Talk:Stack Overflow

"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)

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)

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)

Disclosure

.

Edit request

Please add the following to the History section:

• "In September 2019, Stack Overflow named Prashanth Chandrasekar as its new chief executive officer."
  
• "A few months later, Teresa Dietrich joined Stack Overflow as its new chief product officer."
  
• "In May 2018, the company launched Stack Overflow for Teams, a private section on the public website for developers looking for answers to work-specific questions.The company also offers an enterprise version for large companies."
  
• "In November 2019, the company launched a new integration with Microsoft Teams, which gives developers the ability to find answers to questions from Stack Overflow within Microsoft Teams."
  
• Replace this: "On 3 May 2010, it was announced that Stack Overflow had raised $6 million in venture capital from a group of investors led by Union Square Ventures." with the following: "Stack Overflow has raised $68 million in funding. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Bezos Expeditions, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, and more."
  

Please add this to the Statistics section:

• "Stack Overflow conducts an annual Developer Survey asking nearly 90,000 developers about salary, learning techniques, career building, and tools used."
  

Thank you!
Wikidelrey (talk) 01:08, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

References

Reply 26-FEB-2020

  Unable to implement  

• Your edit request could not be implemented because the provided references are not formatted correctly. The citation style predominantly used by the Stack Overflow article is Citation Style 1 (CS1). The citation style used in the edit request consists of bare URL's. Any requested edit of yours which may be implemented will need to resemble the current style already in use in the article – in this case, CS1. (See WP:CITEVAR.) In the extended section below titled Citation style, I have illustrated two examples: one showing how the edit request was submitted, and another showing how requests should be submitted in the future:

Citation style

Bare URL reference formatting: The Sun's diameter is 864,337 miles, while the Moon's diameter is 2,159 miles. The Sun's temperature is 5,778 Kelvin. References 1. https://www.booksource.com 2. http://www.journalsource.com 3. http://www.websource.com In the example above there are three URL's provided with the claim statements, but these URL's have not been placed using Citation Style 1, which is the style predominantly used by the Stack Overflow article. Using this style, the WikiFormatted text should resemble the following: Citation Style 1 formatting: The Sun's diameter is 864,337 miles,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sjöblad|first1=Tristan|title=The Sun|url=http://www.booksource.com|publisher=Academic Press|date=2020|page=1}}</ref> while the Moon's diameter is 2,159 miles.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Harinath|first1=Prisha|title=Size of the Moon|journal=Science|issue=78|volume=51|url=http://www.journalsource.com|date=2020|page=46}}</ref> The Sun's temperature is 5,778 Kelvin.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Uemura|first1=Shu|title=The Sun's Heat|url=http://www.websource.com|publisher=Academic Press|date=2020|page=2}}</ref> Which displays as: The Sun's diameter is 864,337 miles, while the Moon's diameter is 2,159 miles. The Sun's temperature is 5,778 Kelvin. References In the example above the references have been formatted according to Citation Style 1, which shows the author, the source's name, date, etc., all information which is lost when only the links are provided. As Wikipedia is a volunteer project, edit requests such as yours are generally expected to have this formatting done before the request is submitted for review.

• Kindly resubmit the edit request below at your earliest convenience, taking care to ensure that it makes use of CS1. If you have any questions about this formatting please don't hesitate to ask myself or another editor. Regards,  Spintendo  19:28, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Notes

References

Resubmitting edit request

Apologies about the formatting issues, they have been updated below.
Please add the following to the History section:

• "In September 2019, Stack Overflow named Prashanth Chandrasekar as its new chief executive officer."
  
• "A few months later, Teresa Dietrich joined Stack Overflow as its new chief product officer."
  
• "In May 2018, the company launched Stack Overflow for Teams, a private section on the public website for developers looking for answers to work-specific questions. The company also offers an enterprise version for large companies."
  
• "In November 2019, the company launched a new integration with Microsoft Teams, which gives developers the ability to find answers to questions from Stack Overflow within Microsoft Teams."
  
• Replace this: "On 3 May 2010, it was announced that Stack Overflow had raised $6 million in venture capital from a group of investors led by Union Square Ventures." with the following: "Stack Overflow has raised $68 million in funding. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Bezos Expeditions, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, and more."

Please add this to the Statistics section:

• "Stack Overflow conducts an annual Developer Survey asking nearly 90,000 developers about salary, learning techniques, career building, and tools used."
  

Thank you!
Wikidelrey (talk) 23:48, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

References

Reply 26-FEB-2020

Below you will see where proposals from your request have been quoted with reviewer decisions and feedback inserted underneath, either accepting, declining or otherwise commenting upon your proposal(s). Please read the enclosed notes within the proposal review section below for information on each request.  Spintendo  00:48, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Proposal review 26-FEB-2020

In September 2019, Stack Overflow named Prashanth Chandrasekar as its new chief executive officer.  Approved. A few months later, Teresa Dietrich joined Stack Overflow as its new chief product officer  Approved. In May 2018, the company launched Stack Overflow for Teams, a private section on the public website for developers looking for answers to work-specific questions. The company also offers an enterprise version for large companies.  Declined. In November 2019, the company launched a new integration with Microsoft Teams, which gives developers the ability to find answers to questions from Stack Overflow within Microsoft Teams.  Declined. Stack Overflow has raised $68 million in funding. Clarification needed. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Bezos Expeditions, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, and more.  Declined. Stack Overflow conducts an annual Developer Survey asking nearly 90,000 developers about salary, learning techniques, career building, and tools used. Clarification needed. ___________

I disagree with the inclusion of " A few months later, Teresa Dietrich joined Stack Overflow as its new chief product officer. " Except for the very largest and most famous companies, including other than CEO as part of the article is excessive detail. DGG ( talk ) 08:50, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Maryland Study isn't Relevant

I wasn't/am not sure how to use the talk page, that's why I didn't the last time, but hopefully this is the correct usage.

