The dumbest part of SO is how the accepted answer would often be bad, and sometimes someone had posted a better answer after the fact, and if the all-powerful moderators had the power to update it, they sure never did. Likewise, there were often better insights in comments. Apparently if you have the right mod powers, you can just edit an answer (such as the accepted one) to make it correct, but that always struck me as a bizarre feature, to put words in other people’s mouths.

I think overall SO took the gamification, and the “internet points” idea, way too far. As a professional, I don’t care about Reddit Karma or the SO score or my HN karma. I just wanted answers that are correct, and a place to discuss anything that’s actually interesting.

I did value SO once as part of the tedious process of attempting to get some technical problem solved, as it was the best option we had, but I definitely haven’t been there since 2023. RIP.

> took gamification way too far

I disagree, I always thought it SO did a great job with it. The only part I would have done differently would be to cap the earnable points per answer. @rndusr124 shouldn't have moderation powers just because his one and only 2009 answer got 3589 upvotes.