After 16 years, we're renewing the StackOverflow Brand(meta.stackexchange.com)
meta.stackexchange.com
After 16 years, we're renewing the StackOverflow Brand
https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/408823/after-16-years-we-re-renewing-the-brand
80 comments
Clearly. Hence the “they feel like ads but we need them”
Crazy how much I used SO for so long and yet how happily i switched to Reddit and LLMs 100% and haven’t once look back. Over the years it became a place to fear posting since their no matter how much you researched before posting you’d be met by an army of people noting it’s posted in the wrong place and off topic and closed and then years later you see it incredibly voted up for being so helpful. Changing the brand seems like rearranging chairs on the titanic or worse, on the bottom of the ocean.
Yep, I was learning C++ and could not understand an example in one of Stroustrup's books, so I posted a query asking for help, giving my thoughts and confusion.
I was roundly berated for not reading carefully enough, until one lonely soul piped up and said that actually there was a typo in the book's example code.
I'm only a hobby programmer and the experience wasn't encouraging.
I was roundly berated for not reading carefully enough, until one lonely soul piped up and said that actually there was a typo in the book's example code.
I'm only a hobby programmer and the experience wasn't encouraging.
Anecdote mostly checks out, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42876061/c-single-quotes...
The question was answered in 1 hour. There are a few useless comments but it's not too bad.
> I'm only a hobby programmer and the experience wasn't encouraging.
I have come across elitist communities like on SO, also regarding C++. I was downvoted and told to intentionally be spreading misinformation by using the word 'struct', because as you should know, in C++ there are only classes... I haven't encountered that kind of vitriol when I asked beginner questions about how loops work, on 4chan out of all places.
But there were also times where I spent hours with people chatting on IRC while learning, where people were forgiving and encouraging.
In both places however, it seemed to be unfathomable for people that someone was trying to learn to program, not because they had to because of school or uni.
I have come across elitist communities like on SO, also regarding C++. I was downvoted and told to intentionally be spreading misinformation by using the word 'struct', because as you should know, in C++ there are only classes... I haven't encountered that kind of vitriol when I asked beginner questions about how loops work, on 4chan out of all places.
But there were also times where I spent hours with people chatting on IRC while learning, where people were forgiving and encouraging.
In both places however, it seemed to be unfathomable for people that someone was trying to learn to program, not because they had to because of school or uni.
I’ve had people complain that, and I kid you not, my answer was obviously answered by combining the content of two specific pages in different reference books. Which, honest to God, made me wonder what _was_ a valid question.
I had a similar bad experience not with posting but with answering questions.
Some overly-zealous mod came and edited (!!!) what i wrote because they didn’t like the wording. No swear or any kind of trouble involved, they just didn’t like the words i used.
Picking the specific words, besides merely answering questions, is quite literally what makes me me and what makes someone else someone else, in a text-only community.
I never replied any other thread since then and never posted again. Whatever I write can be edited according to what random person somewhere thinks is better.
Going to extreme: if some mod decides to edit my comments to include racial slurs, that’s entirely within the realm of possibility.
I do not play that game.
No wonder they’re getting crushed by ChatGPT and other LLMs.
Some overly-zealous mod came and edited (!!!) what i wrote because they didn’t like the wording. No swear or any kind of trouble involved, they just didn’t like the words i used.
Picking the specific words, besides merely answering questions, is quite literally what makes me me and what makes someone else someone else, in a text-only community.
I never replied any other thread since then and never posted again. Whatever I write can be edited according to what random person somewhere thinks is better.
Going to extreme: if some mod decides to edit my comments to include racial slurs, that’s entirely within the realm of possibility.
I do not play that game.
No wonder they’re getting crushed by ChatGPT and other LLMs.
I often used to edit to format text (code formatting and text walls + typos).
I would never touch the wording though.
I would never touch the wording though.
Yeah, i understand that you act in good faith, but having the possibility to be framed by some random mod putting words in my mouth is a risk not worth taking.
