Five years ago, Stack Overflow was launched. And then a miracle happened
Stack Overflow was officially launched on September 15, 2008. In five short years, you have answered more than 5 million questions on more than 100 sites and this has helped hundreds of millions of people find the answers they need.
We want to hear your stories about how someone helped you on the Stack Exchange.
Before we started the beta, on the main page of stackoverflow.com there was a picture that symbolized what we were going to do.
We knew what we wanted, and we had some ideas on how to start it, but it all closed on this very step: “a miracle happens here too.” Our initial presentation was very ambitious:
It was a gamble: whether busy people will spend their time to answer other people's questions just for the sake of some points on the Internet and the opportunity to boast.
')
It turns out that people will do anything for invented glasses on the Internet.
Just kidding At best, these glasses, gamifigation, and a particular site structure did little more than help people do what they already did. People came to help others, to learn something new, or simply wanted to show some interesting solution to the problem.
We are lucky with this. The great secret of gamification: in the entire history of gamification has not forced a single person to do what he already would not like to do .
Among all the personal reasons to join, somewhere between hundreds and then thousands of people who appeared to answer each other's questions and figure out how this site should work, a miracle happened.
So far you have provided helpful answers to more than five million questions . Every month, 44 million people seeking help read these answers.
Imagine these numbers:
The next chapter of the Stack Exchange is still being written. A few years ago we expanded our understanding of the site as a resource for programmers. Our new goal is very simple, albeit a bit scary:
We asked people what other sites they wanted, and gradually began to launch these sites one by one. Every time we counted on a group of experts who would join in and start asking questions and answering each other. There were several failures, but in general the achievements were overwhelming.
We now have 106 sites , including the famous System Administration , Computers , Mathematics , Ubuntu , Video Games and Cooking, and some young upstarts like English Language Learners . If you want a site that is not there yet, you can suggest it here - Area 51 .
At the same time, SO continues to grow and we are trying our best to keep it useful. In the short history of the Internet, there were many communities that started off wonderfully, but slowly subsided under pressure from the flame, noobs, pictures of seals, or simply boring expectations of something new. We still need your help to keep SO focused on our key mission: together to increase the level of general knowledge in the world about proper programming .
We want to hear your stories. Looking at numbers is one thing, and hearing from real real people as someone's efforts helped them is completely different. So, if someone’s post here ever saved you a day job or convinced you to buy your daughter an SLR and start studying a photo together, take a minute to find out the person who wrote the answer that is important to you.
If you are mostly answering questions, share how you started doing it and what makes you continue. Or tell us about who taught you something before this site appeared. They deserve to be here today among others, they deserve recognition for this contribution to you. If Stack Exchange made you interested in a new topic or taught you something new, we want to hear about it.
Stack Exchange has always been a community of people helping each other. It was a risky bet when it was launched, but you made it work. Now let's take a few minutes to understand what we have achieved together.
We want to hear your stories about how someone helped you on the Stack Exchange.
"And then a miracle happens"
Before we started the beta, on the main page of stackoverflow.com there was a picture that symbolized what we were going to do.
We knew what we wanted, and we had some ideas on how to start it, but it all closed on this very step: “a miracle happens here too.” Our initial presentation was very ambitious:
This is done by programmers, for programmers, with the maximum desire to increase together the level of general knowledge in the world about proper programming . It does not matter which programming language you use or which operating system you consider your home. Programming is better is our goal .
It was a gamble: whether busy people will spend their time to answer other people's questions just for the sake of some points on the Internet and the opportunity to boast.
')
It turns out that people will do anything for invented glasses on the Internet.
Just kidding At best, these glasses, gamifigation, and a particular site structure did little more than help people do what they already did. People came to help others, to learn something new, or simply wanted to show some interesting solution to the problem.
We are lucky with this. The great secret of gamification: in the entire history of gamification has not forced a single person to do what he already would not like to do .
Among all the personal reasons to join, somewhere between hundreds and then thousands of people who appeared to answer each other's questions and figure out how this site should work, a miracle happened.
An incredible number of people did not miss the chance to help strangers.
So far you have provided helpful answers to more than five million questions . Every month, 44 million people seeking help read these answers.
Imagine these numbers:
- Every month there are more people helping each other than visiting the New York Times, Bank of America or Apple sites.
- If these people are united in one US state, then it will be more than California and almost twice as large as Texas.
- If this were a country, then it would be in the top 15% of countries by population in the world, with a larger population than Canada, Argentina or Poland. That would be almost two Yemen.
- If you put one frog on a football stadium for each of these 44 million people, then it will be forty-four million frogs. Think about it, but do not say it out loud - you never know what others think.
Making the internet better
The next chapter of the Stack Exchange is still being written. A few years ago we expanded our understanding of the site as a resource for programmers. Our new goal is very simple, albeit a bit scary:
Make the Internet the best place to get expert answers to your questions .
We asked people what other sites they wanted, and gradually began to launch these sites one by one. Every time we counted on a group of experts who would join in and start asking questions and answering each other. There were several failures, but in general the achievements were overwhelming.We now have 106 sites , including the famous System Administration , Computers , Mathematics , Ubuntu , Video Games and Cooking, and some young upstarts like English Language Learners . If you want a site that is not there yet, you can suggest it here - Area 51 .
At the same time, SO continues to grow and we are trying our best to keep it useful. In the short history of the Internet, there were many communities that started off wonderfully, but slowly subsided under pressure from the flame, noobs, pictures of seals, or simply boring expectations of something new. We still need your help to keep SO focused on our key mission: together to increase the level of general knowledge in the world about proper programming .
Tell us your story
We want to hear your stories. Looking at numbers is one thing, and hearing from real real people as someone's efforts helped them is completely different. So, if someone’s post here ever saved you a day job or convinced you to buy your daughter an SLR and start studying a photo together, take a minute to find out the person who wrote the answer that is important to you.
If you are mostly answering questions, share how you started doing it and what makes you continue. Or tell us about who taught you something before this site appeared. They deserve to be here today among others, they deserve recognition for this contribution to you. If Stack Exchange made you interested in a new topic or taught you something new, we want to hear about it.
Stack Exchange has always been a community of people helping each other. It was a risky bet when it was launched, but you made it work. Now let's take a few minutes to understand what we have achieved together.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/194036/
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