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This might only reflect my poor knowledge of programming but it seems like a lot of the questions will never be relevant to me since they are extremely specific.

I love SO and I am basically looking for gems since it is now the holiday season in Israel which means more time to waste :D

So what is the best way to find gems that are interesting to me?

Is there some kind of advanced search which offers question with more than 14 votes && 7 answers && accepted?

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You can create some moderately complex queries with the API, for example this simple query will return questions with a minimum score of 14, asked in the past week.

If relational queries are more to your liking, you should look at Stack Exchange Data Explorer. A lot easier to find awesome posts than the API, but unfortunately its data aren't that fresh (check the front page for the latest update date for each site). There's a plan for SEDE data to update weekly, but we don't know when that will happen (and I imagine it's not a top priority).

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"it seems like a lot of the questions will never be relevant to me since they are extremely specific."

The first thing you want to do is select your "favorite tags" and "ignored tags" (see also: Expressing your tag preferences). The main effects of this are:

  1. In all lists, questions with tags you prefer are highlighted so they are more prominent while questions you wish to ignore are faded out and easily dismissed
  2. More importantly, it influences the algorithm that choses which question to display on the main page (see: Stackoverflow homepage changes).

With these in place, you are more likely to be presented with questions that you find relevant.

Naturally, it will take a while to come up a suitable list of tags. Start with a small set of "favorite tags" -- say and -- and gradually build on that.

"Is there some kind of advanced search which offers question with more than 14 votes && 7 answers && accepted?"

There is. See Advanced Super Ninja Search Options.

For example, here's a list of java questions with a minimum of 10 votes, 3 answers and 250 views, sorted by the number of votes. You can use the tabs just above the results to choose the sort order:

tabs to control sort order

"I love SO and I am basically looking for gems since it is now the holiday season in Israel which means more time to waste"

If you're looking for gems to learn from, what I do is, when I find an answer that is enlightening and well written, I'll click through to the profile of the author and browse the list of past answers. Follow the trail of gems and you may just find a treasure trove.

The same goes for well written questions -- well thought out questions often lead to insightful answers.

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I usually just browse the questions and try and find good ones. The best thing to do is go on for lots of short periods

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  • The best thing to so is start your fastest and slowly doing it faster Commented Sep 28, 2012 at 9:33
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You can review first posts, or late answers. In that way, you can help moderating Stack Overflow, find questions to answer, and find posts to vote. At the same time, you would find interesting answers, and learn something new.

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    This is not going to be a very productive way of "looking for gems" IMO. Commented Sep 28, 2012 at 9:57
  • A gem is something that is outstandingly special in some respect; it doesn't mean it must be specially good. Commented Sep 28, 2012 at 10:00
  • Googles "define: gem": A precious or semiprecious stone, esp. when cut and polished or engraved.. Definitely has the implication of quality to me. Commented Sep 28, 2012 at 10:03
  • Gem: a person or thing considered to be outstandingly good or special in some respect. Commented Sep 28, 2012 at 10:57

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