Its been a dead end a long time.
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Programming
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In my opinion SO has been replaced by forges discussions/issues. Whenever I have an issue with some library or piece of software, I will always check their repo to see if someone is going through the same thing or how they solved it.
When I tried to engage with SO it was a pain in the ass so I just stopped answering/asking.
A lot of people seem to be celebrating this, but I personally think this is a net negative for programming. Are people actually replacing SO with talking to LLMs? If not, where are they going?
I've seen an uptick in people using places like discord to get help. But that's not easily searchable and not in the same format that it is in stackoverflow. SO was meant to organize these answers to make asking questions easier. Now it seems like we're walking away from that, and I can't quite understand why. Is it really because SO is "toxic"?
I'm finding most of what I'd ask on SO can be asked on the tools GitHub issues. If a product doesn't offer a support form or GitHub issues it doesn't get used for me.
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My favourite closed question is how to do Case-insensitive string comparison in C++ - closed as opinion based!
ChatGPT helped, but this is why you died StackOverflow.
The question asks for "the best" way to do it (making it opinion based) and forbids a potential solution without explaining why (it's clearly some kind of assignment, but that doesn't matter here). And it has plenty of answers both using Boost and in pure C++, so I'm not sure why that wasn't enough for you. Just because it's closed doesn't mean the answers already provided are bad.
By that measure basically every StackOverflow question asking how to do something is opinion based - the very nature of the site is questions asking for the best solutions. The "opinion based" rules is NOT meant to prevent questions like this. This is the kind of useless pedantry that killed StackOverflow.
I think it comes from a fundamental disconnect. You have something like:
- People ask questions like "which programming language is best" or "what's the best game engine" or "should I use tabs or spaces"?
- Someone decided they didn't want StackOverflow being used to debate these things, so they made a rule against opinion-based questions.
- People later come along and blindly apply the rule to ban anything that is worded as if it is an opinion, even if it's a perfectly suitable question.
not sure why that wasn’t enough for you
I never said it wasn't; just that it shouldn't have been closed.
Just because it’s closed doesn’t mean the answers already provided are bad.
Again, I never said otherwise. The point is it shouldn't have been closed.
Topic already covered here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5301389/how-to-use-exception-stack-trace-after-process-dead
Closing thread due to similar question already being answered.
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Do not resurrect a closed thread with unsupported emojis. User has been warned.
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It's because all the questions have already been answered. How many times can you answer how to reverse an array in javascript?
This is exactly what I came here to say. They are militantly against duplicates. Doesn't that mean on a long enough timeline the number of new questions have to eventually reach zero?
I use stack overflow every day and have for years. I have never once had to ask a question.
... ... How do you reverse an array in Javascript?
marked as duplicate. closed.
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I gave up on it when they decided to sell my answers/questions for AI training. First I wanted to delete my account, but my data would stay. So I started editing my answers to say "fuck ai" (in a nutshell). I got suspended for a couple months to think about what I did. So I dag deep into my consciousness and came up with a better plan. I went through my answers (and questions) and poisoned them little by little every day with errors. After that I haven't visited that crap network anymore. Before all this I was there all the time, had lots of karma (or whatever it was called there). Couldn't care less after the AI crap. I honestly hope, that I helped make the AI, that was and probably still is trained on data that the users didn't consent to be sold, little bit more shitty.
Yeah the AI without consent thing killed it for me, too. Shame we couldn't totally tank the whole site with poisoned answers.
While I find the site so helpful, humans that help AI like the team at StackOverflow did deserve to be on the losing end.
I am absolutely not above cutting off my nose to spite my face.
This is a level pettiness I can only aspire to.
Bravo.
I guess the main issue here is that we let some group "own" all of the questions and answers, giving them the opportunity to sell it whenever they wanted to cash out.
Maybe a better solution is some kind of decentralized version of StackOverflow that prevents one person from owning everything. Something like Lemmy and Mastodon, but for questions and answers specifically.
How do you sort through the trash though?
The thing about SO is there really is a ton of poorly phrased or poorly researched questions asked each hour. So, how do you find quality questions to dedicate your time answering? How do you search QA when there's a number of similar questions asked?
That's the thing StackOverflow was trying to solve.
There's millions of people with programming questions that think their problem is unique or they simply don't understand how to research their issue, so you end up with a ton of bad or duplicated questions.
Yeah, that's a fair point. After I posted my previous comment, I realized it probably wouldn't work since the entire point of SO was to create canonical answers to canonical questions. But how do you decide what "instance" gets to have the canonical answer to a given question? Having a central authority host everything makes it a heck of a lot easier.
