| I'm not sure it's the gamification itself so much as the details by which it's implemented. I still rarely use stackoverflow to ask questions, but I've given up on answering them. I don't mind giving answers elsewhere, but stackoverflow specifically discourages that, somehow. A few effects that are clearly harmful (IMHO): - Stackoverflow's game mechanics strongly discourage duplicate questions. But this is pretty dispiriting when it happens to you - both as questioner, and as answerer. Additionally, duplication is often not exact; there can be significant difference that are sufficient to really change the appropriate solution. Stackoverflow is really bad at finding those. - Even where questions are in essence duplicate, that is clearly not always obvious to the novices asking the questions. It's just not very helpful to close their questions in a rather toxic fashion and effectively berate them for not already seeing the parallels they were looking for in the first place. - Stackoverflow discourages discussion. However, discussion is useful in finding the best solution or even merely discovering the context and limits of that solution. - When discussion happens despite the SO UI, gamification rewards almost exclusively the primary asker and answerer; to the extent discussion is permitted, it's not encouraged to be constructive or healthy therefore. - Stackoverflow's attention algorithm highlights new questions and highlights first answers to those questions. However, this encourages answers that are essentially "First post!!1!", and then maybe editing those into something better. It discourages well thought out responses. This isn't intrinsic in gamification; it's simply due to the way they've tuned the knobs. - There's an intrinsic tension in how they've tuned their gamification: on the one hand, they encourage knee-jerk responses because speed is of the essence, and on the other, they discourage questions that benefit from quick-n-dirty answers. That tension doesn't lead to a healthy middle ground, it just leads to frustration and a bad experience. Fora like this one and reddit also use gamification - we all see and respond to votes - but they do so differently. Stackoverflow could try to learn from that. And stackoverflow could make the gamification more collaborative, and less zero-sum. Whether they'll do so... I guess at this point I kind of doubt it. |