How can Toaster compete with the Russian-language Stackoverflow?

Question

Toaster

I was surprised to learn that recently ru.stackoverflow.com was opened,
and thus Toaster lost its main competitive advantage in competition with the almost monopolist in the Q&A site market - the visitor's native language.
My opinion is that you can win a niche. Due to the emphasis on professionalism. While Stackoverflow emphasizes mass, on as many stupid questions as possible and stupid answers to them, it can be countered with high-quality answers to non-trivial questions. The point is small - you need to somehow interest professionals so that they come and spend 1-1.5 of their lives answering complex and non-trivial questions in detail ...
But I'm not sure about the winningness of this strategy. Maybe there are others?

Answer 1

I will take this opportunity to say hello to my family to write a couple of comments.
1. Unmark the answer
as a decision. Neither the moderators nor the responders. In the end, the calculation is for search results and a long life for topics.
b) Often the knowledge and skills of the questioner do not allow him to assess the correctness of the answer. Considering that often the correct answers are given with an admixture of WTF , then the immoderate ego of the author of the question is greatly hurt, and the correct answer is left out. It is equally rare that stupid answers are chosen as a solution.
I think FanatPHP can tell a lot more :)
Example: How does the display property work with its different values?
Although the stake on the head of Tesha - which is simpler, then it is true.
2. Introduce minus responses
Not for everyone, but as on the stack - only with a rating of at least ... (say, >20 by tag). To stupid answers went down. Maybe hide the answers when typing ... (say, -5) negative marks.
3. Rating
I often meet smart and literate people who do not have time to improve their rating. Alternatively, just recently registered members. We need a mechanism for evaluating "authorities" (in the good sense of the word) to increase the rating.
4. Evaluation of comments
Quite often, comments complement the answer, make it more voluminous, and deserve their assessment. Why is it not possible to evaluate such a contribution?
5. Introduce tags for questions
Questions are often named in such a way that it is either very difficult or simply impossible to find them.
Example: How to track the appearance of new elements in the DOM?
People end up wasting time when the answers are already on Toaster How to catch the creation of a new IFrame on a page?
It is possible to offer a list of tags when posting a question and this will (possibly) make it possible to find the answer to the question before it is published. After publication, tags can be selected by others.
Another use of tags is to search for repeated questions (see below).
6. Similar question
If the answer to a similar question is already on the Toaster, users can specify them. Such a block should be located directly next to the question.
7. Benefits for Responders Why not use your connection to habr to distribute bonuses to the responders ?
For example, membership, karma, etc.
8. Library of solutions
Sometimes it seems that a competent and well-formed answer is simply drowning in a heap of garbage and there is no point in either scheduling the train of thought or designing it.
Example #1: CSS: Why is the image offset when the line-height is the same as the block height?
Example #2: Why is the content not displayed when adding an appendChild tag?
Example #3: Difference between background: url('...') and background: url(...)?
And many, many others that I have nothing to do with.
Why not make the same tags (see p. "Introduce tags on questions" ) links to the main decisions. Which can be discussed, commented, modified without belonging to the authors (just a list of participants with a contribution to the solution).
9. Technical improvements
Search - there is no entered query in the search field.
The answer is that there are no hotkeys for formatting.
Comment - there is no way to format the text.
Comment - how to quickly get a link (topic + anchor)?
Text field for comments - do such examples codepen.io/cleric/pen/oBwqnand you don’t understand why its adjustment to the height of the field on the Toaster does not work very correctly.
The field with the code - it seems easy to add white-space: pre-wrap; For the pre element , so that there is no horizontal scrolling for non-portable lines.
Py.Sy. Special thanks to Sergey Protko for believing in this resource.

Answer 2

If Toaster can train both answerers and questioners to care for those who come after, then chances will be. SO managed to do it; perhaps to the detriment of the depth of questions and answers, but it is
a) pleasant to use
b) effective
Here, for now, 70% is the notorious "Russian forum" with a good design.

Answer 3

What's so unique about SO? And why is there no concern about otvet.mail.ru ? or www.askdev.ru ? or heaps of other Q&A sites?

Answer 4

75% of questions from the toaster, about startups and so on, would have been deleted long ago.
SO = specific problem related to programming. There are achievements. Worldwide recognized and authoritative resource. I like that SO has a community that edits questions and answers itself, and also deletes them in order to leave only high-quality and useful questions and answers on the resource.
Toster = programming and everything connected with it. Plus = generality, so for example I moved here from SO (eng) to ask general questions related to IT. No glasses.
Each has its pros and cons.

Answer 5

It just came to my mind - to add the "Best on the Toaster" column to Habr.
After all, on Habré, in fact, there are thousands of uncultivated atts who could well come in and say a couple of weighty ones. But they just don't see it.
By the way, it should be possible to put the label "Interesting question" manually, by the moderator.
This, by the way, is very important, and always frustrated me like hell on a stackoverfloe: a stupid question from a noob immediately attracts the attention of the same noobs, while a really complex and interesting question remains completely unattended - and quickly drowns under new ones. I put a small bounty on such. Here, too, such a mechanism is lacking.
In general, by the way, there is not enough more direct way to note the significance of the issue. Let's say there are many questions that I don't want to subscribe to, but I consider them worthy of the "most interesting" block. I click subscribe. But it's not right.
Well, yes - it is possible to somehow cross a snake with a hedgehog - the ability to set a price for a response based on the freelancing mechanism. Under such conditions, I would even stop being rude;)

Answer 6

Due to the freer framework, more relaxed atmosphere. English is my second native language, but I still like Toaster more because you can’t ask subjective questions in the style of “advise ...” on StackOverflow, the topic is strictly limited to programming (and here, as far as I understand, any “geek” questions are allowed and programming, and graphics, and SEO, and DIY, and the legal side of IT issues, and anything relevant to the contingent). Separately, it is nice to be able to mark several answers as solutions - this feature is sometimes very lacking on StackOverflow.
The StackExchange network, of course, also covers a fairly wide topic through separate sites, but this is not so convenient, firstly, the rules are also strict everywhere, secondly (there is still nowhere to go with the same subjective questions), and thirdly, but not in Last (if not first) most of these thematic subsites are in a half-dead state (in terms of activity and the total competence of the contingent) compared to the main StackOverflow and, now, Toaster.
Still, it's better when everything is in one heap and separated only by tags and when the rules are thought out for the convenience of living people, not machines...
The toaster is also not perfect, but the inconvenience is generally cosmetic. For example, the inability to edit comments is annoying (you have to delete them several times and post them again to correct / supplement), the inability to add a new tag despite a hundred answers and two questions (and a question that is potentially interesting to others is also a contribution) behind your back, the lack of support for a full-fledged tree structure of comments like on Habré and all that stuff...

Answer 7

The toaster will live. Stackoverflow is a good resource, but very boring.
I grew up with xpoint, not sure if anyone here knows it.
But I liked one thing about it - if the question was from the series "how to find a key by value in an array", usually a person was sent to read the manual with a link to the corresponding function or algorithm, if the task is more general.
In my opinion, this is correct, since this approach makes you think with your head, and not copy the solution from the answers. On the one hand, this increases the time, but on the other hand, it brings up professionalism. In most cases, the next time the probability of reading the manual increases significantly.
In my opinion, a whole generation of people is growing up who are unable to live without all sorts of stackoverlows. These things are relaxing.
Plus, over time, there comes a certain period when you simply stop asking questions in some area. Strange, but this is some phase of growing up, chtoli. You just already know that it will be right and no one will offer a more sensible one. That's all.