Are Stack Overflow users becoming lazy on answering questions?

Question

I find that several of my questions are just being ignored.

Are they too dificult? Too elaborate?

Or is the average Stack Overflow user trying to answer only the repeated and easy questions and ignoring the others that would take more time to answer? Or my questions are just flashing through the first question pages due to Stack Overflow high trafic?

Or maybe I just need to improve my questions text, to make it more atractive for the Stack Overflow users?

**UPDATE: ** I noticed that some of my questions are related to serverfault.com and I accept they are just plain difficult and some even too specific.

Answer 1

No, I don't think so.

You're probably taking things a bit too personally, as you've asked 12 questions with 2 of them going unanswered (according to Stack Overflow's definition of "unanswered"). This is actually slightly below the overall site average of (checking just now) 18%, and far too small a sample size to constitute a pattern.

Assuming you're referring to this question, this question, and possibly this question, I think it's probably just that your unanswered questions are very difficult, no one knows how to solve the problems, or the problems are unsolvable using the suggested methods. (Yes, I'm deliberately being general, because I have no idea how to solve those problems either.)

In this question, the user gbn gave an answer -- I consider him one of the experts/regulars on SO for this stuff -- and he didn't seem to be able to figure it out. So I'm thinking that the questions are just plain difficult, or possibly unanswerable. sql-server is a fairly high-volume tag, so I really doubt that the questions weren't looked at at all -- it's more likely that people simply don't know the answer.

Answer 2

What's different is that the algorithm for what's on the front page was recently changed. Contributors now see questions that match their selected favorite tags. While you might previously had eyes on your questions from passers-by that happened to know enough about [sql-server], many programmers do, now you almost exclusively only get views from contributors that selected that tag as one of their favorites or had a history of answering a lot of them.

I know some [sql-server], it is not in my favorite tags. For example.

There's no obvious 'fix' for this that I see, some tags are going to lose out. This may very well change the tagging dynamics, no idea yet what that may look like.

Answer 3

Or maybe I just need to improve my questions text, to make it more atractive for the SO users?

Probably.

As I said in the comment (plus a bit of more information) without a link to a specific question no one will be able to help beyond giving general advice.

The general advice I give is be specific, use appropriate tags, show what you've tried so far and explain why you want to do what you are trying to do - you never know there may be a better/easier way.

Beyond that it is a matter of luck as to whether someone who can answer your question is online at the time it appears on the home page (or the page they usually use).

Answer 4

Actually, users have always been lazy about answering questions. That's why so many easy, beginner questions have 10 answers, some with 50 upvotes, and most meaty, complex questions have maybe one or two OK answers and a pathetic trickle of votes.

This is a real phenomenon, it's just not a new one.

I'm actually hoping and expecting that the Homepage Changes will change these dynamics. By "downgrading" questions with a lot of answers/votes, people will see newer/more important questions before they see those questions that everybody else has already piled onto. Ideally, the lower strategic value of easy questions will result in fewer pile-on answers to those questions, as contributors realize that they have to answer more interesting/obscure questions (and more questions in general) in order to hit their precious rep cap.

Matters may or may not turn out the way I'm expecting, but I don't really think that there's anything else that can be done about it. People aren't getting lazier, they're just lazy in general.

If the root of this concern is that your questions aren't getting enough attention, then read the guidelines on how to improve your personal situation.

Answer 5

I notice that correct answers to difficult questions don't score nearly as much rep as answers to repeated questions that should be closed as duplicates. For example consider the votes that this answer¹ scored versus the votes that this one² did. Which one of those answers better speaks to my growing expertise in Python? Maybe the second one was too long. Consider this one³.

Both the second and third are far more indicative of skill with Python. The second one is just stupid show-off sort of stuff but the third one represents a useful knowledge of python much more than the first one. Yet the score is 7 for the first one and 2 for the second and third.

I understand that this is because it's easier to verify the easy answers but why pile on upvotes? It doesn't make sense to me.

That being said, I will continue to tackle challenging problems that interest me (the second one) and obscure problems that I know the answer to (like the third one) but, rep wise, answers of the first type are much more rewarding. So if I want to get my legendary badge one day, I should technically focus on the easy ones. Also, the first link is actually a rather weak example of the sort of upvotes that trivial answers to trivial questions can get.

¹ Basic explanation of how to make a class method and and static method and the differences between them.

² How to inject a local variable into a function - solved by rewriting its bytecode

³ Why static methods can't be placed in lists and still be called using the normal syntax.

Answer 6

Lazy, no ... I don't think so. In fact I am noticing an increase in answering on SO recently due to home page changes.

As to your specific case:

You have a total of 12 questions. All except for 3 have accepted answers (one of which has an answer):

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https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4135890/sql-log-shipping-two-databases-using-the-same-shared-folder , got 30 views and no answers yet.

I had a look at the question, I am pretty strong at SQL Server, however find it hard to give you an answer. Part of the problem is that its a serverfault type problem. Log shipping can be configured manually, or you could use the SQL server wizard stuff. If you do it manually well a single folder is fine, if you are using the SQL server stuff, it kind of becomes a server administration issue and probably should be on server fault.

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https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4098286/default-data-and-log-directories-from-remote-server-using-tsql

Again this feels like a serverfault problem, again, this question got plenty of eyes looking at it (27)

And again, this feels very under specified. I think you should break this down into a tangible demonstrable issue. Are you having issues with the RESTORE command? If so, what have you tried? What works? What does not?