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This is a very high-level suggestion, not at all a concrete request. I just thought about this recently when looking for interesting answers by Brian Goetz. It would be extremely interesting for some users to be able to turn their public profile view into a sort of blog that other people can navigate.

A couple of features of this blog:

  • The profile owner can curate contents themselves (as opposed to the current "statistics" - driven approach)
  • "Posts" (i.e. question links) by different interesting profiles can be followed

I know there is this question here and it had been closed in 2009:

But check out the number of upvotes on that question! And today is 2015, I'm very sure that Stack Exchange's visions have changed in the mean time. Making SO a bit more of a social network for experts (e.g. in combination with http://careers.stackoverflow.com). Quora.com works this way, for instance. This would benefit:

  • Those people who actively curate their profiles. They will get more attention, which will motivate them even more to give great answers.
  • Stack Exchange, as even more people would link to content on Stack Exchange, because the content is both interesting and written by an authority.

You can still disagree, if you like, but I'd like to reopen the discussion that was closed in 2009.

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    I think that reason is still valid. SE still isn't a social network site. The policy clearly hasn't changed on that matter.
    – Patrick Hofman
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 12:27
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    "But check out the number of upvotes on that question!" But check out the number of downvotes on this question, in less than 15 minutes!
    – user
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 12:34
  • I don't understand what you mean by ""Posts" (i.e. question links) by different interesting profiles can be followed". How is this different from favouriting something?
    – Meta Ellen
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 12:37
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    One of the major reasons I am against this is that this would encourage people voting on who wrote the post, not the quality of the post itself. Besides, there already are per person RSS feeds available, look for the user feed link bottom right of profiles.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:03

2 Answers 2

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Say it with me:

Stack Exchange is not a social network.

Now repeat that three more times. Five more, for good measure.


Stack Exchange focuses on questions and answers, not the users who post them.

It would be extremely interesting for some users to be able to turn their public profile view into a sort of blog that other people can navigate.

So you basically want something like a chronologically sorted list of answers. Essentially, a tab with the user's newest answers at the top. Wait, that already exists: https://stackoverflow.com/users/3553087/brian-goetz?tab=answers&sort=newest.

But check out the number of upvotes on that question!

Who cares?

And today is 2015, I'm very sure that Stack Exchange's visions have changed in the mean time.

No, our ultimate mission and the goal of the entire network isn't going to change in a few years. Sure, maybe a little, but what you're describing is the polar opposite of what we are.

Quora.com works this way, for instance.

This is actually an excellent argument... for why we should not implement this.

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    "Stack Exchange is not a social network" - Can you provide a reference? "Wait, that already exists" - No. I want only those answers that all the users I find interesting find interesting themselves. "but what you're describing is the polar opposite of what we are" - That's a B/W way of putting it (i.e. polar). It could just be a small feature... "This is actually an excellent argument... for why we should not implement this." - Please, explain
    – Lukas Eder
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 12:59
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    @LukasEder "I want only those answers that all the users I find interesting find interesting themselves." So you essentially want to remove voting anonymity?
    – user
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:06
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    @MichaelKjörling: Man... :) If user X posts two answers A and B and A gets upvoted 1000 times, because it's such a trivial answer, and B gets upvoted 2 times, because it's way too complicated, but user X still thinks that B is much more interesting, user X will "curate" his answers in a way that I (user Y) who am following X will see only B in that particular feed, not A. And now, repeat for users X1, X2, ..., Xn. This would be much more interesting than any existing RSS feed.
    – Lukas Eder
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:08
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The profile owner can curate contents themselves

That's what editing one's own (and others') questions and answers is about. The profile page already has links to all your (non-deleted) questions and answers. Editing a post also bumps the relevant question to the top of the front page, bringing it to the attention of other users.

"Posts" (i.e. question links) by different interesting profiles can be followed

That's what the user feed (linked at the bottom of the profile page) or possibly the question feed (below the hot network questions list) are about.

I fail to see how your proposal adds anything over what the Stack Exchange software already does. And the argument that SE is not a social network still stands, insofar as I know.

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  • Well, apart from all the socialising that goes on in chat...
    – Meta Ellen
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 12:42
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    @Matt - exactly. It happens on chat. Not on the sites.
    – Oded
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 12:49
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    @MattEllen Oded beat me to it. Chat, like comments, is quite different from the main Q&A.
    – user
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 12:52
  • @Oded: I don't care about 1:1 interaction. I want to follow. That's like a broadcast interaction.
    – Lukas Eder
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:00
  • @LukasEder How does adding a user feed to your favorite RSS reader not do that?
    – user
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:01
  • I don't have an RSS reader, let alone a favourite one. Besides, I don't care about the dump of all questions / answers, only the "curated" ones. E.g. if Jon Skeets answers his millionth question about how to multiply integers, I don't care a bit. But if he answers a question about how to implement a running total using LINQ-to-SQL and ..., I might care. However, the multiplication answer gets 1000 upvotes, the interesting one only 5, so I don't even find it.
    – Lukas Eder
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:03
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    @LukasEder That doesn't make any sense. If Jon Skeet comes across the millionth question about how to multiply integers, if doing anything at all he should be voting to close as duplicate, not answering. And at the very least, define "curated". Maybe all of us here are simply misunderstanding what you really are after.
    – user
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:05
  • Yes, I think there has been some misunderstanding and eager downvoting... oh well.
    – Lukas Eder
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:11
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    @LukasEder If you're interested in answers about LINQ-to-SQL then surely the most useful thing to do is to follow the linq-to-sql tag not users who occasionally post within that tag?
    – JonW
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:32
  • @JonW: There's so much trash in every tag. In fact, the only time I ever get useful content on Stack Overflow is when I explicitly search for something on Google. Random interesting questions are almost not happening. But it doesn't matter. I didn't phrase the question I had in mind with great precision...
    – Lukas Eder
    Commented Feb 27, 2015 at 13:43

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