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Very localized discussion but I'm just wondering if anybody else noticed this for the past month or so, i.e. seemingly lack of questions/answers/views/votes, etc.

(I guess I can wait until the June data dump is available, but I also want to hear other people's subjective opinions).

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    (Extremely localized and subjective): I've been less active lately, but I doubt it has any effects.
    – Kobi
    Jul 4, 2010 at 11:48
  • @Kobi: the fact that this question hasn't even been closed/deleted after half an hour further illustrates my point. I'll probably end up deleting this myself eventually, but I am genuinely curious what's going on. Then again it's Sunday. I think...
    – polygenelubricants
    Jul 4, 2010 at 11:57
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    @Kobi: ditto, I've beeen less active myself due to an increase in work and having stretched myself across too many side projects. I also suspect that with the summer break we've got a lot of college kids not in the computer lab pretending to do useful homework by answering questions. :p
    – AnonJr
    Jul 4, 2010 at 12:19
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    Today is July 4th in the US (Independence Day), and you posted on Sunday morning for a decent fraction of the users. There is rarely heavy activity on the weekends, so it's not really surprising that no one has come for closing.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Jul 4, 2010 at 12:39
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    I have the same perception (since mid June): less questions, votes, activity, etc.
    – Pascal Thivent
    Jul 4, 2010 at 13:59
  • Could be the summer slump?
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Jul 4, 2010 at 14:49
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    Ok. Who let Jon Skeet take a vacation?
    – perbert
    Jul 4, 2010 at 14:53
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    The data dump including June data is available now.
    – Jon Seigel
    Jul 4, 2010 at 16:29
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    @Pascal: I definitely noticed this in [java], where the top 3 answerers of Last 30 Days used to be in the 800-600 range, and now they're just around 500-300. Something is definitely happening at least in [java].
    – polygenelubricants
    Jul 4, 2010 at 22:34
  • This would require running more specialized queries (see waffles answer) but I perceive a variation in many [java] related tags like [java-ee], [jpa], [hibernate], [maven*], etc (because that's where I'm posting). By variation I mean less questions but also less votes, in one word, less activity.
    – Pascal Thivent
    Jul 5, 2010 at 13:39
  • This question is going to last forever, even after the initial "these days" have long passed....
    – Pops
    Jul 6, 2010 at 19:18

8 Answers 8

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Computer says no

http://odata.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/s/282/total-questions-and-answers-per-month-for-the-last-12

We seems to be seeing more questions and answers in the past 30 days than ever before.

My opinion, not backed by any data, I think the answer is that as we are seeing more questions and answers it is getting harder and harder to filter down to the ones that interest us.

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    +1 for Little Britain reference.
    – Pekka
    Jul 5, 2010 at 6:52
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    +1 for, as always, pulling numbers out of the bag; there's nothing quite like cold hard evidence.
    – Marc Gravell
    Jul 5, 2010 at 7:54
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    But since this is about the total # questions, is does not yet refute the observations that volume is down in some tags.
    – H H
    Jul 5, 2010 at 9:30
  • @Henk: yep, exactly my point. Activity seems low lately on my current tags, so if it remains high on some other tags, then I need to know what those tags are, because if I have to migrate I will.
    – polygenelubricants
    Jul 5, 2010 at 9:49
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    @poly Ill see if I can adjust this to show questions per tag on the tags you are active on
    – waffles
    Jul 5, 2010 at 10:03
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    @Marc You make evidence sound like beer
    – bobobobo
    Jul 5, 2010 at 18:10
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I doubt traffic has dropped significantly, but thanks to the huge backlog of questions it's more likely new ones don't need to be asked as often.

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    I first noticed something was "wrong" around E3, but that thing's been over for a while now and things still seem so "slow". Is it summer vacation time, perhaps, and people aren't working as much? Maybe it's just me.
    – polygenelubricants
    Jul 4, 2010 at 11:43
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    Perhaps people are working more, and surfing less... I know I've been swamped at work the last two months.
    – Chris S
    Jul 4, 2010 at 15:10
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    @ChrisS: it's interesting that you think working more equals less SO activity. I've always thought it's the opposite, i.e. when you work that's when you have to deal with programming problems, and when you have programming problems, you go to SO.
    – polygenelubricants
    Jul 4, 2010 at 20:43
  • @polygenelubricants: It's interesting you assume I'm on SO. I'm significantly more active on SF.
    – Chris S
    Jul 14, 2010 at 14:08
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It's all about the US work schedule. The swings in activity due to the first east coast IT Workers coming on line and the drop off as the last west coast IT worker passes out on his keyboard will swamp any other effect you might subjectively feel just looking at one's one response rate.

The effect is so punitive to questions outside of this time window that I wish there was a way to schedule questions to hit the front page Monday at 9AM, instead of me thinking up a question on Saturday and having to wait to post it on Monday.

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  • +1. This is an insightful answer!
    – Otaku
    Jul 4, 2010 at 21:05
2

It's summer, most of the world is somewhere outside the computer domain right now.

If you're at work, I feel pity for you :(

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    It's summer as long as you live north of the equator... it's winter below.
    – Jared Harley
    Jul 4, 2010 at 19:34
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    It's summer in most of the world, and they're outside the computer domain right now. If you're Down Under, I feel pity for you :(
    – hyperslug
    Jul 5, 2010 at 2:52
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    South of the equator, people are watching the World Cup.
    – Daniel Daranas
    Jul 5, 2010 at 7:17
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I don't follow most of the parts of stackoverflow so I can't tell you, but I know that a few of the "big names" in the Perl tag stopped posting recently. It might be because they're going to summer conferences & stuff, or it might be that this website has fallen out of fashion (heaven forbid).

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Well, the front page has clogged with unanswerable, high-vote questions. So answerers can't find things to answer as easily, and maybe questioners are discouraged (though I really doubt that).

I asked my first jQuery question last night, Saturday Evening, and was Tsunamied with assistance, so perhaps this phenomenon is very localized.

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My guess is that we lost a few people to Area51 / WebApps.

They'll be back soon, hopefully.

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  • Don't see too many people I know from stackoverflow.com in the Area 51, although I do see a lot of the people from this meta.stackoverflow.com there.
    – delete
    Jul 5, 2010 at 2:41
  • Is Area 51 like the Hotel California?
    – Andrew Grimm
    Jul 5, 2010 at 3:23
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Been rep-whoring on Area51 instead. It's a nice little break from SO.

(My specialty on SO is ASP.NET - which has been dropping in popularity, so there have been fewer questions to answer.)

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