Stackoverflow recently changed its homepage to say
"Stackoverflooooooow". Going a bit deeper revealed they were celebrating
the fact that StackOverflow crossed 10 million questions! (I had the
impression it'd have crossed 10million a long time ago. Anyway...)
I love StackOverflow and its sister sites. Although I've been active on other forums and the communities are very friendly and helpful, StackOverflow's primary advantage is that it has a LOT of people online and there's a very wide variety of technological help available.
51million users active online per second, is what they claim.
You get detailed, well-researched answers in a voted format with a clean, minimalist interface that not many other forums offer.
StackOverflow also participates in the real world with conferences modeled after Byte magazine which had a diverse range of topics on programming.
Gamification
Did you know that StackOverflow was designed with the Gamification concept of online reputation scores and medals? During winter, you can even win hats. They don't really translate into anything, but people want it. And they want it badly!
If you've tried making some work fun by using gamification and it has failed, there's one little thing you need to know:
Back to the 10million
If you tweet #SOreadytohelp or include it in your profile, you stand to get one of the 100 T-shirts (only?) that will be distributed to any random StackOverflow member over the next 4 weeks.
People are already excited...about the t-shirt....
Really? Excited about a t-shirt? Come on!
How difficult would it be to create the StackOverflow logo in an image or icon editor, purchase a black t-shirt yourself and get the logo printed on it?
Apparently StackOverflow sends the selected person a Google Form where they an enter their address, and the t-shirt gets sent.
One would assume StackOverflow's funders would do something a bit more generous for its moderators and top contributors.
Anyway...keep up the good work, Joel and team!
I love StackOverflow and its sister sites. Although I've been active on other forums and the communities are very friendly and helpful, StackOverflow's primary advantage is that it has a LOT of people online and there's a very wide variety of technological help available.
51million users active online per second, is what they claim.
You get detailed, well-researched answers in a voted format with a clean, minimalist interface that not many other forums offer.
StackOverflow also participates in the real world with conferences modeled after Byte magazine which had a diverse range of topics on programming.
Gamification
Did you know that StackOverflow was designed with the Gamification concept of online reputation scores and medals? During winter, you can even win hats. They don't really translate into anything, but people want it. And they want it badly!
If you've tried making some work fun by using gamification and it has failed, there's one little thing you need to know:
The game won't work if the people aren't interested in doing the work in the first place.But StackOverflow thrives! People dedicate hours a day answering questions, moderating and reviewing edits for free! Apparently people who become moderators get a T-shirt, as do those who cross 100K reputation. See the unicorn painting Jon Skeet of Google got when he crossed 200K.
Back to the 10million
If you tweet #SOreadytohelp or include it in your profile, you stand to get one of the 100 T-shirts (only?) that will be distributed to any random StackOverflow member over the next 4 weeks.
Really? Excited about a t-shirt? Come on!
How difficult would it be to create the StackOverflow logo in an image or icon editor, purchase a black t-shirt yourself and get the logo printed on it?
Apparently StackOverflow sends the selected person a Google Form where they an enter their address, and the t-shirt gets sent.
One would assume StackOverflow's funders would do something a bit more generous for its moderators and top contributors.
- A little vacation to Hawaii perhaps?
- or a meeting with some of the top celebrities in the programming world?
- or a gift of some of the coolest gadgets the world knows of?
- or a couple of adrenaline filled sky-diving jumps?
Anyway...keep up the good work, Joel and team!
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