[reubenmorais]

> Most non native english speakers probably don't feel confident enough to ask questions on english speaking forums like SO.

On the flip side, people are feeling too confident about asking questions on pt.stackoverflow.com, lowering the SNR quite a bit. But I don't know how English SO was at the beginning, and I wouldn't be surprised if it also took them a while to establish the current quality standards.

[ufo]

The more restrictive rules came as the community grew and matured. The early days of SO were very different from now. You can see this everytime someone links to a popular old question here on HN: there is always a comment complaining that the question is closed as non constructive and that So isn't as good as it used to be :)

[icebraining]

The English SO was a special place, since many of the users came from Joel's and Jeff's blogs, instead of Google, so I don't think they can be compared directly.