stack exchange. “Obviously you haven’t read the manual (for a 20+ year old game) so I’m closing this question.”

Is there something about stackexchange format that accidentally encourages this? I go on various discords (learn piano, javascript, typescript, various games) and the absolute worst treatment I got was nobody replying.

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Re:Stack Overflow announces 28% headcount reduction by Arnt on Monday October 16, 2023 @09:16AM (#37899462)

I don't think it's accidental. The format is strongly optimised for producing question/answer pairs that are later searchable by people who have the same-ish problem. Among other things, this means getting rid of unanswered questions that would otherwise clutter the search results.

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Re:Stack Overflow announces 28% headcount reduction by SAI_Peregrinus on Monday October 16, 2023 @12:01PM (#37901787)

Yep. SO wants to be a wiki, but in Q&A format. Its rules are designed not primarily to be a Q&A site, but rather a searchable knowledge base. But the interface is largely designed around making it look like a Q&A site, and this conflicting purpose causes a lot of the negative interactions (IMO).

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