I’m seeking a website where I can ask any programming or tech-related questions without the risk of it being closed. The platform should allow linking of similar problems for better organization. Previously, I found HeapOverflow to be useful, but unfortunately, it is no longer available. Another platform I tried was Wotas.net (Wisdom of the Ancient Souls Q&A Tech Website), but it didn’t last long either. These platforms were not very active, often leading me to post solutions to my own questions. Despite this, I prefer them over websites with an army of moderators trying to find any excuse to close your post. My preference leans away from platforms like StackOverflow or Codidact, which focus mainly on bug-related questions. When dealing with troubleshooting bugs involving Minimal Reproducible Examples and error logs, I find seeking help from an LLM more beneficial than those kinds of websites anyways, due to their clear and concise responses.
I asked ai to give me an image for a super hero for the fediverse and got this:
Honestly, it seems like a federated solution is in order, since this seems to be the most effective way we can have content on the internet that isn’t ‘owned’. Its not a perfect solution, but I completly commiserate with your issue. I’ve come across reddit threads for arcane GIS or programming issues and found the comments deleted.
Its only a matter of time before the walls go up around stack overflow and github. We should be thinking about the future and what its going to take to maintain an open and accessible web. A bit part of that is having the tools and resources available to learn. Theres a generation of learning that has the potential to be lost because some one ‘owns’ it.
Some other considerations. Most platforms as a resources ‘work’ because they’ve reached some critical mass. Focusing on niche programming tasks or languages and building a small but robust community is more effective than trying to go very wide, but very shallow. Compare the success of the programming communities here . Most are empty. Most have no posts and no activities. But that’s because we’re conditioned to the granularity an extant critical mass supports. Instead, just like you are doing, you can post to more general communities like this one.
There is also the strategy of focusing on more ‘diy’/ self supported projects that are based in open source. For example, QGIS, I think belongs on the fediverse. They are a phenomenal project and embody that open and free spirit.
Was this whole comment AI generated?
nah.
Lemmy also lacks the ability to edit someone else’s post. The best answers (and even the best questions) on Stack Overflow had multiple authors. It’s very rare to find one person who can comprehensively understand a problem, but several people can do that.
Distinct posts by several people can never be as good as a single post. There’s too much repetition, too many stale posts that are out of date or have errors that the author didn’t come back to fix, etc.