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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Kingboyk (talk | contribs) at 17:38, 11 February 2020 (→Criticism: Archiving to Talk:Stack Overflow/Archive 1). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Find sources notice

Mention if the systematic exclusion of less articulate / intellegent users might conflict with Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (mental impairment), etc. laws.

See also

Jidanni (talk) 08:58, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The ADA covers employment, public entities, and public accommodations. It does not apply to free contributions to a website; and certainly not when that exclusion is based on the quality of the content by people who have no foreknowledge of the contributor's disability. Also, you misspelled "intelligent". ChristopherTStone (talk) 02:18, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Such analysis would likely fall under No original research/Synthesis of published material. --kingboyk (talk) 17:11, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Stack Apps section

The section needs rewriting: for years there has been a full read/write API (version 2 now) and the stack apps website is a minimal part of that ecosystem (basically a showcase). API docs are here http://api.stackexchange.com/. Full disclosure: I'm a Stack Exchange employee and moderator. Sklivvz (talk) 11:25, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism (bis)

I'm not going to add this to the main article as probably being below WP:RS, but I think that in time more reliable sources will probably appear. Some problems are well known and highly upvoted withing the SO community itself, so they aren't a matter of singular opinion, e.g. [1]. We're already seeing some academic attention paid to SO, although not nearly as much as Wikipedia has seen. JMP EAX (talk) 15:35, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't criticism, but I remembered this page also needs to cover how (the inevitable) vote fraud and sockpuppets are dealt with. Point of start [2]. But we need some staff/founder blogs as more RS than that. JMP EAX (talk) 19:32, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Disagreement over criticism section again

Hi User:Aldaron, User:Vormeph, and User:Dandv - I see some adding and reverting of a criticism section again, which is a pattern that has been happening with this article since at least 2011, as you can see from this talk page. It would likely be more productive to discuss this section here instead of just adding and reverting it some more. Two things to consider: citing a discussion thread (such as a Reddit thread or Hacker News thread) is not usually considered a strong source (especially not for controversial statements), and sections titled "criticism" tend to be content forks, as described in the essay at WP:CSECTION. Dreamyshade (talk) 06:27, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is required that there be a balanced article covering both sides of the argument. Stack Overflow (SO) is notorious for its cheeky practices that are both patronising and condescending towards users of any kind. There is a real hierarchy that requires an entire beratement of personality to pervert what they describe as 'good answers or good questions'. News articles that dare to publish anything bad about SO risk being sued or flamed by SO fans to the max... or worse. There are many good people in this world who have to live in silence, and I have read their blogs and I am utter proof and anyone can be so by simply going on SO and seeing the correlation between 'downvoted' questions/answers and trolling. Clearly it's a polarising discussion, but it ought to be addressed.