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Good. StackOverflow is toxic, while I was in school I would ask questions that were “obvious” I guess. I’d get told that I’m dumb (didn’t get those words but it was implied) when trying to ask for clarification. Then I got banned from posting anymore questions due to downvotes. Like imo how can you learn if people shun you for asking questions?
Reddits programming community was more welcoming and kinder than the stuck up folk on SO.
It's mainly a different model, but I totally sympathize that it's the opposite of welcoming or encouraging.
SO recognizes that many, many questions are really just rephrasings of the same underlying question, and the aim is to find and provide the best answer to those. It explicitly does not want to repeatedly answer the same question, and given how few people find out how it works before simply asking, they have to be pretty ruthless about it. The result is that usually the most active and fleshed out questions and answers are very informative. So there's a big upside in trade for those downsides. Answers are meant to be durable, ~singular, and authoritative.
Reddit is basically halfway between that, and Discord. Discord is the polar opposite, questions and answers are naturally ephemeral, duplication happens constantly, and quality of responses is all over the map.
I greatly prefer the StackOverflow model, and - to be very clear - I have never once asked (to say nothing of answering) a question of my own there, lmao.
I get that, in my case it was stuff I couldn’t find and even if it’s something that was already asked it tended to be slightly different than what I wanted causing more confusion still lol
Yeah, it's certainly not a perfect model :) and I will absolutely acknowledge that some folks seem to delight in their own smugness and knowledge and seem to enjoy opportunities to shit on someone. The way the platform works probably amounts to a certain "gravity" pulling those personalities in, TBH.
Yeah the issue then becomes trying to understand how else it could be phrased or what the underlying mechanism is to truly understand how to ask the proper question (or find the proper answer), I find LLMs helpful in those instances as it can help me get to the root of whatever issue more easily then trying to wade through the ocean of information online.
To be honest. (although I am guilty using chatgpt way too often) I have never not found a question + an answer to a similar problem on stackoverflow.
The realm is saturated. 90 % of the common questions are answered. Complex problems which are not yet asked and answered are probably too difficult to formulate on stackoverflow.
It should be kept at what it is. An enormous repository of knowledge.
I disagree. I still easily find new questions to ask, for example this one which is a nice demonstration of why StackOverflow is dying. Or this one (which also received 4 downvotes).
Even so, I definitely go to ChatGPT first now. Now that we finally have an alternative to the toxic downvotes/closing, why would I go there unless I absolutely need to?
That is a good example. If you aren't already aware you might be interested in ntfs-3g, the GPL-2.0 licensed ntfs driver - the function ntfs_upcase_table_build in libntfs-3g/unistr.c may be of some assistance
Oo thanks!
This is a huge reason for the question decline! All the easy stuff has been answered, the knowledge is already there. But people are so used to infinite growth that anything contrary = death lol
People also blame ai, but if people are going to ai to ask the common already answered questions then… good! They’d just get hurt feelings when their question was closed as a dupe
Yeah, the article seems to assume AI is the cause without attempting to rule out other factors. Plus the graph shows a steady decline starting years before ChatGPT appeared.
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I'd wager that most new questions are in cutting-edge tech. Older tech will be saturated.
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There's no one thirstier than someone with a coding question.
To the surprise of absolutely no one. Tends to happen when you cultivate one of the most tixic online spaces on the net. I've never asked a question on SO, but just the verbiage used to accost people just trying to learn is just insane. Mods don't really care about post content as long as its not perceived as "hostile," so you can be generally as passive aggressive and shitty as you want. It's just...weird.
You can find especially viperis content when you find a question which has been answered, but someone is just like "Well, this isn't the way that I do it!" etc, and then go on a tirade about how the question was asked poorly and the answer doesn't completely answer the question.
Shit is just wild.
I asked a question on there about Apache Poi. Then no one answered it so I found a solution and answered it myself. Must've stayed relevant because I fielded a few questions about it for years.
Then they took my account away, I think maybe because I didn't confirm my identity after a big breach? Then I looked for my Q/A and it was attributed to someone else. I was hot about it for a minute and then realized I didn't care and was finally free from being the expert in that one niche thing I've never done since.
I use SO daily and never seen anything like you describe there. All I see is that incorrect answers are down voted. I don't know, maybe I just don't pay attention to the "verbiage". I look at the code sample and move on. In the end, it's not a forum. I'm not there to read opinions.
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I think it'll make a comeback eventually. LLMs will get progressively less useful as a replacement as its' training data stales. Without refreshed data it's going to be just as irrelevant as the years go on. Where will it get data about new programming languages or solutions to problems in new software? LLM knowledge will be stuck in 2025 unless new training material is given to it.
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looks like an opportunity for the fediverse
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