I don’t post or reply on stackoverflow.
I don’t post or reply on stackoverflow.
There is a full history of changes.
Of course if you do not trust SO itself to not delete this history (mods cannot do it) then yes, that's a problem.
Of course if you do not trust SO itself to not delete this history (mods cannot do it) then yes, that's a problem.
The volunteer paradox. Don't build a business model around labor that is:
- Competent
- Selfless
- Free
After having used all three (SO, Reddit, LLMs), they each have their place. SO is the base layer for LLM training, providing a highly dense continuing training corpus for LLMs. There are individual questions on SO that have been explored over ten years. In contrast, Reddit archives threads rather quickly, killing the discussion. SO should remain a tightly-organized place for the elite, whereas Reddit is more suited for diverse and less-organized expression.
Same here. I used SO for a good 15 years but almost none today. The people are so toxic that it does not make any sense.
If you go to meta you can witness a zoo of psychopaths.
This is in high contrast with many of the Stack Exchange sites where people are lovely and very helpful.
If you go to meta you can witness a zoo of psychopaths.
This is in high contrast with many of the Stack Exchange sites where people are lovely and very helpful.
I am downvoted but I do not know why.
The usual argument about SO hard core approach is that there is so much crap in questions that people who want to answer are fed up with this. This is a fair comment, but if someone made the effort to get 100+k of rep by asking and answering questions, it would be worthwhile to pay a second of attention to what they wrote.
Otherwise it would be better to just say that only elitist questions are allowed, at least if would be clear.
And as for Meta - well you need to go there and dare to ask a question and you will see. The most infuriating downvotres and comments are "people are making about that twice a week for years" → wouldn't it be time to step down from the ivory tower and realize that sione people are constantly asking for something (toe be there on not be there) it may mean that there is an issue? Downvoting the ones who ask is certainly not going to help.
The funny thing is that I am, and the moderators are, volunteers. We ask and answer questions. But it seems like we owe something to SO and we should not dare to raise comments. This is how a company dies.
The usual argument about SO hard core approach is that there is so much crap in questions that people who want to answer are fed up with this. This is a fair comment, but if someone made the effort to get 100+k of rep by asking and answering questions, it would be worthwhile to pay a second of attention to what they wrote.
Otherwise it would be better to just say that only elitist questions are allowed, at least if would be clear.
And as for Meta - well you need to go there and dare to ask a question and you will see. The most infuriating downvotres and comments are "people are making about that twice a week for years" → wouldn't it be time to step down from the ivory tower and realize that sione people are constantly asking for something (toe be there on not be there) it may mean that there is an issue? Downvoting the ones who ask is certainly not going to help.
The funny thing is that I am, and the moderators are, volunteers. We ask and answer questions. But it seems like we owe something to SO and we should not dare to raise comments. This is how a company dies.
I will never, ever understand why they closed their jobs portal, and I wonder if they are regretting this now, since their core business is eaten up by LLMs. The job portal was pretty great and back then we got by far the best hires through StackOverflow. I think it was one of the success stories of SO and there were definitely opportunities for growth.
Such an awful decision. I had good interactions via SO jobs too; what a shame, it could have been so much more.
Craigslist made 9 figures annually from job and real estate listings.
So they are "renewing the brand", appointed a committee but the post does not mention anything concrete at all apart from AI FOMO.
Stackoverflow's problem is that they did not push back on AI right from the start. Instead, they launched hundreds of surveys where they tried to extract from developers that they want AI.
Well, they don't. People don't like their free work under the Creative Commons License to be sold to "Open"AI under a partnership.
Is the recent lockdown with captchas designed to grant "Open"AI a monopoly over the stolen Creative Commons contributions? Is that the goal of the rebranding?
Stackoverflow's problem is that they did not push back on AI right from the start. Instead, they launched hundreds of surveys where they tried to extract from developers that they want AI.
Well, they don't. People don't like their free work under the Creative Commons License to be sold to "Open"AI under a partnership.
