I agree with all the points raised, especially about the rampant authoritarianism that crushes earnest, well-intentioned questions by new users (as well as regulars).

Still, Stackoverflow is pretty damn good at what it does: provide answers to answerable questions. It still is a really good source of information with a high signal to noise ratio. Compared to the junk that used to come up on google searches before stackoverflow, we are all in a much better position than we were before.

I do think, however, that if stackoverflow had started with the pendantic, persnickety moderators they have now, it never would have become the resource that it is today.