[achairapart]

StackOverflow is one of the most toxic community out there. Asking a question is a miserable experience. Answering a question? Same.

It really seems no one is there to help each other. It's mostly status quo or reputation. Moderators have too much work to do or have serious ego problems (most users call them "StackOverlords"). Or a mix between the two.

One thing I noticed is that other sites of the Stack Exchange Network are doing quite well. Probably they should split up SO, at least with one site for backend related questions and one for frontend, or even for specific frameworks/platforms. But this would also split the value of the site, so I don't think it's gonna happen.

Eventually someone will disrupt the whole network, just like they did with Experts-Exchange.

[techdragon]

That’s actually a really fantastic idea. Smash StackOverflow into hundreds of smaller StackExchange sites where people have a fighting chance of managing things. PHP.stackexchange, Wordpress.stackexchange (already exists interestingly enough) Python.stackexchange, Django.stackexchange, React.stackexchange, Java.stackexchange, JavaScript.stackexchange… some of these will still be very busy sites but at least they will be of more manageable size and better equipped to moderate outdated content.

[Jorengarenar]

> Moderators have too much work to do or have serious ego problems

As I mentioned in other comment, the amount of poor questions (e.g. of type "why my code not work"), with bad grammar and formatting on top, far outweighs the number of properly asked new questions.

[webmobdev]

There are billions of us for whom English isn't our native language. A little more patience and empathy by the mods would go a long way.

[Jorengarenar]

Sorry, I don't buy this argument at all. I'm not native speaker either and somehow have been able to write comprehensible sentences since elementary school. There is no excuse for not using punctuation, not capitalizing letters, not breaking statements into sentences.

Here, an example [1] right from SO, raw copy-paste:

>please can anyone point out what I have done wrong this is code for permutation which stores all possible permutation of the small vector "vec" and then display it

And this isn't the worst I seen, but those get deleted quickly. But this one already tickles half of the points I've made.

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/q/67723738/

[webmobdev]

> I'm not native speaker either and somehow have been able to write comprehensible sentences since elementary school.

Good education makes a difference. Not everyone is so lucky.

[Jorengarenar]

Really? They didn't receive "good education", so makes it somehow OK to write like preschooler? They would need to receive education deliberately worsening their learning skill for it to be understandable. Capitalization of first letter in sentence isn't difficult concept to grasp, neither is using periods at the end.

[webmobdev]

Your ignorance is not surprising. I am from India where our education system is multi-lingual. As a developing country many of our schools (and even colleges) are poorly funded. Many students in these small and underfunded schools (especially in rural and urban poor areas) are taught in their local language. And while English and another non-native language (or another foreign language like French in some of the better schools) are also taught in these non-english medium schools, the focus is often only on basic reading and writing skills. This is partly why some indians struggle with the language. Those who can speak it fluently often have the advantage of a better education (and more importantly educated parents who emphasised on reading books and speaking fluently, and a social network conversant in the english language). I've seen many a good student struggling in college and workplaces because of the language barrier.