Maybe you are the only one who appreciates it. I sure don't.
I'll have a question, I'll google it, be excited to when Google finds that someone else has asked the exact same thing, and then disappointed to find that it was asked on StackOverflow, where the Red Guards will inevitably have discovered an interesting question and taken steps to make sure it isn't answered. Hint to SO mods: it's not the question that is "unhelpful", it's you.
While Google manages to sort through the unbelievable chaos of the entire open Web to bring up the most relevant answer to any question on any topic in a fraction of a second using the latest 21st Century search algorithms, SO goes at it from the other direction, making sure so few questions are answered that what remains won't overwhelm its 1980s-era MS-DOS search technology.
I appreciate Joel's letting us use his vintage '486 to gather the world's biggest collection of code snippets, but I'm hoping someone with less primitive technology will replace SO with a system focused more on providing answers than on preventing questions.
I'm not sure what kind of questions you normally have, but I didn't really have much trouble getting answers from StackOverflow. It's no accident that when Google "sorts through the unbelievable chaos of the entire open Web to bring up the most relevant answer to any question on any topic in a fraction of a second using the latest 21st Century search algorithms", the first link is almost always StackOverflow ;)
Also I think it's pretty impressive that Joel managed to make the website run smoothly on a vintage 486.
The chief problem is that once you have a question going and are getting answers, if it's deemed "not suited for SO", you're SOL. That question can't be moved to some "off-topic" forum, because there is no off-topic forum, because the entire platform is not a forum. I feel this situation can be resolved simply by making an unsuitedfor.stackexchange.com, declaring it not part of the official model (i.e. basically a gimped forum) and moving all non-factual questions there.
Comments
Maybe you are the only one who appreciates it. I sure don't.
I'll have a question, I'll google it, be excited to when Google finds that someone else has asked the exact same thing, and then disappointed to find that it was asked on StackOverflow, where the Red Guards will inevitably have discovered an interesting question and taken steps to make sure it isn't answered. Hint to SO mods: it's not the question that is "unhelpful", it's you.
While Google manages to sort through the unbelievable chaos of the entire open Web to bring up the most relevant answer to any question on any topic in a fraction of a second using the latest 21st Century search algorithms, SO goes at it from the other direction, making sure so few questions are answered that what remains won't overwhelm its 1980s-era MS-DOS search technology.
I appreciate Joel's letting us use his vintage '486 to gather the world's biggest collection of code snippets, but I'm hoping someone with less primitive technology will replace SO with a system focused more on providing answers than on preventing questions.
I'm not sure what kind of questions you normally have, but I didn't really have much trouble getting answers from StackOverflow. It's no accident that when Google "sorts through the unbelievable chaos of the entire open Web to bring up the most relevant answer to any question on any topic in a fraction of a second using the latest 21st Century search algorithms", the first link is almost always StackOverflow ;)
Also I think it's pretty impressive that Joel managed to make the website run smoothly on a vintage 486.
The chief problem is that once you have a question going and are getting answers, if it's deemed "not suited for SO", you're SOL. That question can't be moved to some "off-topic" forum, because there is no off-topic forum, because the entire platform is not a forum. I feel this situation can be resolved simply by making an unsuitedfor.stackexchange.com, declaring it not part of the official model (i.e. basically a gimped forum) and moving all non-factual questions there.