Removing the criticism section is out of the question, and it is unbiased because there are loads of sources out there, and if need be I will even cite questions to show how debilitating SO can be. However, in all fairness, the tone and language of such criticism shall be moderated to ensure it is not defamatory (and indeed, the criticism section is hardly defamatory) thus it is required we gather as much references for the criticism from as many individuals as possible. Vormeph 14:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I am also in favor of a balanced article, and I also know that there are cultural problems with Stack Overflow. But as part of building a high-quality article, we need to stick to Wikipedia's standards for reliable sources (Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources), which usually means not referencing discussion threads. We also should convert the "criticism" section to something more like a "reception" or "community" section, which would cover all the major points about how people feel about Stack Overflow, both positive and negative. Can you dig up some reliable sources that cover perspectives on the Stack Overflow community, to replace the references to individual discussion threads? Dreamyshade (talk) 19:23, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Requiring a WP:RS to prove that SO has alienated hundreds of users reveals a systemic failure with Wikipedia. You're not going to find this in the mainstream media, because they have no incentive to cover it. Tons of valuable content getting deleted and users leaving in disgust isn't as juicy as a random isolated case of sexism. That doesn't make it any less true, or less painful. On the other hand, if the same blogger who posted a rant against SO somehow got the very same post syndicated by HuffPo, then poof, we have a reliable source. I know, I should take my proposal to Village Pump. No thanks. -- Dandv 00:55, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I come across many blogs that criticise Stack Overflow's community. It's more than just coincidence because if people are complaining about the community then it's a case that there's merit in what these blogs are pointing out. I agree that the section should also be renamed to 'reception' and that any modifications within the section are checked to ensure sources are accurate. In the meantime, it is safe to flag the said section until either of us find suitable sources. I have not come across any news articles that criticise Stack Overflow's community, and so the only alternative is to appeal to those within the community for what they have experienced. This would very much be anecdotal, but I'll leave the interpretations thereof down to editors superior to me. Thanks for alerting this! Vormeph 22:06, 27 August 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vormeph (talk • contribs)
Wikipedia has a lot of systemic issues, some of them on display here, but ignoring the guidelines is a recipe for edit warring and controversy. A reasonable strategy is to read the guidelines carefully and stick to them very carefully, since they tend to have some room for covering niche topics if you use the best available sources with precise writing from a neutral point of view. So: if you dig around, what are the strongest available sources that comment on Stack Overflow's community/atmosphere, both positively and negatively? For example, if you can't find any mainstream news articles or books covering this, who are the most reputable/recognized experts who have commented on this somewhere, even in a self-published source? Limited use of self-published expert sources can be acceptable, for example if you quote the statement as from that particular person.
I googled around a bit and found a journal article titled "Gender, Representation and Online Participation: A Quantitative Study of StackOverflow" (full text PDF), which has some overview comments about negative aspects of Stack Overflow culture. I also found a blog post on Women 2.0, which isn't the strongest reliable source on its own, but the post demonstrates some research, so it could be used in a limited way. This indicates to me that sources are probably available for a reception section, they may just take some research to find. Dreamyshade (talk) 06:04, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What I propose is that we list sources of any kind that praise or criticise Stack Overflow in any way. Thus, we can then agree which ones can be appropriate for citation when it comes to compiling an entire section devoted to a new section Reception within this wikipedia article. Here's some sources I got, and they're really interesting reads:
http://michael.richter.name/blogs/awhy-i-no-longer-contribute-to-stackoverflow
http://softwarex-nz.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/stackoverflow-good-bad-ugly.html
https://sergworks.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/why-stackoverflow-sucks/
https://sergworks.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/why-stackoverflow-sucks/
http://peterkellner.net/2012/11/24/stackoverflow-and-lack-of-transparency/
Now, when it comes to soures, the authors of which I have listed appear genuine in the claims they raise. What I can ascertain is that beause they are mature and as they are developers so knowledgable in the field they are accreditted in, it becomes clear that there is no sign of deception in what they say about Stack Overflow. SO is indeed popular, but there's a hidden reality that very few are willing to address. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vormeph (talk • contribs) 18:28, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Check out the specific guidelines at WP:USERGENERATED and WP:SELFSOURCE for how we can use self-published sources: "Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications" and "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as the following criteria are met...It does not involve claims about third parties (such as people, organizations, or other entities)."
In order to work within those guidelines, we need to figure out whether any of those blog authors have had other work published in reliable third-party publications. If they haven't, the extent to which we can use them would be something like "Michael T. Richter, a software developer who was in the top 3% of Stack Overflow contributors in 2013, said that he found the scoring system to reward answering trivial questions, among other problems he saw with the site, which he said frustrated him and contributed to him closing his account." That's an accurate and neutral statement, and it's probably not pushing too hard on the "claims about third parties" guideline, since it's presented as his personal opinion. But if you look at this sentence from the perspective of a reader who is trying to learn about Stack Overflow, it's a bit of an odd thing to read, since there are probably dozens of blog posts by individual software developers who are frustrated with Stack Overflow - are we going to have a whole paragraph listing positive and negative opinions from many individual blog authors? It doesn't quite make sense as a way of building an encyclopedia.
I'm not saying that individual non-"expert" blog authors are unreliable sources of information about their own opinions and thoughts - they are probably writing what they feel, with little motivation to lie - but they aren't usable as "reliable sources" for making broad statements about Stack Overflow. I'd support continuing to collect as many sources as you can here though, to help pick through and figure out whether some are better than others. Dreamyshade (talk) 02:26, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

User:Vormeph, I appreciate that you made an effort to retitle and rewrite the section, but it needs to stick to the guidelines a lot more closely than this. Since this is a controversial section, a good guideline is for every sentence to be sourced. We also need to avoid "weasel words" (WP:WEASEL) - it's important for each sentence to be as precise and concrete as possible. The strongest source so far is still that journal article titled "Gender, Representation and Online Participation: A Quantitative Study of StackOverflow" (full text PDF), specifically these two sentences: "The focus on gender under-representation in online communities is further motivated by anecdotal observations: it has been suggested that the Q&A website StackOverflow (SO) strongly promotes oneupmanship; fosters flame-wars and the down-voting of individuals; and it is based on earning prizes, reputation and badges, that allow participants to access new features and gain more control on others’ postings. Experience suggests that this results in a lesser participation by female users, who do not engage with the community or use gender-neutral names to be accepted by the mostly male audiences, while male users sometimes masquerade as females believing other (male) users would be less aggressive towards them and their questions." If you paraphrase that research and balance it with a paraphrase of some observations about positive aspects of the site, that could be a start to a reception/community section. Dreamyshade (talk) 21:11, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

User:Dreamyshade I will study the pdf file and amend the section accordingly. In the meantime, the current section as-is will be removed. Thanks! Vormeph 21:16, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Reception section seems to be a rehashed version of the Criticism section that has appeared on and off over this article's lifetime. The first two sentences of the section even explicitly mention the word "criticism." It feels a bit disingenuous to have a Reception section which appears to be a reskinning of a section about Criticism. This makes it appear as if the only reception to the site has been this single negative paper, while most reception (good or bad) simply doesn't meet the standards for Wikipedia. The Reception section should just be called Criticism unless the Reception section can be expanded to have multiple sources. Alternately, since there do not appear to be enough sources for a fully fledged Reception section, it could be renamed to something akin to "Studies done about Stack Overflow" and contain other studies such as this. Info326sk (talk) 20:09, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Info326sk: It was agreed to keep the section in question neutral, so long as there's no bias. Sources help, so if you feel that something is worth adding then by all means do so. It is only after it's added that we can decide what to modify. Unfortunately that's how it ought to be; I know full well from personal experience that Stack Overflow has a dodgy community; but original research isn't an acceptable form of reference for that. Vormeph (talk) 03:01, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Dreamyshade:, @Dandv: and everyone else! I think it's time we updated the section in question so that it has more substance. I know Wikipedia always demands reliable sources, but some sources can be held reliable based on their readability and ratings. Leniency should be exercised in which case. It's important to also include valid opinions from actual users of Stack Overflow, rather than derive a conclusion from an objective analysis. By including sources that have opinions from both sides of Stack Overflow, we can leave the conclusion down to the conscience of the reader while still maintaining impartiality as to the nature of the section. Thoughts? Vormeph (talk) 15:16, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It makes sense to me to flesh out this section with more perspectives instead of just one reference, but I'm pretty strongly in favor of sticking to the most reliable available sources - for one thing, we will have a much easier time finding consensus if we use strong sources. What sources do you want to bring into this section? Dreamyshade (talk) 20:27, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Dreamyshade: Today, I've added another perspective to Stack Overflow on the Reception section. This new section references: https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/kdd12-qa.pdf which is a case study in academia. It doesn't mention anything about the negative drawbacks of the reputation/voting system, but does provide plenty of logical basis as to why it's a useful system. Vormeph (talk) 22:19, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Just now saw that this has been a topic on here. Anyway, I removed the part about gender on the basis of misleading statements. The actual content of the study is that is shows that there are more men than women involved. It does in no way show any of the things that were stated in the section (at some instances it mentions "anecdotal evidence" or "experience", but I think we can agree that this can under no circumstances be a standard for Wikipedia). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.232.31.101 (talk) 17:32, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@85.232.31.101: Your edits have been retracted as they removed a counterargument within the Reception section. Please always refer to talk pages before making unnecessary retractions as they have been discussed thoroughly as you can see. Failure to abide by this and I will report you. Happy editing. Vormeph (talk) 21:28, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Moderator removal" section

While the issue has received some news coverage, and should likely be mentioned in some fashion, the phrasing of the current section is not at all neutral. The inclusion of external links in body text is also inappropriate (especially when one of those is a link to the removed moderator's blog). Furthermore, as the issue is also a recent development/current event, it remains to be seen whether the incident even has any lasting impact, or what the aftermath of the incident will ultimately be. And finally: the fact that the incident centers around a particular individual means we should be very careful what we say and how we say it, per WP:BLP.

I'd suggest deleting the section and waiting to add it (or see if it should be added) until the situation works itself out one way or another, rather than trying to present a one-sided perspective of a developing situation. V2Blast (talk) 08:35, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The situation has been escalating and mutating for the past 4-5 months. What's considered developing at this point? -- OliviaZoe0 ❤️ (She/her) (talk) 15:07, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Other uses for StackOverflow - AI and job candidates

Google is using StackOverflow to creep up on job applicants via Hire with Google ATS:

Research candidates automatically with Google Search Google Search provides more background on a candidate by automatically surfacing links to their profiles from sites like LinkedIn®, GitHub, Behance, Stack Overflow, US Patent Database, and others... Source: https://hire.google.com/applicant-tracking-system/

No time to research RS for this~now, but let us add it here if you find them. Zezen (talk) 16:01, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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