"Too many cooks spoil the broth" - the famous saying.

The main difference between Documentation and Wikipedia is that the latter has the established authority system. It is overly-bureaucratized, but it works. And so you mostly can trust the information from Wikipedia - the controversial cases gets judged and fixed.

Unlike that, Documentation is ruled by the same mob as the mother site. It means no one can guarantee that some day the information won't be spoiled, deliberately or accidentally, and left unnoticed. All the proposals to get the knowledgeable members more authority are steadily torpedoed on Meta. So, this is the policy and won't be changed.

Personally, I went to despair after a few cases that told me that Stack Overflow is not suitable for sharing knowledge.

• The first one was my own question that was spoiled by the ignorant user - so I cannot link to this post any more. Your community scolded me when I tried to get rid of the nuisance. OK, I can write another post and use this one (until someone will spoil it in turn). But yet the old one remains in place, spreading misknowledge.
• The second one was the most upvoted answer for the most upvoted question in the tag, that was spoiled by some enthusiast. It went unnoticed for half a year, because, you know, nobody cares. And the only person who would keep a constant eye on this post, was banned.

So I think that although Stack Overflow will remain de facto a forum for quick and dirty answers to "fix my code for me" questions, thanks to the gamification system, the attempt to fix the initial design flaw by introducing Documentation will fail too. One professional cannot stand against a dozen enthusiasts smelling gamification points.

No doubts that a large community will be developed - people are always weak for the virtual stuff like points, badges and hats. But the main site didn't teach you the lesson that quantity doesn't mean quality.

"Too many cooks spoil the broth" - the famous saying.

The main difference between Documentation and Wikipedia is that the latter has the established authority system. It is overly-bureaucratized, but it works. And so you mostly can trust the information from Wikipedia - the controversial cases gets judged and fixed.

Unlike that, Documentation is ruled by the same mob as the mother site. It means no one can guarantee that some day the information won't be spoiled, deliberately or accidentally, and left unnoticed. All the proposals to get the knowledgeable members more authority are steadily torpedoed on Meta. So, this is the policy and won't be changed.

Personally, I went to despair after a few cases that told me that Stack Overflow is not suitable for sharing knowledge.

• The first one was my own question that was spoiled by the ignorant user - so I cannot link to this post any more. Your community scolded me when I tried to get rid of the nuisance. OK, I can write another post and use this one (until someone will spoil it in turn). But yet the old one remains in place, spreading misknowledge.
• The second one was the most upvoted answer for the most upvoted question in the tag, that was spoiled by some enthusiast. It went unnoticed for half a year, because, you know, nobody cares. And the only person who would keep a constant eye on this post, was banned.

So I think that although Stack Overflow will remain de facto a forum for quick and dirty answers to "fix my code for me" questions, thanks to the gamification system, the attempt to fix the initial design flaw by introducing Documentation will fail too. One professional cannot stand against a dozen enthusiasts smelling gamification points.

No doubts that a large community will be developed - people are always weak for the virtual stuff like points, badges and hats. But the main site didn't teach you the lesson that quantity doesn't mean quality.

"Too many cooks spoil the broth" - the famous saying.

The main difference between Documentation and Wikipedia is that the latter has the established authority system. It is overly-bureaucratized, but it works. And so you mostly can trust the information from Wikipedia - the controversial cases gets judged and fixed.

Unlike that, Documentation is ruled by the same mob as the mother site. It means no one can guarantee that some day the information won't be spoiled, deliberately or accidentally, and left unnoticed. All the proposals to get the knowledgeable members more authority are steadily torpedoed on Meta. So, this is the policy, and won't be changed.

Personally, I went to despair after few cases that told me that Stack Overflow is not suitable for sharing knowledge.

• The first one was my own question that was spoiled by the ignorant user - so I cannot link to this post anymore. Your community scolded me when I tried to get rid of the nuisance. Ok, I can write another post and use this one (until someone will spoil it in turn). But yet the old one remains in place, spreading mis-knowledge.
• The second one was the most upvoted answer for the most upvoted question in the tag, that was spoiled by some enthusiast. It went unnoticed for half a year, because, you know, nobody cares. And the only person who would keep a constant eye on this post, was banned.

So I think that although Stack Overflow will remain de facto a forum for quick and dirty answers to "fix my code for me" questions, thanks to gamification system, the attempt to fix the initial design flaw by introducing Documentation will fail too. One professional cannot stand against a dozen enthusiasts smelling gamification points.

No doubts that a large community will be developed - people are always weak for the virtual stuff like points, badges and hats. But the main site didn't taught you the lesson that the quantity doesn't mean the quality.

"Too many cooks spoil the broth" - the famous saying.

The main difference between Documentation and Wikipedia is that the latter has the established authority system. It is overly-bureaucratized, but it works. And so you mostly can trust the information from Wikipedia - the controversial cases gets judged and fixed.

Unlike that, Documentation is ruled by the same mob as the mother site. It means no one can guarantee that some day the information won't be spoiled, deliberately or accidentally, and left unnoticed. All the proposals to get the knowledgeable members more authority are steadily torpedoed on Meta. So, this is the policy and won't be changed.

Personally, I went to despair after a few cases that told me that Stack Overflow is not suitable for sharing knowledge.

• The first one was my own question that was spoiled by the ignorant user - so I cannot link to this post any more. Your community scolded me when I tried to get rid of the nuisance. OK, I can write another post and use this one (until someone will spoil it in turn). But yet the old one remains in place, spreading misknowledge.
• The second one was the most upvoted answer for the most upvoted question in the tag, that was spoiled by some enthusiast. It went unnoticed for half a year, because, you know, nobody cares. And the only person who would keep a constant eye on this post, was banned.

So I think that although Stack Overflow will remain de facto a forum for quick and dirty answers to "fix my code for me" questions, thanks to the gamification system, the attempt to fix the initial design flaw by introducing Documentation will fail too. One professional cannot stand against a dozen enthusiasts smelling gamification points.

No doubts that a large community will be developed - people are always weak for the virtual stuff like points, badges and hats. But the main site didn't teach you the lesson that quantity doesn't mean quality.