Talk:Stack Exchange

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wikipsofacto, 1mitch3.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

It is not a forum
Regarding (in the lead):


 * The sites are modeled after Stack Overflow, a forum for computer programming questions

Stack Overflow is specifically not a forum. In fact, it was created as a reaction to some of the failure modes for forums when it comes it pure questions / answers (as opposed to discussion). See e.g. Is Stack Overflow a forum?. It is also quite well documented in the Stack Overflow podcasts, e.g. episode 4, from 04 min 38 secs: "Stack Overflow is not a forum" -Jeff Atwood

--Mortense (talk) 15:53, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I think that forum is used in a more grammatical and less technical sense here so yes it is a "forum","a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.CombatWombat42 (talk) 16:52, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Stack exchange is not a forum, and open questions are not entertained unless they support a fantasy basis on the science fiction portion. It is a commercial website for developers, designed for financial gain, but not an open community in any sense of the word. The profile here should be revised to reflect this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coffeeinthecup (talk • contribs) 21:50, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Also, Stack Exchange was build by Jeff Atwood, Joel Spolsky (but not a forum.)2606:A000:6604:D700:4C35:747:3CAE:424F (talk) 00:39, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

This article should mention the downside of the user vote system
Users can vote up and down on both answers and questions, and through this process users earn reputation points, a form of gamification. However, this process has severe flaws, as the votes are anonymous, don't need to be justified or explained and the users are not really peers (in the academic sense). So, for instance, a good answer in Physics from a PhD may get few votes (and even down votes) from users who actually don't understand the answer. It is not unusual to see short, simplified, incomplete (and even incorrect) answers to have a higher score of votes than correct complete answers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 179.197.213.188 (talk) 12:20, 17 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, this happens a lot. The maths section seems to be least affected. The academic practice and professional ethics votes are dominated by an aversion for uncomfortable home truths. Feynman talks about awful new physics books he was asked to review, and the school board that 90% of engineers at General Dynamics thought the books were swell. F. replied that that would include quite a few not very good people: what did their top 1% think of it? Similarly (another uncomfortable truth) 90% of academics are not at the very best places. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:245D:DA68:9544:FB58 (talk) 14:27, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Merger Discussion
Requested: Merge Stack Overflow into Stack Exchange.David Condrey (talk) 11:13 pm, 22 May 2014, Thursday (1 year, 6 months, 5 days ago) (UTC−5)
 * Banners are finally installed GenQuest  "Talk to Me" 04:03, 26 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Is anyone still discussing this? because I agree they should be merged. CombatWombat42 (talk) 16:53, 31 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think they should be merged because Stack Overflow is a popular QA website than all the other QA websites that are hosted by the Stack Exchange. Also, Stack Overflow is a product of Stack Exchange Inc. which means that any products that can be discriminated based on popularity should merit their own Wikipedia page. Although I can see the logic to merge the two, my fears are that a merged Wikipedia article will become bloated with information from a whole array of QA sites that are hosted by the Stack Exchange network. This proposal does not have my confidence and it is best to maintain the current collegiality that is maintained between the two Wikipedia articles. For that, I agree to a compromise where we can recursively refer to either article without resorting to original research nor breaching none of Wikipedia's rules and guidelines. Vormeph (talk) 19:53, 31 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the merger. Stack Exchange holds several other sub-domains called 'Communities' which discuss specific topics e.g. economy, typography, foreign languages, super user (for *nix & linux users), server fault (for Ops), english language, (not sure, but I think I've seen a community dedicated to) UFOs, which per se, have a significant number of users. The community influences people and that, in turn, may create(or might have already created) many cultural changes which are worth recording on their dedicated wiki pages. The articles will only get larger with the passage of time and it is advisable to keep this out of the stack exchange page.


