56

I noticed Stack Overflow will become 5 years old soon. Not sure of the exact date though.

Are there any plans for the site to celebrate its 5th birthday (no idea what - special site features?)?

Either way I would like to use this post to say thank you to the Stack Overflow team for the last 5 years of helping me learn.


Thanks to the comments:

Private beta began on July 31, 2008, but the site wasn't public until Sept 15

So it will be 5 years soon

4
  • 2
    I thought SO were much older... It accumulated so much information in only 5 years? amazing... Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:38
  • 7
    One word: Stickers Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:41
  • 6
    Private beta began on July 31, 2008, but the site wasn't public until Sept 15. Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 20:04
  • 1
    I feel most answers are "what can SO give us". I suggest we think about what we can do for SO. Commented Jul 26, 2013 at 7:27

5 Answers 5

71

We could change the logo for the day:

enter image description here

14
  • 34
    Needs more unicorns. And preferably the 5 should be drawn in red using MS Paint. Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:13
  • Nicely done. Alternately could put a 5 in the overflowing paper bin.
    – Joe
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:14
  • 4
    Maybe get rid of one of the pieces of paper so there's only 5
    – StephenTG
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:15
  • 4
    @LBT: We'll save that for Meta.SO's 5 year anniversary. Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:15
  • 3
    Guys, we're not celebrating 5 years of Meta.SO! It's Stack Overflow that's having a birthday. Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:16
  • @NathanOsman EXACTLY! What do we do for Meta?
    – Cole Tobin
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:18
  • 13
    Oh, Stack Overflow.... then who cares?
    – Bart
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:19
  • 3
    we're not celebrating 5 years of Meta.SO! Not with that attitude, we're not :P Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:19
  • 1
    @NathanOsman Aren't we?
    – Cole Tobin
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:24
  • 1
    @Cole: No, Meta.SO is a good 9 months younger than SO itself.
    – jscs
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:29
  • @JoshCaswell I know. I made that just because I have nothing else to do. My votes and comment votes ran out today 3:
    – Cole Tobin
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:31
  • 15
    I see lens flare. Was your version of the logo directed by J.J. Abrams?
    – Jin Mod
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:33
  • @Jin: Nope, it was directed by this guy :P Commented Jul 26, 2013 at 0:05
  • 6
    @LBT I tried
    – Can
    Commented Jul 26, 2013 at 7:01
14

Give everyone 5 days worth of hats?

7
  • 3
    Unalloyed genius. I am spellbound by your enlightenment.
    – jscs
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:25
  • How many hats would that be? One per day?
    – StephenTG
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:39
  • 1
    One per day, @StephenTG?! Don't you change your hat before lunch, at tea, after dinner, when leaving work, and as you sit down to supper?
    – jscs
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:50
  • 1
    @JoshCaswell Naturally! I'm no barbarian!
    – StephenTG
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:52
  • +1 for hats. Since hats have been used before, the software to give hats is (presumably) already in place. Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 20:16
  • @S.L.Barth There were hats before?! What could have possibly caused them to remove them?
    – StephenTG
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 20:17
  • @StephenTG It was a temporary event: stackexchange.com/promos/12/winter-bash . Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 20:19
10

Those are proposals for StackOverflow team:

  1. Give everyone 5 rep for free (the easiest to made)
  2. Give everyone, who logs in the anniversary, a special souvenir badge
  3. Start 5 foreign language proposals, 4 of them already waiting, 5th (Russian) is almost done (if I believe they'll do that, I should believe also in unicorns, but whatever...)
4
  • 3
    Only 5 rep? 5 years is 1825 days; I much prefer that (or 157680000 seconds).
    – Matt
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 21:27
  • @Matt 157 billion milliseconds :P but that would probably make our rep overflow to a negative number or something :P
    – Doorknob
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 22:49
  • 1
    You don't believe in unicorns?
    – user206222
    Commented Jul 26, 2013 at 3:28
  • 1
    @Doorknob, the English 157,000,000,000 is even still much smaller than JavaScript's max integer 2^53 or 9,007,199,254,740,992 (which often is the first to cause issues, as it is not really an integer) -- so that shouldn't be a problem. Even when interpreting 157 billion as 157,000,000,000,000 we're still fine. :-)
    – Arjan
    Commented Jul 26, 2013 at 6:59
8

Well,

Greedy!!!

Stackoverflow T-shirt for 55 people. People are chosen randomly or by any selection method based on letter 5 - like people have reputation in all 5's at the start of the day (like 55 ,555, etc). Or give it to 55 people who get more reputation through the day(without considering rep cap).

Not so greedy

Any special hat/badge for 55 people. They can wear them for 5 years, until 10th birthday. They need to give it back on 10th birthday.

Happy!

A big cheers for SO in the morning, and a happy birthday banner hanging on top throughout the day. And then just another day at the Office.

Grumpy!!

No vote limit for the day and automate a help vampire question every 10 minutes, through out the day.

Hi all, My team lead (#@$@#$) want me to prgm a HTML5 websit in C without usng any editor othr than ms paint. Pls Gve me the codz.

so that everyone do some real moderating.

Happy Birthday Stackoverflow!!

1
  • Don't agree with the automatic spamming, but unlimited close votes would take care of another problem...
    – Mooseman
    Commented Aug 2, 2013 at 11:23
1

Quintuple everyone's reputation?

4
  • 2
    That would be far too easy a way to earn rep... but we could write the rep in base-5 instead of base-10, and get a similar effect :-) Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:56
  • 1
    Perhaps quintuple all rep at the start of the day, then quintuple all rep gains, losses, and privilege thresholds?
    – StephenTG
    Commented Jul 25, 2013 at 19:57
  • 3
    Jon Skeet's rep is obscene in base-5: 122,242,202.
    – jscs
    Commented Jul 26, 2013 at 0:15
  • 2
    @JoshCaswell Implying it isn't obscene in base 10...
    – StephenTG
    Commented Jul 26, 2013 at 13:37

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .