Timeline for Stack Overflow technology makes me write bad answers
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 31, 2023 at 12:16 | comment | added | Karl Knechtel | The technology does hinder - or at least, it fails to help in a very simple way: keep questions closed until they've been checked to meet the site standards. FGITW are fast in large part because they don't care about those standards, and because it only takes one person to write an answer but multiple to judge it as close-worthy (plus they have to be convinced to put in that effort). | |
| Mar 20, 2017 at 10:31 | history | edited | Community Bot |
replaced http://meta.stackexchange.com/ with https://meta.stackexchange.com/
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| Jul 15, 2015 at 23:43 | history | edited | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
quick-and-dirty is now second to an unclear answer, I guess that's progress (thanks Firelord)
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| Apr 24, 2014 at 13:45 | history | edited | Community Bot |
Migration of MSO links to MSE links
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| Mar 15, 2013 at 8:16 | comment | added | Mark Hurd | +1 for "An answer isn't just for the asker: it's for life." | |
| Mar 11, 2013 at 22:13 | comment | added | user7116 | @Gilles: I don't disagree, except forums and blogs are where you typically find the long winded teaching to fish. SO is a focused form of teaching to fish, which does not mean the accepted answer has to be anything more than tossing a fish at their head. You've conflated the two usages of SO: (1) solve the OP's problem (if we didn't care about this we wouldn't have a checkmark), and (2) solve the next OP's problem. {my comment was addressed to the "confusion" about short answers getting checkmarks} | |
| Mar 11, 2013 at 22:00 | comment | added | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | @sixlettervariables Help the OP, help one person. Help future visitors, help many. Stack Exchange is based on the idea of helping future visitors. If it wasn't, we'd delete questions with an accepted answers. If you want forums, you know where to find them. Even for the OP, teach him to fish, don't just toss a fish at his head. | |
| Mar 11, 2013 at 0:48 | comment | added | user7116 | The reason why short answers win is simple, the OP needs to solve a problem. Long answers help would-be OP's, not the current OP (typically). | |
| Mar 10, 2013 at 23:36 | comment | added | Adam Rackis | Seriously? Yeah, I have a bit of experience on Stack Overflow. Most questions on SO are simple. Brevity is the soul of wit, so if you type up a long-winded diatribe to someone having trouble removing nodes with jQuery, your answer deserves to be ignored at the bottom of the pile. But, some rare questions are intelligent, and subtle, and I've always seen the robust answers they attract, whether written by Eric or someone else, rise to the top. | |
| Mar 10, 2013 at 23:35 | history | edited | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 254 characters in body
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| Mar 10, 2013 at 23:31 | comment | added | Lance Roberts | +1 for "if you've written a good answer, you'll be able to recycle it elsewhere: copy large swathes or link to it in other Stack Overflow answers". Re-use is good, and the work put into a good answer can often be used again. | |
| Mar 10, 2013 at 23:14 | comment | added | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | @AdamRackis Have you ever been on Stack Overflow? Of course they do. Eric Lippert posts are the exceptional high-profile case; you need to make yourself a household name to get that kind of attention on long posts. For mere mortals, or for Jon Skeet for that matter, it's the quickies that provide the most reputation per minute of time spent writing, by a wide margin. | |
| Mar 10, 2013 at 22:57 | comment | added | Adam Rackis | But do they tend to get undeserved upvotes? I think this guy is living proof that the community knows how to reward quality. | |
| Mar 10, 2013 at 22:56 | comment | added | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | @AdamRackis No, I'm disappointed because a large proportion of the latter kind result in quickie answers that are far worse than the question deserves. | |
| Mar 10, 2013 at 22:51 | comment | added | Adam Rackis | I think there's a false dichotomy here. Plenty of us just enjoy answering questions, and provide an answer that's as long as needed to any given question. Most questions on SO don't require a long diatribe—just some code and a concise explanation. And then there are those rare gems that call for an intelligent, detailed explanation. It seems like you're just disappointed by the relative paucity of the latter. | |
| Mar 10, 2013 at 22:31 | history | edited | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 238 characters in body
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| Mar 10, 2013 at 21:34 | history | answered | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | CC BY-SA 3.0 |