Is the recent lockdown with captchas designed to grant "Open"AI a monopoly over the stolen Creative Commons contributions? Is that the goal of the rebranding?
Do they still upload data dumps?
I did a whole writeup of this situation a few months ago: https://search.feep.dev/blog/post/2025-02-20-state-of-stacke...
TLDR: it seems like they don’t want to, but there was enough uproar when they tried to stop that they reluctantly brought them back, behind a dubious clickthrough agreement which asserts “should I distribute this file for the purpose of LLM training, Stack Overflow reserves the right to decline to allow me access to future downloads.”
TLDR: it seems like they don’t want to, but there was enough uproar when they tried to stop that they reluctantly brought them back, behind a dubious clickthrough agreement which asserts “should I distribute this file for the purpose of LLM training, Stack Overflow reserves the right to decline to allow me access to future downloads.”
> most decisions are developer-focused, often alienating the wider Network.
Actually you've been alienating the developers for years and no rebranding will fix that.
Actually you've been alienating the developers for years and no rebranding will fix that.
I don't understand the post, to be honest. It seems they wrote a book to announce that they will install a new logo and an updated design.
They are asking the community to get involved in the process, but don't exactly tell them how. Possibly because they aren't interested in their opinion, but just want to keep them busy to keep up the appearance that they truly care. I guess so that the backlash is smaller when they actually roll it out.
My personal opinion of stack overflow is, that they're past their summit. The community is toxic. Questions get closed or down voted for subjective reasons. I've been a big fan of especially the serverfault community. It was small enough to feel familiar, friendly, and questions were not met with a harsh tone. It felt like building a reputation there was worthwhile.
I don't feel like that anymore, and for a long time. The community also changed. When before, my correct answers would get accepted or at least upvoted, more and more often Questioners don't care anymore. That is not StackOverflows fault, but it still keeps me from investing the time to answer questions if I don't even get a thank you in return.
Now the community takes a friendly tone with this post, but it just feels like a layer of pretense, from an enterprise that doesn't care about anything than the money. It's fair enough, but not enough to really impact me.
I just don't care any more.
They are asking the community to get involved in the process, but don't exactly tell them how. Possibly because they aren't interested in their opinion, but just want to keep them busy to keep up the appearance that they truly care. I guess so that the backlash is smaller when they actually roll it out.
My personal opinion of stack overflow is, that they're past their summit. The community is toxic. Questions get closed or down voted for subjective reasons. I've been a big fan of especially the serverfault community. It was small enough to feel familiar, friendly, and questions were not met with a harsh tone. It felt like building a reputation there was worthwhile.
I don't feel like that anymore, and for a long time. The community also changed. When before, my correct answers would get accepted or at least upvoted, more and more often Questioners don't care anymore. That is not StackOverflows fault, but it still keeps me from investing the time to answer questions if I don't even get a thank you in return.
Now the community takes a friendly tone with this post, but it just feels like a layer of pretense, from an enterprise that doesn't care about anything than the money. It's fair enough, but not enough to really impact me.
I just don't care any more.
Take my upvote, I couldn't have said it better myself.
No matter how much research and debugging you did in advance, no question can be formulated correctly. That is also partially SO's fault for making it impossible to link other things on the web, and the text length limit, and the trigger happy mods closing new threads etc.
It's a wrongly designed game at this point that benefits monopolization of abuse of power instead of being a welcoming community.
No matter how much research and debugging you did in advance, no question can be formulated correctly. That is also partially SO's fault for making it impossible to link other things on the web, and the text length limit, and the trigger happy mods closing new threads etc.
It's a wrongly designed game at this point that benefits monopolization of abuse of power instead of being a welcoming community.
I stopped going to StackOverflow years ago as it was always a case of the question I needed answered was always closed with the reason of being a duplicate of something subtly different in a very important way that made the answer completely useless to me.
Exactly, what they need is not a rebranding but a hard look at theit practices.
I guess SO was quite useful for providing a lot of training material for technical question answering for LLMs? I don’t think they got compensated for it so that is a bit sad.
