I find SO rather too addictive. I "played" it for a month, even got in "top 0.2%" for one of the weeks. It was tons of fun, but... no healthy balance.
Now days I still consume almost every day, but produce a bare minimum ( very similar model to US economy :) ).
I love SO, but I understand complaints about "rude" comments and lots of duplications. The thing is most people even with 10K+ ratings don't really know the subject (and got there by producing that same "duplication" instead of "closing as duplicate"), and these very people tend to be a lot ruder, since it is a "self defensive" way to a "self proof" that they really are worth something ( e.g. Psyc 101 ).
However people who really "grok it" tend to be the most helpful and fun to talk to.
Oh.. and the search. SO search sucks. I always Google my way into site:so in order to find anything.. But I guess SO knows there is Google, and does not care. Well I do! Fix it! :)
Again, SO rating mostly became a game, and since now it can also mean something on a resume (although personally I don't believe that resume itself means anything), more and more people try to game the system, and many of them winning the game. e.g. two years ago the content on SO was _really_ to the point. Now you need to click around to "find it". Two years from now... something new will emerge? :)
Now days I still consume almost every day, but produce a bare minimum ( very similar model to US economy :) ).
I love SO, but I understand complaints about "rude" comments and lots of duplications. The thing is most people even with 10K+ ratings don't really know the subject (and got there by producing that same "duplication" instead of "closing as duplicate"), and these very people tend to be a lot ruder, since it is a "self defensive" way to a "self proof" that they really are worth something ( e.g. Psyc 101 ).
However people who really "grok it" tend to be the most helpful and fun to talk to.
Oh.. and the search. SO search sucks. I always Google my way into site:so in order to find anything.. But I guess SO knows there is Google, and does not care. Well I do! Fix it! :)
Again, SO rating mostly became a game, and since now it can also mean something on a resume (although personally I don't believe that resume itself means anything), more and more people try to game the system, and many of them winning the game. e.g. two years ago the content on SO was _really_ to the point. Now you need to click around to "find it". Two years from now... something new will emerge? :)