[irrational]

> 2014: questions started to decline, which was also when Stack Overflow significantly improved moderator efficiency. From then, questions were closed faster, many more were closed, and “low quality” questions were removed more efficiently. This tallies with my memory of feeling that site moderators had gone on a power trip by closing legitimate questions. I stopped asking questions around this time because the site felt unwelcome.

I also felt around that time that it became unwelcoming. I didn’t realize they had revamped the moderator tools. That is the time period when I stopped using it too. Now I know why.

How many other websites have also shot themselves in the foot by tweaking things?

[mnky9800n]

Yes I felt the same around then. It seemed like stack overflow was sending the message to not ask questions anymore. It was really weird.

[D13Fd]

Same. I've never been a huge StackOverflow user, but it is so irritating to search and find your exact question on StackOverflow, often as the top result, only to see that it was instantly shut down two years ago as a duplicate of some other question in another context with inapplicable and useless answers.

It is frustrating not only because you can't get instant help, but also because it shows the futility of even trying to post on there.

[amy214]

people who own walled gardens often get the idea in their head to prune up the trees a little, make them elegant looking and pretty, that's moderation, deletion, banning,etc. they get a good feeling pruning the tree, making something beautiful, moment of joy, thinking that such a beauticious little garden they've made will make it all the more appealing to visitors and potential garden supporters.

some have a tendency to go overboard with this thinking, only to discover that a heavily pruned tree is now a dead tree, now finding themselves in dead tree garden.

[Buttons840]

For a time the "let's interact with people and talk about cool things" group and the "let's build the ultimate knowledge base" group had their incentives aligned.

Then, with better moderator tools, the "ultimate knowledge base" group set out to achieve the ultimate knowledge base by reducing the amount of people who were just there to talk.

[zahlman]

> Then, with better moderator tools, the "ultimate knowledge base" group set out to achieve the ultimate knowledge base by reducing the amount of people who were just there to talk.

Yes, because the people who were just there to talk had reached a point where they could effectively only pollute the knowledge base. Bad questions make good ones harder to find, simply by existing (since the bad one could potentially be found instead, and because of the broken window effect).

[matty22]

I didn't start learning to code until around 2014, so I didn't know SO before this change. But when you make your platform so militantly anti-helpful, militantly anti-newbie, and just all around unpleasant to interact with, then it shouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone that people stop using it. There's over half a human generation of learners who have had almost entirely negative experiences with SO.