Timeline for answer to What we learned: Insights from the discussion on closed (and potentially useful) questions on Stack Overflow by l4mpi
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| May 12, 2025 at 14:51 | comment | added | l4mpi | @EmmaBee also my personal pet peeve, editor questions, specifically, visual studio code questions. Way too many of them boil down to a bug in VSC or some plugin which means the best answer SO can give is "open a bug report" or "don't use that plugin"; not useful and obsolete once patched. I've recently seen one which was asking about a minor visual issue in a repl, like, the prompt had two sets of square brackets around it instead of one. That felt more like a social media post than a real question, OP didn't have an actual problem but wanted to ask about that weird thing they saw... | |
| May 12, 2025 at 14:44 | comment | added | l4mpi | @EmmaBee the comments by user1937198 below Colleen's answer are a good starting point. Defining what is HQ enough is not always easy, but for many LQ questions it's simple and often boils down to OP being out of their depth. E.g. Qs answered in chapter 1 of any coding book, errors solveable by reading and understanding the error message, questions missing critical parts of the code or error message, "please do my (home)work" requirement dumps, etc. Often those posts at best help one person and are then obsolete and thus not fit for a knowledge repo (but may do harm by muddling search results). | |
| May 9, 2025 at 14:32 | comment | added | EmmaBee Staff | @l4mpi another musing for today, after reading Colleen's answer, that I would like to pose back to you: I wonder if we really have a shared definition of what “quality” means here (company < > community and community member < > community member), or if part of the challenge is that we might need to start by clarifying that together. Do you mind sharing your definition of high and low quality above? | |
| May 8, 2025 at 21:04 | comment | added | EmmaBee Staff | Appreciate the added thoughts! On friction: it's a good reminder that not all friction is bad, sometimes it’s protective and valuable. The challenge, though, is finding the right kind of friction, enough to ensure questions are well thought out, but not so much that it discourages participation altogether. It's a delicate balance, but ultimately, I do see the shared goal of keeping Stack Overflow a valuable space for high-quality content while still encouraging the right types of contributions. | |
| May 8, 2025 at 13:15 | comment | added | l4mpi | @EmmaBee I added a section addressing various points from your comments. | |
| May 8, 2025 at 13:15 | history | edited | l4mpi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 8, 2025 at 5:14 | comment | added | EmmaBee Staff | I've updated the post to fold in your framing question, @l4mpi. | |
| May 8, 2025 at 5:13 | comment | added | EmmaBee Staff | @Anerdw Thanks for clarifying. I absolutely agree that “catering” by lowering standards isn’t the goal, and quality must remain priority. Your point about unapproachability stemming from poor communication of the quality-first model is important, AND I hesitate to say "better onboarding" is the complete solution to unapproachability. It IS 100% PART of it. But it also seemed clear from the discussion that systemic factors, like closure policies, rigid rules around what's allowed also contribute to hesitancy for all users, even those who may know how to write questions. A little of this & that. | |
| May 8, 2025 at 3:22 | comment | added | Anerdw | @EmmaBee It's not so much the "day 1" part that makes me worried; it's the "catering." One of the big reasons why this site is "unapproachable" is because we try not to cater; we downvote, close, and edit low-quality questions regardless of how new the user is because quality is the number one priority on this site. I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing; the unapproachability comes in great part from communication about the quality-first model (as well as what "quality" even means). When the problem is communication, onboarding pops out as a great way to promote approachability. | |
| May 8, 2025 at 2:58 | comment | added | EmmaBee Staff | Of course, thanks for jumping in @Anerdw! The language of "catering to day 1 questions" is me quoting from l4mpi’s answer above, who is quoting another Stack Overflow user. I’m trying to unpack what’s meant by "the focus on approachability." I think the tensions I raised, like experienced or skilled users feeling hesitant to post, unsure whether their question will get closed, are part of what I mean by "approachability." Onboarding can help new users, but there may be an inherent question about how welcoming or approachable the platform feels across experience levels, not just new users. | |
| May 8, 2025 at 2:24 | comment | added | Anerdw | @EmmaBee If I may interject - when I think about approachability, it's usually in the context of onboarding. The language of "catering to day 1 questions" is worrisome; the point isn't to lower our standards so much as teach new users how to meet them successfully. A lot of the how-tos are locked behind Help Center articles or Meta FAQs, where new users will never even see them. Better onboarding - something like what Codidact has, maybe - might help new users write better-received posts without compromising quality. | |
| May 8, 2025 at 1:32 | comment | added | EmmaBee Staff | I’m also curious, when you think about approachability, do you see it mainly in terms of catering to day 1 questions (like beginner-friendly or homework help)? Or do you think the concept of approachability could be broader, potentially including a wider range of users (experts and newcomers alike)? It seems to me that posting on Stack Overflow can feel daunting for both new users and experienced ones, and some people go out of their way to avoid posting at all. It makes me wonder how a knowledge base can best handle that kind of challenge, curious what you think. | |
| May 8, 2025 at 1:11 | comment | added | EmmaBee Staff | Okay, back. One thing I’m trying to understand is whether you see the company’s goals and the community’s goals as fundamentally different, or if there might be something else at play. Example, the CEO shared a vision where “the high-quality Q&A lane” was a top priority, which suggests quality is important to the company. At the same time, the community often feels like quantity takes precedence over quality. I'm wondering if part the disconnect might be between what the company says are priorities vs how those priorities are being carried out in practice. I could be wrong, what do you think? | |
| May 7, 2025 at 17:33 | comment | added | EmmaBee Staff | I appreciate you calling this out! I think my post alluded to this dynamic, but I agree that I didn’t call it out explicitly enough. I'm going to ponder your answer for a bit to think it through, but to clarify something, did you mean to say "without" in your suggestion of what the question should be? "How can we maintain high standards of quality and reliability, and is it possible to do so without making the site less approachable?" | |
| May 7, 2025 at 9:04 | history | answered | l4mpi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |