Aren't Stack Overflow questions and answers licensed under Creative Commons? It seems like an enterprising group of people could stand up a new website with all of the content and go Wikipedia's funding model with no ads or tracking.
This is exactly what I did with StrategyWiki when Wikibooks deleted their video game guides. I already had a GFDL licensed wiki with topical content, so I copied down everything that was about to get expunged and merged it with our existing guides. (Unfortunately a collaborator of mine stole the site by breaking into my domain name account, transferred the domain, and moved servers while I was overseas. But that's another story...)
Well the SE line of products provides only a platform for asking and answering question, and all the consumer facing content is because of the community, so the least they could do is release the numbers which explain whether they are actually having a financial crunch or the executives are being greedy.
I love how the responsibility is always on the end user to watch out for and report malicious ads, and in postings like this they always talk about how good they are at removing the "bad ads".
If we're going to be test subjects for new malware delivery vectors that the owner of the site has no control over then I think we should at least get numbers for revenue and profitability for these ad programs.
I guess this post isn't really about StackExchange, I'm just tired of being the product and the test subject of these monstrous ad networks.
That's been the case for ages, I've seen it across many sites. When it's discovered a site is distributing malware through ads they'll wring their hands and say they aren't responsible for the content their site distributes, and then the next day they're complaining about people using adblockers. It's so transparent and pathetic.
Yet another company consumed by the cancer that is advertising.
The first stage was when they just introduced ads.
This is the second stage.
The third and potentially terminal stage will be when they will require login to read answers and have stupid pop ups like Medium does.
The worst thing is that they have the resources & influence to run their own “premium” ad network and vet their ads, but don’t appear to do so (otherwise there wouldn’t need to ask to report malicious/inappropriate ads).
> will require login to read answers and have stupid pop ups like Medium does.
And yet medium does not have ads , and neither does ~~nytimes~~, or bloomberg which are frequently posted here. Are login/paywalls not a cancer of the web though? It sure seems to be spreading fast.
The thing is, there is a 1%-1.5% percent of GDP that businesses have been spending on advertising since forever. There is nothing wrong with using that to have a free (as in free beer) internet, and as a bonus we have one that is more pluralist too. The anti-ad hysteria will pass, but the ad spending will stay.
They did till 2017, when they gave on up on trying to scale, fired a third of their staff and decided to pivot, complete with the customary "renewing our focus / incredible journey" blog post.
I don’t see paywalls as bad as ads. I hate them, but I understand the publisher is simply trying to sell me access to their content in a honest way, similarly to a shopkeeper asking me to pay for groceries. I hate them not because they’re paywalls per-se, but because they are asking for too much money (I don’t read any of these paywalled publications often enough to warrant a subscription, and they don’t allow me to pay per-article). Also, a lot of paywalled websites still have tons of tracking attached to them (in addition to already having your details for billing purposes) which means despite paying you still have the privacy liabilities that ads have.
Also remember that NYTimes & Bloomberg produce & own the content they publish. Stack Exchange do not. Even setting aside opinions about the paywalls, I think it would be very unethical to put the content users have contributed for free behind a paywall.
What I hate even more is “login walls” that aren’t even paywalls, which means they don’t make you login to make you pay, they instead want even more of your personal data (to use later for ads, or resell to someone who’ll inevitably use it for ads).
The issue with paywalls is that we got use to the "free" access and paywalls limit linkability/shareability: A typical newspaper article I can pass on to my family/friends. With a paywall I can't easily pass it on.
Also we still have no good micropayment option. For reading a single article I don't want to have a long subscription and don't want to register with yet another payment service.
Stack Overflow was the greatest thing ever when it was new. It was brilliant.
But all ideas have a lifecycle. I am wondering if some aspects of Stack Exchange are getting a bit ossified.
The answers themselves are a case in point. How to centre content in HTML being a classic example. Years ago you needed to do negative margin hacks, a few years later you could do transforms. Now you can just use the layout engine that now comes with CSS - CSS Grid - and just do align/justify items/self to center and that is it, no hacks needed.
But if you go on to SO to look up an answer you will see the answer from a decade ago with a thousand upvotes, seventy hacky answers and no mention whatsoever of the 2017+ CSS Grid method. The moderators would have locked down the answers a few years ago. So, in suspended animation, is an incorrect answer that has thousands of upvotes.
If you know nothing of HTML you could just copy/paste the answer and be happy with it, even give it an upvote. But then to unlearn the hack method for the new CSS Grid method would be not what you would want to do.
The more you know about an area of knowledge the more you realise that SO answers could make you get it badly wrong.
This is purely due to the age of the site. Plus the people who were writing answers originally no longer do so. They have oved on professionally and just don't need the mod points any more than they need gold stars from a school teacher.
Another aspect of the ossification is when you have too many admin people accrue in an organisation. The merch for the giveaways costs too, things that were once nice to have to get things started become expected. The money that was once found for promoting new topic websites now becomes table stakes.
I think they need to focus more on the core product - SO - and not the other sites. If questions had an 'is this answer set outmoded?' checkbox that people who know the subject could flag then they might be able to get some detritus removed from the content.