 * Keep separate.
 * Stack Overflow isn't "just" the most distinguished Stack Exchange site, it is the free Q&A site for programming in general. As such, it is in my view a prime example for Q&A sites in general, and deserves its own article. Seeing that Stack Exchange is one of the largest hosters of free Q&A sites in general, and in my opinion hosts the top free Q&A site for several other fields of knowledge as well, it also deserves its own article. --217.7.72.1 (talk) 15:08, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Request for deletion
Stack Exchange was officially changed to be named Stack Overflow in 2015. Please refer to: https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2015/09/were-changing-our-name-back-to-stack-overflow/

This site should be merged with the Stack Overflow page, or deleted all together. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.153.212.167 (talk) 18:54, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Have you tried actually reading that blog post beyond the opening? They're changing the company name. "Our Q&A sites will still be collectively known as the Stack Exchange Network." Qwfp (talk) 19:01, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I agree with Qwfp. Dr. Universe (talk) 21:39, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Suggested Edits
I appreciate if anyone working further on this article composes a matrix for comparison of the with that of Wikimedia foundation, its projects and media-wiki platform. Alfa80 (talk) 09:38, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * stack exchange network
 * its platforms
 * policies
 * collection of sister sites*
 * contribution-based culture
 * content licensing model
 * hierarchy of privileges
 * bureaucracy
 * global sign-ins
 * user banning
 * elections and moderating users
 * any statistics (DB size,... )
 * etc


 * As a privately owned company that is not publicly traded, some documentation of who the owners are is revealing. See, https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/stack-exchange/company_financials. Obviously, those investors are not populists, which explains a lot. 216.197.221.91 (talk) 05:11, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Potential Revisions
The following are a few revisions that I am considering for this page: Please feel free to comment and let me know any thoughts. 1mitch3 (talk) 02:51, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The have been some enhancements to the architecture since the last update. Therefore, the technologies used section will be enhanced using information from https://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/17/stack-overflow-the-architecture-2016-edition/.
 * There is a portion under Technologies Used that requires a citation. I will find information supporting the claim or potentially get rid of the sentence.
 * The site creation process could potentially utilize a flowchart for ease of reading.

More Revisions
In the coming week or so I will be making some changes to this page as a part of Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. If anyone watching has concerns regarding my proposed changes feel free to let me know. I intend to: Wikipsofacto (talk) 02:55, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Update Alexa Ranking
 * Fix dead reference links
 * Elaborate slightly on sites in the network in the Introductory section.
 * The 'History' section lacks updates from beyond 2013. A bit of insight into the Company's name changing as referenced in on this Talk page, will be added for clarification.

Controversy section has to be added.
Please add a controversy section, because this site is highly controversial and criticized. It has been awarded the more hostile community in the Internet.

Do you have a source for your claim? 134.39.171.65 (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't know about an "award", but there is certainly quite a lot of "buzz" to support the claim that the site is "controversial and criticized". In my experience, "buzz" never rates as an acceptable source in Wikipedia, no matter how obvious it is to all. But here's something that you might be able to use... Jeff Hanlon, the Executive VP of Culture and Experience at Stack Overflow is on the record stating, "Too many people experience Stack Overflow¹ as a hostile or elitist place...". So yes, there is controversy, and there have been criticisms. Hanlon's reference to "Zuckerbot" in this blog post seems clear enough: In the aftermath of the FaceBook debacle, Stack Overflow is now concerned about their reputation. And given their revenue model, perhaps their fears are legitimate. The company makes money showcasing their unpaid volunteers to corporate recruiters, and selling their contact information to them. It's just another way to parlay other people's personal information into profit.

Seamusdemora (talk) 20:58, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

There are plenty of stories and articles about the decline of SO as a useful resource, they even recognise the problem themselves

https://stackoverflow.blog/2018/04/26/stack-overflow-isnt-very-welcoming-its-time-for-that-to-change/

Criticisms are widely levelled at SO across many other forums:

++ https://blog.codinghorror.com/farewell-stack-exchange/ ++ https://www.quora.com/Is-Stack-Overflow-dying-in-2018 ++ https://www.quora.com/topic/Stack-Overflow-4 ++ https://hackernoon.com/the-decline-of-stack-overflow-7cb69faa575d ++ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/54f62f/the_decline_of_stack_overflow/ ++ https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/what-happened-to-stackoverflow-com-it-sucks-now.2125313/ ++ http://varianceexplained.org/r/are_users_quitting/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.6.155.248 (talk) 13:30, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

And some more controversy in 2019: &#42;Dan T.* (talk) 21:39, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
 * https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/01/stack_exchange_controversy/
 * https://judaism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5193/stack-overflow-inc-sinat-chinam-and-the-goat-for-azazel

"Moderator removal" section
Since the section's been copied from the Stack Overflow article, I figured I'd copy my talk page message as well (though some things may have changed since then):

V2Blast (talk) 02:16, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Moderator removal—name policy
Would it be against any policy to state the name of the moderator? It seems to be purposefully avoided here.