In terms of my use, most questions and answers either were low quality, the question was a bit off of what you really wanted to know, or if it was a problem that required discussion or opinions, a ”real” hobbyist forum was better.
While at some point I felt like I (tried to) look up everything from SO, I now basically never use it anymore, but thanks for all the fish!
In terms of my use, most questions and answers either were low quality, the question was a bit off of what you really wanted to know, or if it was a problem that required discussion or opinions, a ”real” hobbyist forum was better.
While at some point I felt like I (tried to) look up everything from SO, I now basically never use it anymore, but thanks for all the fish!
> I don’t think they got compensated for it so that is a bit sad.
I'm pretty sure the people who posted answers weren't doing it in the expectation of getting paid.
I'm pretty sure the people who posted answers weren't doing it in the expectation of getting paid.
I stopped checking StackOverflow around 2014-15 because a lot of the answers/solutions were just wrong, as if they were copied and pasted in by the submitter without being tested. makes sense that it would be pulled into an llm
I wish them the best, it was a great resource when I first started working when my options were trawling through the folder of msdn CDs and later a paid subscription to expertsexchange.com.
Joel and Jeff were also the first blogs I would check weekly for updates. Whatever way it ended up it was a great resource for a long time and helped a lot of us.
I wish them luck.
For myself, I no longer find utility in the site. I now use LLMs to do what I used to use SO for, and find them to be far more useful.
I am aware that a lot of that usefulness, is because the LLMs trained on SO content.
For myself, I no longer find utility in the site. I now use LLMs to do what I used to use SO for, and find them to be far more useful.
I am aware that a lot of that usefulness, is because the LLMs trained on SO content.
> LLMs trained on SO content
Ongoing via OpenAI licensing of SO API live feed.
Ongoing via OpenAI licensing of SO API live feed.
That post has very little substance. ‘We’re rebranding to… something, stay tuned!!”
It should be locked due to lack of detail.
It should be locked due to lack of detail.
What I really liked was the job board, as it had interesting opportunities for engineers that actually care.
Never been a fan of the way questions/answers were managed.
Never been a fan of the way questions/answers were managed.
> [job] opportunities for engineers that actually care
Were those job listings from SO contributors, rather than HR departments?
Were those job listings from SO contributors, rather than HR departments?
I have an amusing anecdote to share. It's definitely related to your question but, anecdotes being what they are, I'm not presenting it as any form of final word on the matter.
I got my current job through the SO job board. When I applied, the first person to reply to my application was the technical lead of the role. He was also deeply involved in my hiring process, present at even the HR interview.
He was also very hands-on (in a good way) during my onboarding. In one of the first actual technical tasks he set me on, I was doing the usual SO research when I happened upon an important caveat with an orange amount of upvotes in one of the answers' comments. It was posted by my technical lead.
Our hiring practices have changed since. We now have the usual indirection layers of "Talent Acquisition Consultants". From what I know of the company now, posting on SO Jobs was very likely the initiative of my first TL.
----
I've always had the impression that most of the non-$BIGCORP posters on SO Jobs were there because they had a certain affinity for engineering. I've been to other interviews from companies posting there and while I didn't always end up talking to a technical committee, even the "usual headhunters" were surprisingly[1] technically-literate. Maybe I just got lucky. Maybe it was the zeitgeist of the 2010s. Most likely a combination of both.
Though I'm still pretty satisfied with my current job, I was genuinely disappointed when they shutdown SO Jobs.
[1] "surprisingly" is carrying a lot of YMMV-weight in this statement.
I got my current job through the SO job board. When I applied, the first person to reply to my application was the technical lead of the role. He was also deeply involved in my hiring process, present at even the HR interview.
He was also very hands-on (in a good way) during my onboarding. In one of the first actual technical tasks he set me on, I was doing the usual SO research when I happened upon an important caveat with an orange amount of upvotes in one of the answers' comments. It was posted by my technical lead.
