this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Stack Overflow has seen a substantial decline in traffic over the last year that appears to be accelerating. https://observablehq.com/@ayhanfuat/the-fall-of-stack-overflow

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is this due to the chatgpt?

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

ChatGPT went public at the start of the last kink downward. It can not be the reason for the big drop untill 2023.

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

Is there a fediverse alternative yet?

Also, if you are a technical person I urge you to start a blog where you document problems you solve. It's a great ressource for others and a resumé for you.

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

IDK what shitoverflow gets out of being so fucking toxic. I asked one dumb question and I'm basically banned from posting on the website.

It feels like they're trying to be a sort of "wikipedia" of every programming problem and solution. The problem is that eventually everything will be posted, and everyone will be banned from the website.

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

I think this has as much to do with Google being shit at finding stuff lately as it does llms like chatGPT

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

You can even see the decline in posts and votes before GPT became mainstream. This definitely look more like search engine failing to get rid of those cheap copycats.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On Google and on Duck Duck Go too. On DDG you can't get rid of the over-optimized websites anymore even if you use -"website name". Luckily -site:address still works.

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

That's crazy. Google/DDG bloat from SEO websites had already driven me out a while ago, so I hadn't noticed. I've been using Kagi for a few months now, and I find I can trust my search results again. Being able to permanently downgrade or even block a given website is an awesome feature, I would recommend it just for that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm, not really used to the idea of paying for search, but I understand.

Is it good at filtering AI generated sites and sites that are clearly copy pasted. Or do you kind of have to identify that yourself and manually block?

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

I think it's worth testing it with the free 100 searches. All you need is an email address (no credit card unless you're actually subscribing). I've only been using it a few days but I don't think it filters out AI generated sites. But you can set a ranking by site (block, lower, normal, raise, pin) so you can make stack overflow be priorised and block quora.

They have a ranking board of top sites in each category so you can go through it and set the rank of a bunch of sites upfront.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agreed. For me, making it so that the search engine ignores -string was one of the biggest set backs.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the search engine ignores -string

WHAT? Why would they do that? WTF no wonder....

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

Hyphen (-) means you don't want to see this word, while words surrounded by quotes (") means you want these phrases exactly.

Most symbols are also ignored, which is great for an average user but terrible for programmers.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I bet this is directly related to ChatGPT

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

People prefer having something generating shitty code and not checking it, instead of asking or searching on internet for a substantially better solution

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

Because forum posts are always full of accurate and helpful information?

In my experience it still makes good suggestions for most things, and is better than trying to phrase things in a way that Google likes, then trawling through irrelevant forum posts.

It’s only there to make suggestions, so if someone is taking its output without understanding and treating it like gospel then they’re an idiot who’s inevitably going to end up in a world of trouble.

If you take the suggestion, verify it with documentation, then make sure you actually understand it, chatGPT is a great tool.