Why I no longer contribute to StackOverflow — Michael T. Richter

I agree with all the points raised, especially about the rampant authoritarianism that crushes earnest, well-intentioned questions by new users (as well as regulars).

Still, Stackoverflow is pretty damn good at what it does: provide answers to answerable questions. It still is a really good source of information with a high signal to noise ratio. Compared to the junk that used to come up on google searches before stackoverflow, we are all in a much better position than we were before.

I do think, however, that if stackoverflow had started with the pendantic, persnickety moderators they have now, it never would have become the resource that it is today.

I just use SO as a quick triaging of issues / questions. It, like most web things, are marginally better than a web search.

Better to go to IRC if it's a technical question, but again that might not get a response.

Btw, for Rails there's a free phone hotline staffed by volunteers: http://rails.pockethotline.com/

Posted last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6990570