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The Fall of Stack Overflow (observablehq.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

266 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Over the past one and a half years, Stack Overflow has lost around 50% of its traffic. This decline is similarly reflected in site usage, with approximately a 50% decrease in the number of questions and answers, as well as the number of votes these posts receive.

The charts below show the usage represented by a moving average of 49 days.

What happened?

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I honestly believe people are way overvaluing the responses ChatGPT gives.

For a lot of boilerplating scenarios or trying to resolve some pretty standard stuff, it's good.

I had an issue a while back with QueryDSL running towards an MSSQL instance, which I tried resolving by asking ChatGPT some pretty straightforward questions regarding the tool. Without going too much into detail, I basically got stuck in a loop where ChatGPT kept suggesting solutions that were not viable at all in QueryDSL. I pointed it out, trying to point out why what it did was wrong and it tried correcting itself suggesting the same broken solutions.

The AI is great until whatever it has been taught previously doesn't cover your situation. My solution was a bit of digging in google away, which helpfully made me resolve the issue. But had I been stuck with only ChatGPT I'd still be going around in loops.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It really doesn't work as a replacement for google/docs/forums. It's another tool in your belt, though, once you get a good feel for its limitations and use cases; I think of it more like upgraded rubber duck debugging. Bad for getting specific information and fixes, but great for getting new perspectives and/or directions to research further.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I agree! It has been a great help in those cases.

I just don't believe that it can fullfill the actual need for sites like StackOverflow. It probably never will be able to either, unless we manage to make it learn new stuff without reliable sources like SO, while also allowing it to snap up these obscure answers to problems without burying it in tons of broken solutions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

ChatGPT is great for simple questions that have been asked and answered a million times previously. I don’t see any downside to these types of questions not being posted to SO…