Who cares how many times a question comes up? That is just such a non-issue, a peeve of a minority of replaceable people, because people are always replaceable, including the ranks of those who answer the most questions. Resurfacing questions is helpful for people new to programming topics and who are just discovering the lay of the land by using the New filter on StackOverflow. Novelty for advanced users should be an incredibly low priority, yet because advanced users have power, it becomes a big priority. The fact is, if some advanced users get bored by the stream of novice questions and leave, that's fine, there will always be new experts to take their place: SO is extremely popular that way.
What really frustrates me is that the usual interface to SO is Google, yet SO closes so many questions as duplicates that this interface is massively under-optimized. It would be much easier to find the solutions to problems if there were variations in Google's index for every different way a question's been asked (and answered).
And answering questions is a great way for intermediate developers to concretize their own knowledge. There's always a new wave of developers needing to learn. Why on earth SO fetishizes itself now as a DRY repository of programming questions is beyond me. Ok, it's not actually beyond me, it's because SO is made up of programmers, and programmers tend be compulsive about DRYing up everything in sight even when that's not the best solution to the problem.
The complaints of SO's elites are the same I've seen since always on mailing lists and forums by the folks who have the most power and thus force their ideals on everyone else. It repels novice users and creates a hostile environment for mentoring and learning. What's sad is that when SO first came out, it was set apart from these incumbents for being welcome, open, and friendly.
Another side issue is that the SO culture almost certainly is not receptive to female developers. I thought of this the other day when I saw some woman's post in the negatives. The sort of chest-thumping, rule-brandishing nitpickery that's the order of the day is an intimidating turn-off for a large swathe of people.
What's happened to SO is why every institution has to be replaced eventually, as SO will be, by some question and answer site that returns to SO's roots. The world is crying out for it again the same way it was when SO was founded.
Nice rant. Not sure how this relates to what you're replying to, so I'm not gonna attempt to rebut it... But for future reference, "people are always replaceable" tends to be a euphemism for "we're gonna treat you like canon fodder" - not really a good attitude, IMHO.
If you want to clarify what you're responding to, I can try to provide a more helpful response; until then, here's some useful references for the "roots" of SO's current policies:
You're right that inexperienced people need a place to ask their questions, but as people get more experienced they tend to be less interested in answering novice questions, so there ends up being an upper limit on the difficulty of questions that can get answered as they will simply be above the level of the people who are wading through questions.
What really frustrates me is that the usual interface to SO is Google, yet SO closes so many questions as duplicates that this interface is massively under-optimized. It would be much easier to find the solutions to problems if there were variations in Google's index for every different way a question's been asked (and answered).
And answering questions is a great way for intermediate developers to concretize their own knowledge. There's always a new wave of developers needing to learn. Why on earth SO fetishizes itself now as a DRY repository of programming questions is beyond me. Ok, it's not actually beyond me, it's because SO is made up of programmers, and programmers tend be compulsive about DRYing up everything in sight even when that's not the best solution to the problem.
The complaints of SO's elites are the same I've seen since always on mailing lists and forums by the folks who have the most power and thus force their ideals on everyone else. It repels novice users and creates a hostile environment for mentoring and learning. What's sad is that when SO first came out, it was set apart from these incumbents for being welcome, open, and friendly.
Another side issue is that the SO culture almost certainly is not receptive to female developers. I thought of this the other day when I saw some woman's post in the negatives. The sort of chest-thumping, rule-brandishing nitpickery that's the order of the day is an intimidating turn-off for a large swathe of people.
What's happened to SO is why every institution has to be replaced eventually, as SO will be, by some question and answer site that returns to SO's roots. The world is crying out for it again the same way it was when SO was founded.