If they are thus able to keep SO relevant then all should be good for revenue.
As for on the other sites, can we expect this to make it more like Quora or am I being pessimistic?
There is some feedback and the dashboards are great so you can do this.
But I haven't any interest in those answers I wrote up a decade ago (or whenever it was) and the domain expertise is no longer in my working knowledge. I don't believe I am alone in moving on that way.
Also some people learn one way of doing things and then stick to it, even if a better way comes along.
Apart from pride there is no motivation to update your decade old answers. Potential employers look for online stuff in repositories rather than SO answers.
23 comments
[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 54.6 ms ] threadThis is exactly what I did with StrategyWiki when Wikibooks deleted their video game guides. I already had a GFDL licensed wiki with topical content, so I copied down everything that was about to get expunged and merged it with our existing guides. (Unfortunately a collaborator of mine stole the site by breaking into my domain name account, transferred the domain, and moved servers while I was overseas. But that's another story...)
> No, we're not going to do that
This shameless reply rightly calls for it!
If we're going to be test subjects for new malware delivery vectors that the owner of the site has no control over then I think we should at least get numbers for revenue and profitability for these ad programs.
I guess this post isn't really about StackExchange, I'm just tired of being the product and the test subject of these monstrous ad networks.
Ads on SE sites are excessively animated, irrelevant, dubious and resource-intensive https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/329547/ads-on-se-si...
The Stack Overflow I wish to build and participate in is no longer supported https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/386324/the-stack-ov...
The first stage was when they just introduced ads. This is the second stage. The third and potentially terminal stage will be when they will require login to read answers and have stupid pop ups like Medium does.
The worst thing is that they have the resources & influence to run their own “premium” ad network and vet their ads, but don’t appear to do so (otherwise there wouldn’t need to ask to report malicious/inappropriate ads).
And yet medium does not have ads , and neither does ~~nytimes~~, or bloomberg which are frequently posted here. Are login/paywalls not a cancer of the web though? It sure seems to be spreading fast.
The thing is, there is a 1%-1.5% percent of GDP that businesses have been spending on advertising since forever. There is nothing wrong with using that to have a free (as in free beer) internet, and as a bonus we have one that is more pluralist too. The anti-ad hysteria will pass, but the ad spending will stay.
They did till 2017, when they gave on up on trying to scale, fired a third of their staff and decided to pivot, complete with the customary "renewing our focus / incredible journey" blog post.
https://blog.medium.com/renewing-mediums-focus-98f374a960be
> Nytimes
Of course the NYTimes has ads. They're one of the bigger publishers on the internet
https://advertising.nytimes.com/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/06/profits-at-the-new-york-ti...
Also remember that NYTimes & Bloomberg produce & own the content they publish. Stack Exchange do not. Even setting aside opinions about the paywalls, I think it would be very unethical to put the content users have contributed for free behind a paywall.
What I hate even more is “login walls” that aren’t even paywalls, which means they don’t make you login to make you pay, they instead want even more of your personal data (to use later for ads, or resell to someone who’ll inevitably use it for ads).
But all ideas have a lifecycle. I am wondering if some aspects of Stack Exchange are getting a bit ossified.
The answers themselves are a case in point. How to centre content in HTML being a classic example. Years ago you needed to do negative margin hacks, a few years later you could do transforms. Now you can just use the layout engine that now comes with CSS - CSS Grid - and just do align/justify items/self to center and that is it, no hacks needed.
But if you go on to SO to look up an answer you will see the answer from a decade ago with a thousand upvotes, seventy hacky answers and no mention whatsoever of the 2017+ CSS Grid method. The moderators would have locked down the answers a few years ago. So, in suspended animation, is an incorrect answer that has thousands of upvotes.
If you know nothing of HTML you could just copy/paste the answer and be happy with it, even give it an upvote. But then to unlearn the hack method for the new CSS Grid method would be not what you would want to do.
The more you know about an area of knowledge the more you realise that SO answers could make you get it badly wrong.
This is purely due to the age of the site. Plus the people who were writing answers originally no longer do so. They have oved on professionally and just don't need the mod points any more than they need gold stars from a school teacher.
Another aspect of the ossification is when you have too many admin people accrue in an organisation. The merch for the giveaways costs too, things that were once nice to have to get things started become expected. The money that was once found for promoting new topic websites now becomes table stakes.
I think they need to focus more on the core product - SO - and not the other sites. If questions had an 'is this answer set outmoded?' checkbox that people who know the subject could flag then they might be able to get some detritus removed from the content.
If they are thus able to keep SO relevant then all should be good for revenue.
As for on the other sites, can we expect this to make it more like Quora or am I being pessimistic?
It says "edited" under the answer with the date, and you can see every version of the text.
It's great that people take the time to do this!
But I haven't any interest in those answers I wrote up a decade ago (or whenever it was) and the domain expertise is no longer in my working knowledge. I don't believe I am alone in moving on that way.
Also some people learn one way of doing things and then stick to it, even if a better way comes along.
Apart from pride there is no motivation to update your decade old answers. Potential employers look for online stuff in repositories rather than SO answers.