Like many developers, I have benefit a lot from Stack Overflow over the years. It has helped me become a better developer and, in answering questions, a better communicator.
I just want to say thanks to Joel for helping make this thing happen and best of luck in whatever is next for you!
This discussion really resonates with me. It seems that stackoverflow incentivizes very bad moderation: shutting down on-topic questions and good answers, locking questions prematurely, etc.. I'm not sure what causes bad answers to be voted to the top, but that seems like a common problem as well. And as commenters have noted, it is almost pointless for a newcomer to try to contribute.
These issues look very hard to fix, so I wish them luck. For now, I've given up on stackoverflow.
I just want to say thanks to Joel for helping make this thing happen and best of luck in whatever is next for you!