this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Stack Overflow has seen a substantial decline in traffic over the last year that appears to be accelerating. https://observablehq.com/@ayhanfuat/the-fall-of-stack-overflow

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[–] shagie@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

https://stackoverflow.com/tour

With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed, high-quality answers to every question about programming.

There's a call out to quality of answers... which has implications for the quality of the questions.

Focus on questions about an actual problem you have faced. Include details about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.

Make note of the use "exactly what you are trying to do". When people are asking about what are you trying to do and the nature of the question... that's part of it.

Not all questions work well in our format. Avoid questions that are primarily opinion-based, or that are likely to generate discussion rather than answers.

Not everything is suited for the Q&A format that Stack Overflow uses. It isn't a help desk - it's a Q&A site that is trying to build a repository of information.

Further reading: https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/06/13/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand/

In March 2010, we rebalanced our reputation system to favor answers. While we value good questions (and asking a great question is absolutely an art), we want to explicitly encourage people to provide the best possible answers. Without people interested in providing good answers, the questions are moot. We know that answers have more intrinsic…

...

That’s why we’re determined to keep question quality high, even at the cost of refusing a little sand. It’s true that you can’t have Q&A; without questions, but having the wrong sorts of questions is far more dangerous. The fastest way to kill any Q&A; site is to flood it with low-quality questions. I think Mark Trapp summed it up best in this meta answer:

And an announcement of Stack Overflow: https://blog.codinghorror.com/introducing-stackoverflow-com/

It is by programmers, for programmers, with the ultimate intent of collectively increasing the sum total of good programming knowledge in the world. No matter what programming language you use, or what operating system you call home. Better programming is our goal.

The emphasis on "good" is in the original too.


It may be that your question isn't one that fits the site format well. That should be ok - there are many other places to ask questions. Stack Overflow is poorly designed for many types of questions in an effort to optimize its utility for being a repository of knowledge for people to search and find answers without having to ever ask a question.