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Answer by Jeff Atwood for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
If you want to reach new askers, "ask" yourself this:Why hasn't the /ask page meaningfully changed since 2010?Here's a screenshot of the ask page circa 2009 from the wayback machine, next to what it...
View ArticleAnswer by Sayse for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
NoNew users are not the problem; it's the quality of posts that needs addressing - from both"veterans" and "newbies".While it does seem more frequent that new users are creating bad first posts, I see...
View ArticleAnswer by mssirvi for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
What if the new user should be given three reputation points instead of one in the beginning?If he asks a bad question the first time and get a minimum one downvote then his reputation will be 1...
View ArticleAnswer by Rachel for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
What about if instead of restricting user registrations, you treat questions by unproven users differently?Put them in a separate bucket and treat them as 2nd class questions until one of the following...
View ArticleAnswer by dgatwood for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
tl;drMake "Similar questions" search take the body of the question into account (keyword scanning).Flag newbie posts with an auto-tag that goes away when their rep exceeds a threshold.Ensure that...
View ArticleAnswer by Robert for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
I see that Stack Overflow users are eager to close/downvote questions. (I mean instead of trying to understand the problem and help him improve the question quality they instead just see it's easier to...
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Answer by Drew for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
I too will present numbers without coming to any conclusions. The following is for Python and comes from a pool of roughly the last 72000 questions. The recent questions were not excluded (future...
View ArticleAnswer by the_lotus for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
By reading the question, it seems like your solutions are "if this then do this". I would expect you guys to have hidden reputation systems (on IP address, email, users, ...) that only administrators...
View ArticleAnswer by ASh for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
I can think of some changes which can reduce (in theory) the incoming flow of bad questions from new user accounts.Make Tour obligatoryLet new users be informed why Stack Overflow is different from...
View ArticleAnswer by Ron Srebro for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
Learning from the credit card fraud prevention industryI believe a possible solution (or improvement) to this situation should actually by learning from other service, sites that are facing similar...
View ArticleAnswer by dpetican for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
Some observations from not a new user, but a recently active user:I never search on the Stack Overflow site itself. I always useGoogle. Since Stack Overflow questions (answers) usually...
View ArticleAnswer by Hypaethral for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
Account-Creation RestrictionsBlacklisting one-off email services like Mailinator is as far as we should go with account creation restrictions. These services have a generally negative connotation:...
View ArticleAnswer by Nissa for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
Other Sites Have Similar ProblemsStack Exchange is a community of people looking for help with their problems. Why don't we ask other sites for help?In fact, I'll even offer up a site that I know.Max...
View ArticleAnswer by Alexander O'Mara for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive...
A different approach?I suspect that some of the worst of this is due to people who have created multiple throwaway accounts to evade question bans and other limits.If that is the case, what if instead...
View ArticleAnswer by Greg Dougherty for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about...
Why?Why should anyone care if someone asks a bad question?Why should anyone care if someone else decides to answer a "bad" question?What is the harm that you are protecting against?Personally, Stack...
View ArticleAnswer by user161778 for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
No (mostly, anyways), because I believe there are better solutions. SO/SE is the most restrictive service I have ever used for new registrations. Many times before I reached 200 rep, I considered just...
View ArticleAnswer by sr28 for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
Anything that stops your question from being visible for a reasonable amount of time, such as vetting the question could end up frustrating the user with genuine intentions. Ultimately, most people...
View ArticleAnswer by user4573148 for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
If you restrict you will lose. Create another partition for 'off topic' questions that can receive the treatment they deserve. You are essentially treating a bad question like you would treat a...
View ArticleAnswer by Benjol for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
Given that most of the answers are getting downvoted like crazy, I'll throw in an extra one :)The root problem here is bad questions, but unfortunately all the ideas we ever have either get shot down,...
View ArticleAnswer by user5536767 for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
Creating a new email account is possible on Yahoo Mail, in 30 seconds. Use cell phone number verification instead of email. It's just as easy if not easier, and it's done on many sites today. Yes, you...
View ArticleAnswer by Michał Perłakowski for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive...
The new users asking terrible questions isn't actually the problem. A question without any upvotes and answers will eventually get roombad. Also, why would someone ask a question if they got no...
View ArticleAnswer by Shog9 for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
I feel like we need some numbers to help understand the problem here. I'm not going to draw any conclusions, just present some data that's a bit hard to get... If you think of something else that'd be...
View ArticleAnswer by Russia Must Remove Putin for Should Stack Overflow be more...
Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user registrations?We seem to be shooting down most suggestions that intend to have the net effect of throttling new questions. I'm attempting to...
View ArticleAnswer by Travis J for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
You pose two separate issues here. One in your title which is "Should SO be more restrictive with new user account creation?" I think that the current amount of work done on the Stack Overflow team...
View ArticleAnswer by agc for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
It's not obvious what fixes might work here without actually testing things. Sometimes ideas sound good, but contain some only later obvious flaw that dooms them. And online we see immense web business...
View ArticleAnswer by Ian Ringrose for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about...
What if there was a required payment of $1 to create an account, the payment having to be made from a credit/debit card in the name of the person creating the account?As it is hard to gets an unlimited...
View ArticleAnswer by user3956566 for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new...
It's difficult to prevent users from creating throw away accounts. The obvious email providers as you mentioned can be banned, but then this leaves the trash that is posted from accounts such as...
View ArticleAnswer by Kevin for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
I think what makes this site so great is the very thing that is causing this "problem". That is the ease of asking questions for a new user. You can't take that away like so many have previously said....
View ArticleAnswer by Pred for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
We have a well performing Low Quality Posts queue, in which most of the posts in question are landing due to the automatic flagging or by user interaction.Is it possible to hide the questions written...
View ArticleAnswer by 700 Software for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about...
An obvious first step would be to prevent the use of throwaway email providers for new accounts. ... sharklasers.com, mailinator.com, yopmail.com, etc...Absolutely! This is a great idea.IP-based...
View ArticleAnswer by Heretic Monkey for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about...
There have been some feature-requests over the years which have proposed slowing down the question-creation process for new users. We could implement this idea of a "question wizard" in a way that,...
View ArticleShould Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user registrations?
The largest problem facing the site today is the flood of terrible questions coming in, mostly from new user accounts. I've mentioned this before, but I suspect that some of the worst of this is due to...
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Answer by Mo_ for Should Stack Overflow be more restrictive about new user...
Shog9's numbers were easier to comprehend for me with a graphic (can't edit their post, because we're on meta):
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