[EnderMB]

IMO, Stack Overflow has already achieved its initial mission, but not the mission they set out for.

Stack Overflow wanted to create a wiki of questions and answers, when in reality all initial users wanted was a dedicated programming Q&A site that would answer their questions. The wiki aspect was a side goal of this.

Today, Stack Overflow has the answers to many questions, and due to the similarity in many questions already out there it is incredibly difficult to get an answer without some level of gatekeeping - whether it's from the users/moderators, or from the system itself trying to stop duplication.

IMO, Stack Overflow has failed at being a wiki, because they refuse to allow duplicates. If I were in charge of Stack Overflow, I would actively encourage duplicates, and build the Q&A system around merging duplicates over having one definitive answer. Sure, maybe the world doesn't need 50 different perspectives on how to get a Mongo collection out of Meteor, but a smart system would turn those individual contributions into one master question, asked by 50 people, with numerous answers that work in certain situations, or specific versions. Until SO consider this approach, I can only see the distrust towards them growing.

[Psyladine]

Joel agreed with you. Better community management should have merged the Q&As, and perhaps had a better system for branching or sub-discussions.