trashhaloJul 25, 2023

The Fall of Stack Overflow

https://beehaw.org/post/6801729

The Fall of Stack Overflow - Beehaw

Over the past one and a half years, Stack Overflow has lost around 50% of its traffic. This decline is similarly reflected in site usage, with approximately a 50% decrease in the number of questions and answers, as well as the number of votes these posts receive. The charts below show the usage represented by a moving average of 49 days. — What happened?

Show threadorsettoJul 25, 2023
All questions have been asked and all answers have been given
Show threadfocusJul 25, 2023
and copilot and chatgpt give good enough answers without being unfriendly
Show threadbionicjoeyJul 25, 2023
ChatGPT has no knowledge of the answers it gives. It is simply a text completion algorithm. It is fundamentally the same as the thing above your phone keyboard that suggests words as you type, just with much more training data.
Show threadBarbarian772Jul 25, 2023
Who cares? It still gives me the answers i am looking for.
Show threadbionicjoeyJul 25, 2023
Yeah it gives you the answers you ask it to give you. It doesn’t matter if they are true or not, only if they look like the thing you’re looking for.
Show threadmagic_lobster_partyJul 25, 2023
An incorrect answer can still be valuable. It can give some hint of where to look next.
Show threadthingsiplayJul 25, 2023
@magic_lobster_party I can't believe someone wrote that. Incorrect answers do more harm than being useful. If the person asks and don't know, how should he or she know it's incorrect and look for a hint?
Show threadmagic_lobster_partyJul 25, 2023

Google the provided solution for additional sources. Often when I search for solutions to problems I don’t get the right answer directly. Often the provided solution may not even work for me.

But I might find other clues of the problem which can aid me in further research. In the end I finally have all the clues I need to find the answer to my question.

Show threadpreciouspupp
How do you Google anything when all the results are AI generated crap for generating ad revenue?
Jul 25, 2023 at 2:26pmWeb
Show threadmagic_lobster_partyJul 25, 2023
Well then I guess I have to survive with ChatGPT if the internet is so riddled with search engine optimized garbage. We’re thankfully not there yet, at least not with computer tech questions.