I've noticed that for a lot of quick/common stuff ("how do I change font color with JavaScript?") the question that comes up is old and talks about jQueryUI, but there are 400 answers that cover every library and framework since then.

It's really not convenient to search through those answers even though the knowledge you need is there.

For a long time they argued that duplicate questions were a problem because they weren't trying to be a Q&A site but rather a knowledge database. But it turns out that the duplicate reduction effort has made the knowledge database harder to access for many common queries.

> Even when there aren’t better sources I’ve found that the SO results are just all outdated and don’t cover any newer stuff

I think their algorithm is the problem, answers should be slowly deprecated over time. Who in real life would trust an answer written 10 years ago when languages, OSes and frameworks change every year?

They do do this! When you're on a question, for example https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30081275, click on the answer sort order drop-down and select trending.

I've also seen the trending sort automatically applied on certain questions.

So the default priority that it shows to search engine crawlers is the wrong one?

A lot of people say to use Reddit instead of StackOverflow, but IMO Reddit is even worse for this than SO, since most old threads are locked.

What I found those information in Reddit is that they are current with the information than SO. The results from SO are dated back to '08 to '17 and they are often outdated. If the thread is locked in Reddit, they can create a new post and add the link to locked thread in the comment and seeking for more solutions, they are often keep it up. Compared to SO which will locked it up for being "dupe".

This is particular annoying when it comes to CLI tools. Often the search top result will show outdated SO post that the command arguements are depreciated, it took me hours to find this out after couldn't figure out why the command are not working. If I search the problem with site:reddit.com, the answer are usually relevant and current with a working command.

SO's overaggressive moderation are preventing the new information from being relevant. That's why people flocks to GitHub, Discord, Reddit, and Steam forums because they don't share the SO moderation philosophy.

When you hear someone say something like that, what they mean is get involved with the related community on Reddit, or Discord, or a forum.

SO had various communities and they were quite helpful for the time, and if you hung around for a bit you got quite a good group.

Most of that has (sadly, imo) migrated to Discord.

Only outdated answers exist anymore. While in theory you can ask a question an get an up to date answer, in practice it is duplicate or off topic and so closed. The answers from 2010 are still there, and good enough even if the technology has moved on.