There's two sentences that reference the Maryland study. The first: "Stack Overflow has been criticized for the proliferation of poor programming and development practices, specifically by encouraging developers to prioritize basic functionality at the expense of other features like security." isn't supported at all from the article. Is there another citation? And additionally, there's nothing wrong, in a blank context, with "basic functionality", and there's nothing inherently correct about making every line of code as secure as it can be. Is locking myself in the bathroom of a locked house better or safer? This sentence should be removed.

The second sentence: "A study from the University of Maryland found that Android developers that used only Stack Overflow as their programming resource tended to write more insecure code than those who used only the official Android developer documentation from Google." Like I alluded to above, less secure how? I'll leave that be and accept it as fact based on the study's parameters. Note though, that 73% of the subjects said Android development was not their primary job, so that should really say "non-Android developers that used Stack Overflow".

But here's why that critique doesn't belong on this stub any more than saying on the WebMD stub, "people who only use WebMD have a higher likelihood of dying than those who go only to a doctor." If a study was done, it would undoubtedly bear that statement out as fact. A doctor's duty, like an authoritative document on a subject carries the responsibility of being predictive and to help guide, if not direct the conversation and context. A Q & A format, by its nature wouldn't perform well if it needed to consider any and all ancillary principles or concerns. To do that would cut right into, and negate, many of the benefits of the Q & A format. So, if it says anything, it should say, "a study concluded that official language reference documents tend to be better suited to encompass other beneficial but ancillary programming considerations that would not ordinarily be included in the answer of Stack Overflow's focused Q & A format."

Anyway, those two lines have been there, in error, for a couple years and I don't care if it stays, but I happened to see it, and it's wrong and misguided. If wiki feels it should be kept, at the very least the first sentence should be removed and they not be called "Android developers". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.200.15.39 (talk) 01:26, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The hypothetical WebMD example would actually be perfectly suitable for inclusion in the article. It's not our job to assess how necessary a study is; we collate and summarize what other people have published about the topic. Of course there's editorial decisions about what to pick and represent, but with such an extensive study with 135(!) citations, the argument for omission would have to be a bit better than "research result was obvious to me". (I suspect you are using stub in a non-technical sense here, so I'll ignore that - if the article actually was a stub you might have a point, for reasons of basic coverage having to come before sub-topics like criticism.) I can't see how the presentation of the study is "in error", and I don't think the "no true Android developer" argument holds any water either - a laboratory user study with 54 student and professional Android developers. - The first sentence is debatable since it can't be directly referenced to any part of this paper, and in absence of direct sourcing I'd be okay with omitting it. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 02:21, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Reading your response, I understand how the WebMD example would be included now, and I understand how this study is relevant within Wikepedia's guidelines. Because it is accurate and well sourced, it is ultimately informative. It was difficult to convey how it's entirely irrelevant, but your point that "research result was obvious to me" (made me laugh) made it clear, that it's not entirely irrelevant.

I thought the study was clearly aimed at trying to prove that Google documentation could and should be better, but it's being used here in a way that casts doubt (it seems) on Stack Overflow's quality. That was the flea in my litter box, but you're right. It's clear enough to agree with what can and will happen when you copy code, indiscriminately, from less than (the most) trusted (personally invested?) sources. Also, I didn't mean to say non-Android developers as much as I meant to question the idea, "can an inexperienced person use a given resource as well as an experienced individual?" But I'd be fine if they were using parakeets or anything else, in that the result could be assumed to be nearly the same: if you want parakeets to have the securest code, have them utilize the authoritative references and not a Q & A site.

Thank you so much for your help and additional explanation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.200.15.39 (talk) 03:18, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Claim: "general praise for its architecture of handling questions and answers"

I've deleted the following: "has received general praise for its architecture of handling questions and answers as they are regulated by the community. Its"

The link is to a 2012 conference proceedings

• https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2339530.2339665

  https://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/kdd12-qa.pdf

Its abstract says: "Our investigation considers the dynamics of the community activity that shapes the set of answers, both how answers and voters arrive over time and how this influences the eventual outcome."

At no point does this research article on the architecture mention any (let alone, general) praise for it.

Perhaps there is a more current peer-reviewed article that does?

92.133.136.64 (talk) 10:05, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Why is "content criteria" under "History"

It doesn't seem to be a fitting section imho. --3nt3nt31ch31nw0hn3r (talk) 00:39, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Stack Overflow Home.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:36, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Moderator strike

Can something about the moderator strike be added here please? I'd be willing to add it myself, but would like a confirmation from someone uninvolved that it's WP:DUE to add. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:00, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Go ahead: I have reviewed these proposed changes and suggest that you go ahead and make the proposed changes to the page. Lightoil (talk) 02:37, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Stack Overflow vs Stack overflow

Is it OK that the two pages Stack Overflow vs Stack overflow differ only in character case? I found that confusing, didn't you? Wouldn't be better for both to have clarification in parentheses in the title like most other pages do? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 10:52, 6 March 2024 (UTC)