We consider questions one by one, just like on the first day SO opened (yes I was there), and the really idiotic ones are downvoted once or twice with their grey headline signaling to everybody who knows the mores of the land 'stay away'.

Everybody who isn't interested in more generic questions, recommendations for libraries, opinions etc stays away from those threads and everybody lives happily ever after.

What is more important is what shouldn't be done - pages and pages of rules and exact definitions of what is and is not worthy of being a question, with a bunch of language lawyers (who, by the way, for the most part have very little content knowledge yet don't let that stop them from having an opinion on everything) spending ungodly amounts of time combing through the details of every post to judge what does and does not conform to the all mighty 'rules'.

I have several times had people with no knowledge (judging from their comment history) and much less time on the site than I have, jump on questions or answers that didn't fit their mindlessly rigid mental image of 'how things should be' and actually detract from the usefulness of the question by their whining about formatting, phrasing of questions, how other content is linked etc.

'Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds', illustrated nowhere as dramatically (and saddeningly) as on Stack Overflow.

I'm way more bitter than I should be over something I rationally should just shrug of. But dammit every time something good pops up, the idiots take over after 2 or 3 years. Most Usenet groups, Slashdot, BoS forums, this site - tragedy of the commons, it's perfectly rational and explainable, I understand how and why, and still I hate when it happens, every time.

I was also right there from the beginning - before, in fact, since I listened to the podcast when it was just an idea Jeff and Joel were discussing. I remember them dealing with issues such as scope and clearly expressing a desire for it not to be too broad.

You're right, though - it can get far too pedantic. anywhere you have a subjective rule, that's a danger, I'm afraid. I don't use SO anywhere near as much as I used to, so I'm not a good judge of quality over time, but I still find great answers there 99% of the time, so it's definitely getting more right than it is wrong.

I was also there at the beginning (the beta). And both of you are right. I don't use SO much now either. Really, the only time I see it is when it pops in a search. And then, the question/solution is usually closed.

What I don't get is I've seen questions that were answered closed? Why close any question that's been marked as answered?

I would buy you hacker news gold for this rant. So true.

I don't see why this was downvoted. I don't necessarily agree with you, but there was nothing objectionable or even necessarily logically wrong with what you've said.

Nobody "has it in for you". You are exemplifying the poisonous, high-handed attitude which the rest of this thread is talking about, which tends to completely ruin forums for asking technical questions: you assume by default that the user is wrong and that the appropriate way to open the interaction is to build a case for the prosecution, even though 99% of the time a question about bash will be about programming (not e.g. 'who is the author of bash'). That's why you've taken a beating on score here. The internet points don't matter, but please reconsider the way you approach question

I fail to see what he's done that's so awful. He noted that SO was designed a certain way, for a specific purpose. There was nothing poisonous or high-handed about what he wrote. I don't see how you can say that.