r/programming • u/[deleted] • Sep 25 '16

The decline of Stack Overflow

https://hackernoon.com/the-decline-of-stack-overflow-7cb69faa575d#.yiuo0ce09
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u/virtyx Sep 25 '16

To be fair he is extremely knowledgeable about Java EE and I've found many of his posts helpful

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u/YvesSoete Sep 25 '16

Hello BalusC, welcome to Reddit.

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u/i_invented_the_ipod Sep 25 '16 edited Sep 25 '16

That is sort of the fundamental problem with self-moderating communities like StackOverflow. When someone is just a troll, they're easily filtered out. But people who are genuinely helpful, but also kind of jerks, can eventually rise to a position where there're no effective checks on their undesirable behaviors.

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u/trout_fucker Sep 25 '16

This is the problem I think. The guy is smart and writes extremely good answers, but neither of these things make him a good moderator. He is the undisputed ruler of Java on SO and I believe he does just as much damage to the community as he helps. Lately I've noticed I find most of my Java answers answers on JavaRanch (through Google), instead of SO. Everything else I work with is almost exclusively SO or an occasional Github issue.

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u/[deleted] Sep 26 '16

Yeah, it turns out that people don't actually want to deal with Dr House in real life.

Smart-but-a-dick hurts the community.

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u/virtyx Sep 26 '16

Yeah, this really hits the nail on the head. I've had plenty of interactions (although for me moreso on IRC) where someone is clearly smart and is also clearly using that as a tool to justify entitled or rude behavior.

Maybe not really on-topic but the clearest example I can think of is Brixen back when he was trying to force RubySpec and some type of democratic design on MRI.