> I still think to some degree SE shoots themselves in the foot
Do they? The reality is that SO and SE sites are optimized as a business, not so much as a community: short, common and quickly answerable questions generate much bigger traffic from search engines, and hence more ad revenue. I can imagine Joel and Jeff realized this very early on, and thus set themselves in a mission to encourage the questions that generated the most traffic and punish the ones that fall in the opposite end of the spectrum. It's really a pity, but SE is not a non-profit organization.
I'm still hoping someday someone will come up with an alternative that gathers the people and the quality of SO where lengthy and thoughtful discussions are welcome. Some argue that's Reddit, but I'm not entirely convinced.
I think the common view of looking at great answers like this and thinking, "wouldn't SO be great if discussion was allowed" is similar to looking at a great work of graffiti art and thinking, "wouldn't be great if every kid with a spray can could paint all over the city".
These answers are outliers, special snowflakes among a sea of crud that fills the programming PHPBB boards out there. Joel and Jeff were trying to solve the bigger problem - having a decent Q&A system -, and that can only be done by looking at the average case and not the exceptions.
> "wouldn't be great if every kid with a spray can could paint all over the city".
The thing is that, unlike in other places, people can upvote/downvote stuff on SO/SE sites, and just like crappy questions and answers are quickly buried by the community the same could happen to subpar discussions, so I don't really think that's a valid excuse.
Do they? The reality is that SO and SE sites are optimized as a business, not so much as a community: short, common and quickly answerable questions generate much bigger traffic from search engines, and hence more ad revenue. I can imagine Joel and Jeff realized this very early on, and thus set themselves in a mission to encourage the questions that generated the most traffic and punish the ones that fall in the opposite end of the spectrum. It's really a pity, but SE is not a non-profit organization.
I'm still hoping someday someone will come up with an alternative that gathers the people and the quality of SO where lengthy and thoughtful discussions are welcome. Some argue that's Reddit, but I'm not entirely convinced.