[rhth54656]

I remember being ridiculed for having more questions than answers

Do you know that StackOverflow does not tolerate abuse and there is a flag option to automatically review any comment or post. In the rare case that doesn't work out you can directly contact moderators or developers who will actually respond. No community is perfect and you should really consider that options if you were offended. I have yet to see any ridicule that wasn't removed in 15 minutes or less.

[cookerware]

Well, that mechanism has not worked well. Especially, someone with a large reputation point appears to be exempt and there exists elitism amongst it's members.

Largely, Stackoverflow has now become something like wikipedia, just an index of questions and answers with zealous moderators and elitists and no longer a community.

[jeremysmyth]

That was always the design goal. It was never a place for discussions, ever.

They eventually implemented the chat rooms because there was a demand for community-style conversations and interactions, but they've never allowed discussions or conversations in the Q/A format, and comments that turn into conversations are discouraged in the code.

Subsequently, one of the founders (Jeff Atwood) went on to form Discourse, which is about conversation and community.