@RoryAlsop, @CharlieBrumbaugh, @ab2, @imsodin, @Liam, or anyone else. Do any of you want to help me understand why the question about a diet for long term camping, outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/18288 is on topic? It seems to be too broad, opinion-based, a list-question, and all the things we close other questions for. It's also almost an exact duplicate of outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/4349/… which is closed as too broad.

I'm really just looking for opinions at the moment, and I value yours! Thanks!

@Sue I don't really have a good answer, and I just answered one on feeding dogs while hiking and people seemed to think that one was on-topic.

@Sue I don't think the one that was closed should have been closed. Food takes on enormous importance on hiking and camping trips -- as important as clothes. The current question is about a long term plan for cooking at what is fairly primitive campsite. It isn't opinion based, -- he isn't asking for the merits of M&Ms over Snickers. The choice of food is fairly limited, as is the way to prepare it. This is a survival question not a fne dning question.

Has anyone looked at the SO survey this year?

I got to the end and just went, "Yeah, I'm not submitting this"

It feels like I'm being data mined

@Liam I'll go have a look. I usually don't do it as I haven't really been a developer for 20 years...

They should describe in better detail why they are collecting that info - I mean, we know why, but a statement would be nice.

I disliked the questions on adblockers more :-)

@RoryAlsop Every question appears ot be about how much I'm paid, what kind of job I want, etc. etc.

Well I then started reading some of the meta posts and it appears that the it's for "marketing"

@Liam oh - that's not what I saw. There is value in which demographic people fit into, so they can work with sponsors/advertisers etc]

SO is becoming aggressively salesy these days.

I agree - but it is very easy to avoid seeing it :-)

adblockers ftw

and to be fair SO is waaay less salesy than a lot of t'interwebs

There are all these sites now that detect adblockers and put up a block to say you can't read the article etc unless you disable the blocker - so even if I was a regular reader of that site I will no longer go there or link to it

I wonder how large a population has to do that before they stop

@RoryAlsop I think this is the problem. SO is soo large now that they kinda can't loose.

No matter what they do there is an army of "Please makez the codez" robots out there ready to jump on board

wow - that question you linked to...it appears to show that there were questions that I didn't get asked at all

I wasn't asked what job I want, for example

I also didn't have a "when was the last time you updated your CV" question

or apects of a job's benefits package

@RoryAlsop ha, see above

heh

so it must be different for everyone

hmmm

or at least for some

There are a few good questions "from the commiunity" tacked onto the end

these felt very much like an afterthought to keep people happy

I just got to the end and thought, "yeah I don't think I want to give you this info"

I'm very much loosing trust in SO as a company

stackoverflow.com/company/management

No longer two guys with a server somewhere

I'm okay with Stack Exchange - they have a good bunch of people, and broadly speaking I think they are trying to follow a good path. Economic pressures do have a say, however, so it is obvious they are getting pushed down the advertising and channels route

But that doesn't impact my trust relationship with them

the usage of data, especially for us in the UK, is rather well regulated - it has to be, otherwise the damages for them will become incredibly high

I think SE/SO misses Jeff Atwood. He seemed to be it's moral compass. He seems to of been replaced by a load of money men/women from merrill lynch

@Liam that may well be true - however I think the core parts of SE that I interact with are still doing the same as they ever did: making a platform that can be used by millions

vs blog.codinghorror.com/…

So I don't think changes at that level will actually impact the maority of users of the SE network. Maybe biggest impact on the trilogy sites, sure, and I think the focus for their developers is skewed towards Channels and the Enterprise world, which maybe imnpacts time to bugfix?

@RoryAlsop yeah. They're trying to "monetise". Which I do get. Everyone wants to make cash, right?! But in doing so they're loosing the whole "make the internet better" thing.I mean it's fine, but I won't be giving them so much information moving forward

@Liam I always look at what negative impacts giving information will have on me. SOme organisations get very tainted data from me because I can see negative outcomes if I give them the correct info.

SE not so much - but like I said, that's because of my interactions with them.

I don't interact with them in a way that them forwarding on sensitive data to 3rd parties would negatively impact me

@RoryAlsop I think I always look at it, what do I get by giving away this info. I'm prepared for google to have info on me because I get a lot back for it. SO I don't see the benefit. Doesn't help that SO jobs don't appear to exist outside of London

@Liam oh, and there will never be a job on the SO list for me, as I am just not in that space :-)

Until they start offering me more benefit I'm trimming down the info they have on me