Break Up stackoverflow? [duplicate]

Question

I think it might be time to consider breaking up stackoverflow into several different sites. I just posted a JS question. I never even saw it on the first page. As soon as it's off the first page, the views just stop. There's simply way too much traffic. You guys really need to do something because honestly the site is basically useless to me. The quality of posts can only go down from here. If you just broke-out JavaScript alone that would cut the traffic in half.

Answer 1

I just posted a JS question. I never even saw it on the first page.

Staying on the front page is not the only way to ensure that your question gets visibility.

As soon as it's off the first page, the views just stop. There's simply way too much traffic.

If that's your line of thinking, shouldn't this problem apply to every single one of the hundreds of thousands of people posting on Stack Overflow?

Stack Overflow has features built in to the site so that this problem can be tackled.

Sitting on the other side of the table, I come to Stack Overflow to post answers. However, I am not, and can never become an expert in all the topics that get asked on Stack Overflow. So how do I get to see the questions matching my area of expertise?

Also, while your concern regarding your question not getting enough visibility is correct, using some mechanism to keep it on the front page does not necessarily ensure that it will get the desired visibility.

Stack Overflow and other Stack Exchange sites offer features that enable a variety of ways to view and browse questions.

Users can follow tags, use filters, and subscribe to RSS feeds to discover posted questions that are relevant to them. Also, the front page could differ for every other user, some could be viewing the interesting questions, currently hot questions, newest questions or currently unanswered questions.

Instead of attempting to get your question to stay put on the front-page, you should focus on asking a good question, meaning you post a question after you have done the due diligence of using Stack Overflow's search feature to see if a similar question is already answered, searching for a solution by reading the platform documentation, searching the Web for a solution existing elsewhere. Resist the urge to ask a question as soon as you find yourself stuck.

It's only natural for contributors to the site to refrain from answering the same question for the 100th time. And despite their best intentions of helping, they can't answer a not well-formed question.

On the other hand, a well-formed question attracts a lot of attention and other users are more than willing to point you to an appropriate solution.

Breaking up the site into different sites in not the appropriate solution for many reasons. Fluent users of Stack Overflow, do break up Stack Overflow by creating a custom filter and only follow the questions that interest them.

To understand more about how filters work, you can refer to this wonderful blog post on The Overflow, Stack Exchange/Stack Overflow official blog:

• Introducing Custom Filters

I am an Apple developer and have a custom filter where I only follow tags that are relevant to Apple development ecosystem. My Stack Overflow front page looks different from the All Questions view.

So, generally speaking, every user has a different view of the front page, and a sure shot way to ensure getting an answer on Stack Overflow (or any Stack Exchange site for that matter) is to write good question.

It is expected of users to read up, or at least skim through the relevant articles from the Help Center before posting a question.

And if despite doing your best attempt at writing a good question, you find that it isn't getting the due traction, you can always offer a bounty (needs a minimum number of reputation points) or even use the share button located below the question to share in other social networks where you think the question can get visibility by relevant people.

The designers of Stack Overflow (and by extension other Stack Exchange sites) continuously work hard to cover several such issues and keep introducing features that can make the platform as useful for as many numbers of people as possible.

Remember, good posts make everyone happy on Stack Exchange sites, whether they are writing questions, answers, or even developing the platform.