I've noticed something peculiar in the Stack Overflow public data lately. The vibrant community that once generated tens of thousands of questions and views per month has apparently decided to collectively take a vacation.
According to my AI-generated query, the number of questions and views has dropped to nearly zero. I ran this query:
SELECT
DATEADD(month, DATEDIFF(month, 0, CreationDate), 0) AS MonthStart,
CONVERT(varchar(7), CreationDate, 120) AS YearMonth, -- YYYY-MM
SUM(CAST(ViewCount AS bigint)) AS TotalNumberOfViews,
COUNT(*) AS QuestionCount
FROM Posts
WHERE PostTypeId = 1 -- questions
GROUP BY DATEADD(month, DATEDIFF(month, 0, CreationDate), 0), CONVERT(varchar(7), CreationDate, 120)
ORDER BY MonthStart;
Did all programmers simultaneously retire? Is there a new programming language that doesn't require asking questions?
Perhaps everyone finally learned how to code without errors? That seems unlikely, but the data doesn't lie.
I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon or if there's some explanation for why Stack Overflow has apparently become the digital equivalent of a deserted island.