Our hiring practices have changed since. We now have the usual indirection layers of "Talent Acquisition Consultants". From what I know of the company now, posting on SO Jobs was very likely the initiative of my first TL.
----
I've always had the impression that most of the non-$BIGCORP posters on SO Jobs were there because they had a certain affinity for engineering. I've been to other interviews from companies posting there and while I didn't always end up talking to a technical committee, even the "usual headhunters" were surprisingly[1] technically-literate. Maybe I just got lucky. Maybe it was the zeitgeist of the 2010s. Most likely a combination of both.
Though I'm still pretty satisfied with my current job, I was genuinely disappointed when they shutdown SO Jobs.
[1] "surprisingly" is carrying a lot of YMMV-weight in this statement.
I had a aimilar situation with SO Jobs, but I was the technical lead, but it was very similar. I was able to manage the listing, was involved throughout the hiring and onboarding process. Within his first year, he ended up finding one of my answers on SO as well.
Definitely disappointing they shut down the job board, because the quality of candidates was higher than any other board we've used since.
Definitely disappointing they shut down the job board, because the quality of candidates was higher than any other board we've used since.
Nope. It worked like other sites where you pay a fee and they host your job listing. The one difference was that the "Joel Test" was part of each post.
Early on, the job posts were low volume, high quality. I assume this was because it was only SO users who thought to advertise there. But over time, they built a sales team and ended up with the same posts as everyone else.
Early on, the job posts were low volume, high quality. I assume this was because it was only SO users who thought to advertise there. But over time, they built a sales team and ended up with the same posts as everyone else.
I am not aware how the job board submissions worked.
First thing they need to do is get rid of the 'accept all cookies' pop up that sits in the lower left corner and consumes a quarter of the page. I'm still learning Linux and many of my search results end up there...and I can't tell you how annoying that is.
Install ublock origin and enable one of the filter lists available. I don't remember exactly which one does the cookie notices, you might have to research that. Might be called something like EasyList Cookies.
> What else? We would love to know any pain points with our brand you have felt over the years.
“please -anyone- validate our Marketing team’s existence.”
“please -anyone- validate our Marketing team’s existence.”
Agree. Feels like grasping at straws. I imagine the company viability is at risk and they are panicking about what to do.
Looks at what your users actually care about, not at how much garbage you can get away with before alienating all the users. You tried that and the answer is that you alienated almost all the original users.
I understand the need to be paid. Do something creative. The ads for paid stuff seems lazy. I imagine the incentives are aligned with “clicks” and not actually delivering value to users in terms of the ads.
Yeah, I don’t understand these long posts about brand. Does anyone care why they’re changing their brand? Does anyone care what they (SO) think their brand even is?
Deleted my account many years ago when it became clear that I was the product.
I used to be a major contributor on Superuser then one day the SO team had a competition to ship a reasonably decent spare graphics card to the most worthy requestor, based on a community vote.
I won in behalf of my young son, whose graphics card had just expired, but when the SO folks noticed I was in the UK, they decided shipping the card to me was too much effort and didn't send it.
That's when I decided my knowledge and free input would be better appreciated elsewhere and I quit. That was perhaps 12-ish years ago and I think I've been back a handful of times just out of curiosity.
I won in behalf of my young son, whose graphics card had just expired, but when the SO folks noticed I was in the UK, they decided shipping the card to me was too much effort and didn't send it.
That's when I decided my knowledge and free input would be better appreciated elsewhere and I quit. That was perhaps 12-ish years ago and I think I've been back a handful of times just out of curiosity.
Wow.
Were they actually prohibited for some reason from shipping to UK? I’d like to hear their side but how they handled it does seem dumb
Edited.
No, Jeff just changed his mind and decided that sending a card abroad was problematic.
Found it: https://meta.superuser.com/questions/3720/three-free-video-c...
No, Jeff just changed his mind and decided that sending a card abroad was problematic.
Found it: https://meta.superuser.com/questions/3720/three-free-video-c...
