[bdfh42]

Stack Overflow is an amazingly useful programming resource - but - like most things has problems.

From my viewpoint, the main problem is the drive for "karma". You may visit an interesting question and you will often find that partial solutions (or solutions to a re-phrasing of the question [thats as kindly as I can put it])have a high score while the true and, more importantly complete, answer (probably written a few days after the original question was posed) has zero points.

There are also those who answer a factual question with an opinion - I am sure that Dante would have added another level in hell for just that sin should he have lived in the modern age.

Points are not everything but there is a tendency for the scoring system to mislead the seeker after a solution unless they are aware that all factual answers have value.

[popctrl]

The problem is that SO puts so much weight on points...I had to spend about two months just answering questions in order to have the rights to get any help, before I found out that I just need to say something popular without any real content to get all the points I need.