DemonDays64 | Tell me if I'm doing something wrong :P 22:40, 29 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Given that their name is already in the media, which is cited in as a reference in the article, I see no reason not to use it here. - Sridc (talk) 19:07, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Warning tags removed
There's a "neutrality" and "relies too much on primary references" tag (both added in 2020), but I see nothing about them in the talk page. Show me which sentence/part is not neutral, or which primary references are not acceptable, otherwise the tags ought to be removed in my opinion. Dr. Universe (talk) 21:41, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Why the MathOverflow and PhysicsOverflow links?
the links to MathOverflow and PhysicsOverflow in the See also section are somewhat odd companions since one is part of Stack Exchange and one isn't. I'd vote for discarding one of them or both. 81.191.194.157 (talk) 12:54, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The PhysicsOverflow article explains its relation to Stack Exchange. Nardog (talk) 06:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Notable alumni and users?
What does this section title mean exactly? What constitutes an alumnus? If a Nobel Prize winner asks a single question, does that justify an entry in the section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB1D:8164:7300:9CB5:815B:6300:41D7 (talk) 20:58, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I removed "alumni"—which I assume means "past users"—since the the term "users" is sufficient to account for past and active users. Given that the cited reference for each entry is the user's page on a Stack Exchange Network site, it appears that the minimal selection criteria are: having some activity on the Stack Exchange Network, having an article about them on the English Wikipedia (so that they presumably meet the relevant WP:NOTABILITY guideline), and meeting the criterion indicated by one of the subheadings. Biogeographist (talk) 21:45, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that makes sense. No question about notability!  The "some activity" could end up being misused, but as of now it seems reasonable.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB1D:8164:7300:9CB5:815B:6300:41D7 (talk) 17:45, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Statistics for "Declining relationship between users and company"
Does anyone have an estimate on how many people stopped participating in the network after the Cellio affair? I come across a quite some amount of profiles (including power-users) that mention the affair. However, I cannot find detailed statistics on the number of users that stopped participating. All I could find is an archived list of all moderators mid-2019, cf. https://web.archive.org/web/20190512214535/https://stackexchange.com/about/moderators?by=sites, where roughly 670 moderators are listed. In comparison, as of today only 558 moderators are counted network-wide, cf. https://web.archive.org/web/20220122083745/https://stackexchange.com/about/moderators?by=sites. Leonry (talk) 08:39, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

April fools
Perhaps the April fools should be mentioned? The most memorable is that of 2019, where the page appeared like an over-styled page of the 1990s.

More info: (can't open it currently because "We are currently offline for maintenance") https://meta.stackexchange.com/tags/april-fools/info https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/406512/what-are-the-past-april-fools-jokes

I might manage to do it myself later, but because I am not an expecienced editor, it would be safer if someone else does it.

ForSecurityReasons (talk) 00:27, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Neutrality issues and user-generated content
"Declining relationship between users and company" reads more like users airing their grievances over Wikipedia than anything else. There are some citations of user-generated content throughout the article, but it's most concerning in this section where they (IMO) violate NPOV. Adding this tag so someone with more time can edit this section into something more balanced. IgnominiousIbex (talk) 21:34, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Notable users
Sure, the very best have an account, and maybe Tao even posts answers on it (which will be excellent). But the majority of users is second or third rate, and that lack of quality is reflected in the general voting behaviour. So this list is presenting the forum (yes, I called it a forum) in rather a flattering light. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:245D:DA68:9544:FB58 (talk) 14:31, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
 * But the majority of users is second or third rate, and that lack of quality is reflected in the general voting behaviour. Biogeographist (talk) 16:41, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Nusrat 2402:8100:2690:B9CC:0:46:F5A4:FA01 (talk) 07:28, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

A section on the threat of generative AI to open-source Q&As would be welcome
The important drop in StackOverflow traffic in the last years merits discussion here. Generative AI models are more recent, but they seem to compound an earlier trend. Can elite-moderated discussion forums survive? Eric.magar (talk) 17:48, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Uncomfortable overlap with aims and practices of predatory journals
The aggressive moderation practices are mentioned in the main text. There appears to be a policy of condoning predatory journals and suckering in academics from se Asia. I rather suspect that the operation is financially supported by the likes of hindawi etc 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:D05A:998F:370B:E2F8 (talk) 19:22, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Community user
User #-1 is not mentioned in the article. JordiLopezboy (talk) 00:45, 10 March 2024 (UTC)