Pretty silly. I doubt it was an insurmountable problem to get a video card through UK customs
I like to read the Code Golf Stack Exchange: https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/
While I don't know how well it generalizes, pages like this can't be replaced by LLMs, and still contain instructive technical content. There are certainly other little islands like this.
LLMs have probably forever replaced the "how do I center a button" type questions, but there are still lots of things they can't do that needs a human asking and answering.
While I don't know how well it generalizes, pages like this can't be replaced by LLMs, and still contain instructive technical content. There are certainly other little islands like this.
LLMs have probably forever replaced the "how do I center a button" type questions, but there are still lots of things they can't do that needs a human asking and answering.
I'm assuming every SO question and answer has been scraped or sold. What value does it have anymore?
They have tried to license content, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40302792
Ooh, it’s the ”softening the blow ahead of dramatic and expected to be highly controversial changes” writeup! I think many have seen the writing on the wall, and it’s too bad.
We love AI as SO replacers today, as they have an unprecedented way of customizing the solution to people’s situations, but AI is built on the shoulders of… Well, overly moderated Q&A communities among others… And I think we still need them as ”engines” on the web.
We love AI as SO replacers today, as they have an unprecedented way of customizing the solution to people’s situations, but AI is built on the shoulders of… Well, overly moderated Q&A communities among others… And I think we still need them as ”engines” on the web.
Hard situation to be in this post-LLM era, but a rebrand would probably not help at this point. The comments here tell a lot, the negative sentiment is quite strong in general.
Maybe this was it for them, but I would still want to appreciate what SO did for the global programming community (especially for people who have less means to access high quality information / education). Thanks!
Now on-prem Stackoverflow, (SO for teams?) now THAT is a cancer that should be killed.
Maybe this was it for them, but I would still want to appreciate what SO did for the global programming community (especially for people who have less means to access high quality information / education). Thanks!
Now on-prem Stackoverflow, (SO for teams?) now THAT is a cancer that should be killed.
The brand is still pretty dead. The antisocial strict community there deterred more conversations than they helped, and they are not asking those people to change.
Ya, because a new brand is what they need.
A million years ago, stack overflow was something special. It’s still useful for figuring out things you really should have known but don’t, though LLMs are much better, since you can actually ask them questions rather than just try to search for someone else who asked a question like yours.
But for anything nontrivial, the site sucks because a nontrivial question can almost always be framed as being “a lot like” some other, more trivial question, but the question you need answered is in what way is it different from the obvious.
Somehow, LLMs are better at understanding your question and delivering a relevant topic than SO mods.
But for anything nontrivial, the site sucks because a nontrivial question can almost always be framed as being “a lot like” some other, more trivial question, but the question you need answered is in what way is it different from the obvious.
Somehow, LLMs are better at understanding your question and delivering a relevant topic than SO mods.
> What else? We would love to know any pain points with our brand you have felt over the years.
The fact that multiple times I want to provide a very valuable answer that solves a problem for someone, but I cannot because of their very silly reputation system. I am stuck at 41 points, and cannot answer until I hit 50, and I find its impossible to get above that.
So why would I go to your site if I cannot help?
The fact that multiple times I want to provide a very valuable answer that solves a problem for someone, but I cannot because of their very silly reputation system. I am stuck at 41 points, and cannot answer until I hit 50, and I find its impossible to get above that.
So why would I go to your site if I cannot help?
Thanks for the announcement that at some indeterminate point in the future you will announce a rebranding. I'll take that under advisement, this is very worthwhile information.
My latest interaction with Stack Overflow?
A perfectly reasonable question with 34 upvotes locked by a power tripping moderator.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79062092/how-does-chrome...
Still need an answer.
A perfectly reasonable question with 34 upvotes locked by a power tripping moderator.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79062092/how-does-chrome...
Still need an answer.
That is not an example of a power tripping moderator, it is a moderator doing their job. The question is bad.
