Yes. Stack overflow is a place where you can get knowledge from experts for free. The people that complain about the moderation being toxic generally think they are entitled to expert’s time without putting in any effort themselves and would drastically degrade the utility of the site if they got their way.
Here’s the thing - Stack Overflow replaced existing non-corporate less shitty places on the Internet where we experts shared knowledge for free. Stack Overflow quickly got so bad that many experts stopped sharing, but only after disrupting existing sharing communities.
People who remember what came before have a right to be angry that SO embraced and extinguished the free (and advertising free) forums and IRC channels that came before it.
(I admit SO was better in many ways. But it also killed off something more resilient. I hope we can someday rebuild some of what we had, outside of the long corporate line-must-go-up shadow. I don’t know if we will or not.)
Yes. Stack overflow is a place where you can get knowledge from experts for free. The people that complain about the moderation being toxic generally think they are entitled to expert’s time without putting in any effort themselves and would drastically degrade the utility of the site if they got their way.
Here’s the thing - Stack Overflow replaced existing non-corporate less shitty places on the Internet where we experts shared knowledge for free. Stack Overflow quickly got so bad that many experts stopped sharing, but only after disrupting existing sharing communities.
People who remember what came before have a right to be angry that SO embraced and extinguished the free (and advertising free) forums and IRC channels that came before it.
(I admit SO was better in many ways. But it also killed off something more resilient. I hope we can someday rebuild some of what we had, outside of the long corporate line-must-go-up shadow. I don’t know if we will or not.)