I’m Jody, the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Stack Overflow. I’m here today to acknowledge and attempt to address the understandably strong reactions we’ve seen from some community members in response to our recent announcement about the upcoming site redesign and to share some of the thinking behind these changes.

Stack Overflow has been a cornerstone of the developer community for 17 years. It’s a resource many of us have or do rely on daily. The fact that so many people care so deeply about this platform is a testament to the incredible community that has been built here. That said, the platform has also faced challenges in recent years, including a significant decline in user activity. This is something we cannot ignore, and it’s a key driver behind the changes we’re making.

We know that, broadly speaking (and this is a gross oversimplification), this community is made up of two key groups: new users, who often struggle to find their footing; and experienced contributors, who feel they lack the tools to effectively curate and maintain the site. Our goal with this redesign is to minimize disruption to what works while modernizing the experience to serve both new users of the platform and the needs of long-standing, tenured members.

I understand that change is hard and, in this case, complex, especially when it involves tools and workflows that many have relied on and seen work for years. When we talk about rethinking tooling, I want to be clear: this is not about taking things away just for the sake of change. It’s about asking hard questions: what works, what doesn’t, and how can we make things better?

Many of the tools we have today were designed to address scaling challenges from over a decade ago. These challenges may no longer exist in the same way. With that in mind, our intent is to focus on tools that meet today’s needs while taking a hard, analytical look at existing tools to see if they’re still the right fit. While we may not have gotten it exactly right, I can assure you a lot of thought went into this redesign and direction.

I also need to level-set a bit: we’re not trying to do away with the concept of removing unhelpful posts. We care deeply about curation, and have dedicated substantial time and money to building tools for it; and we will continue to invest in this area. But we do have to move away from a world where closing questions is essentially the catchall and default option for curation. We believe we can create better, more precise, more surgical tools that can be used. And we intend to work with all of you to make sure that curators here can take advantage of those tools.

With that said, our attempts to communicate about the necessary change were imprecise and confused the situation. When we said “no more closing questions”, we failed to take into account that that phrase would mean something very different to you than to us. For instance, we effectively draw a line between closing questions and deleting questions. Deleting questions is definitely still in scope for us.

Regarding feedback on quality, you are right: there is still significant work to be done. We intentionally chose to launch this in an early state. We are, as Stack Overflow did in the distant past, intentionally relying on you to help us identify issues so we can more quickly address as many as necessary to reach an acceptable level of quality before moving the site to the new design. I’m here to listen and gather actionable feedback. I want to understand what’s most important to you, what you feel makes the site unusable, and how we can improve the tools you rely on. Specifically, I’d love your thoughts (as answers here) on:

• Of the design changes that we introduced this week, which design changes are hindering the work that you are doing, and how?
• The purpose of curation tools: Are they meeting your needs? How could they be improved? - What are we missing?
• The necessity of all current tools: Are there tools you feel are redundant or no longer useful?
• Reconfiguring tools: Are there ways we can adapt existing tools to better serve the needs of the community?

I know these are big questions, and I don’t expect all the answers right away. But I want to assure you that this is a conversation, not a one-way announcement. Your input will directly shape how we move forward.

I understand if you feel frustrated or skeptical. My ask is that we have this conversation with a shared goal in mind: to make Stack Overflow the best it can be for everyone who uses it.

Thank you for your time, your passion, and your commitment to this community. I’m here to listen, learn, and work with you to ensure that the future of Stack Overflow is one we can all be proud of.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.