The message is telling you something is going to happen. You already figured out what that something is. You already figured out you are not in the 1% on which it is being tested. You are asking whether something that doesn't affect you somehow affects you anyway. The included screenshot tells you how to test what it otherwise would have done.
The message is telling you something is going to happen. You already figured out what that something is. You already figured out you are not in the 1% on which it is being tested. You are asking whether something that doesn't affect you somehow affects you anyway. The included screenshot tells you how to test what it otherwise would have done.
This is the exact attitude that has killed SO.
Given someone felt the need to ask, clearly they didn't know what appears to be obvious to you.
Try Perplexity next, it provides a direct answer to your question: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-does-chrome-s-new-third...
I have a mild level of hostility towards their brand due to the level of pedanticness on Stack Overflow. I think they've fostered an unwelcoming, hostile and elitist community that acts brashly to shut down legitimate questions, with a high rate of erroneous closings. I think the harm of letting these questions play out would be close to 0, I do not buy the argument that they're making it easier for folks to find the one canonical answer to each question.
I think there's only so much oxygen on the 'net for a help site centered around programming. I think to some extent it's a zero sum game and we've been stuck with the local maxima of Stack Overflow, where the nature of social media network momentum has prevented a competitor from forming and overtaking them. I don't necessarily want them to fail or anyone to lose their jobs, but I am happy that LLM's have arrived and replaced my usage of their site. I'm sure a lot of folks love StackOverflow, and it does provide real value, but I'd bet a disproportionately high number of people feel similar to me because of the way they operate that site.
I think there's only so much oxygen on the 'net for a help site centered around programming. I think to some extent it's a zero sum game and we've been stuck with the local maxima of Stack Overflow, where the nature of social media network momentum has prevented a competitor from forming and overtaking them. I don't necessarily want them to fail or anyone to lose their jobs, but I am happy that LLM's have arrived and replaced my usage of their site. I'm sure a lot of folks love StackOverflow, and it does provide real value, but I'd bet a disproportionately high number of people feel similar to me because of the way they operate that site.
> I have a mild level of hostility towards their brand due to the level of pedanticness on Stack Overflow.
Pedantry
Pedantry
I see what you did there. :)
I saw "Meta" at the top and thought they'd bought them :-o
Does anyone really care?
They still provide database dumps for analysis and offline use (Kiwix), https://archive.org/download/stackexchange/
https://kiwix.org/en/look-at-us-we-took-stack-overflow-offli...
> Stack Overflow is used offline in locations like The Ice Cube Lab, a remote research station at the South Pole and the world’s largest neutrino detector. “We constantly work on scripts, a lot of Python code.There’s always something that doesn’t work. That’s when Stack Overflow comes in handy,” says Ralf Auer, the Ice Cube Data Center Manager.
https://kiwix.org/en/look-at-us-we-took-stack-overflow-offli...
> Stack Overflow is used offline in locations like The Ice Cube Lab, a remote research station at the South Pole and the world’s largest neutrino detector. “We constantly work on scripts, a lot of Python code.There’s always something that doesn’t work. That’s when Stack Overflow comes in handy,” says Ralf Auer, the Ice Cube Data Center Manager.
And adding Cloudflare captchas everywhere.
[deleted]
Changing Brand blah blah blah. Seeems they hired a Brand executive and they want to work their magic but the message is tone deaf.
SO’s target market is developers looking for help with their coding problems. LLMs are a superior interface.
If one is answering a new question, SO is hostile in actively marking it as dupe. Or the Q never gets answered.
No amount of brand dancing will get to the root problem.
SO losing its core audience because it doesn’t do a good job of serving them.
SO’s target market is developers looking for help with their coding problems. LLMs are a superior interface.
If one is answering a new question, SO is hostile in actively marking it as dupe. Or the Q never gets answered.
No amount of brand dancing will get to the root problem.
SO losing its core audience because it doesn’t do a good job of serving them.
Stackunderwhelmed
A King has his reign and then he dies. It's inevitable
How they prioritized that list is exactly how they have prioritized their operations.