> Everyone jumps on the latest [bulk question] in the race for rep.
You have just nailed the problem with their gamification.
It takes effort - and thus time - to write a good answer. Since everyone is trying to score the easy wins, you get a flood of mediocre boilerplate answers. In the time it takes you to write a quality answer, the question has been answered multiple times. Likely one of these boilerplates has even been accepted by OP.
For a company that obviously considers the long game over immediate and cheap gains, they haven't managed to impart these values to their userbase.
Incidentally that was also my gripe about SO job ads two years ago. (Iow. when I considered posting something.) At the time their candidate search only allowed to search by answer scores. I had pretty simple needs: What if I'm not looking for developers who can recite trivia? What if I want to seek out the thoughtful ones who actually know how to ask good questions?
Their answer at the time: sorry, we don't have that.
It shouldn't even be that hard: eliminate the insane outliers and jackpots, find the people with matching skill sets who consistently ask decently scored questions.
You have just nailed the problem with their gamification.
It takes effort - and thus time - to write a good answer. Since everyone is trying to score the easy wins, you get a flood of mediocre boilerplate answers. In the time it takes you to write a quality answer, the question has been answered multiple times. Likely one of these boilerplates has even been accepted by OP.
For a company that obviously considers the long game over immediate and cheap gains, they haven't managed to impart these values to their userbase.
Incidentally that was also my gripe about SO job ads two years ago. (Iow. when I considered posting something.) At the time their candidate search only allowed to search by answer scores. I had pretty simple needs: What if I'm not looking for developers who can recite trivia? What if I want to seek out the thoughtful ones who actually know how to ask good questions?
Their answer at the time: sorry, we don't have that.
It shouldn't even be that hard: eliminate the insane outliers and jackpots, find the people with matching skill sets who consistently ask decently scored questions.