Products · Product
Stack Overflow
Raised as a usability problem by 246 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 186 threads.
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- 12Website slow to respond to interactionsUnreviewed
Every issue, all time, most people first
Questions closed as duplicates with no pointer to the existing answerUnreviewed
20082026- Questions closed as duplicates that are actually irrelevant to the asker's problem2026-10-07
- Random users decide duplicates, even when they misread the question, with no asker control2026-07-23
- Legitimate questions get closed as duplicates when they are not duplicates2025-12-23
Outdated accepted answers waste time on opening questionsUnreviewed
20082026- Outdated top answers stay on top, and newcomers can't fix them2026-05-26
- Hard to find the right answer; accepted answers are often wrong or outdated2025-05-07
- Accepted answers can't be deleted by the author, so outdated answers stay up2024-05-08
Own search is so poor people must use GoogleUnreviewed
20082026- Users never search Stack Overflow's own site, going through Google instead2025-05-31
- Site's own search doesn't work well, so duplicates are hard to find2025-05-08
- Site search is so poor the user falls back to Google to find answers2025-01-08
New users can't comment until they earn reputationUnreviewed
20082026- New users can't comment and must earn upvotes first, so they can't ask for clarification2026-03-09
- New users lack reputation to flag duplicates or comment, so they can't help effectively2016-09-26
- New users can't do basic things like commenting until they earn reputation points2016-02-17
Existing answers not surfaced while typing a questionUnreviewed
20082026- Searching for a simple answer returns outdated or overly complicated posts2025-03-01
- Built-in search fails to surface answers users are looking for2023-09-14
- Search results bury useful answers under pages of unhelpful replies2018-07-09
Every click from search results triggers a captchaUnreviewed
20082026- Search shows a captcha to every logged-out user and keyword matching is weak2026-01-06
- Content is gated behind ridiculous captchas, making the site difficult to use2025-07-20
- Every click from search results to answers triggers a captcha, so the user avoids the site2025-01-13
Can't remember which sign-in method was usedUnreviewed
20082026- Too many login methods make it hard to remember which one was used2018-02-04
- Can't remember which sign-in method was used for an account2013-03-20
- Locked out after signing out; couldn't tell which account or email to use2011-02-22
Valid questions closed as unclear or off topicUnreviewed
20082026- Valid questions get closed as unclear or off topic, frustrating users2025-05-15
- New users' questions get closed or flagged quickly, leaving them unsure where they stand2023-08-14
- Good questions get downvoted or closed, so users lose them and their effort2016-04-05
Questions marked duplicate although subtly differentUnreviewed
20082026- Questions get marked as duplicates even when they are subtly different2018-09-17
- Questions get marked duplicates pointing to answers for older software versions2016-08-31
- Questions marked duplicate without links to the actual duplicate2012-09-09
Website slow to respond to interactionsUnreviewed
20082026- Main site is noticeably slower since code boxes started loading differently2026-04-05
- Website is unusably slow to interact with2022-06-22
- App and mobile site are much slower to interact with than before2021-06-02
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Pages cluttered with gamification tokens and no option to turn them off2026-10-29
- Answers get edited by others and users get told they are wrong, making answering less enjoyable2026-10-29
- Review queue traps punish users even when their answer was reasonable2026-10-29
- Questions closed as duplicates that are actually irrelevant to the asker's problem2026-10-07
- Duplicate flag offers no way to explain why a question is a dupe2026-08-18
- Shows only 'Enable JavaScript and cookies to continue' with no content visible2026-08-05
- Random users decide duplicates, even when they misread the question, with no asker control2026-07-23
- AI text box sits beside the real Ask a Question button, so users get AI by mistake2026-07-19
- Other users rewrite posted questions, so text shows under the author's name that they never wrote2026-05-27
- Outdated top answers stay on top, and newcomers can't fix them2026-05-26
- Destructive warning was only seen after the command had already been run2026-04-06
- The redesigned website was horrible to use, per the commenter2026-04-05
- Main site is noticeably slower since code boxes started loading differently2026-04-05
- Hid previously visible information and made comments harder to read2026-04-05
- New users can't comment and must earn upvotes first, so they can't ask for clarification2026-03-09
- Related-answer links are hard to use and break the flow of drafting questions2026-01-07
- New users post questions by mistake because the prominent Ask Question button invites it2026-01-07
- Search shows a captcha to every logged-out user and keyword matching is weak2026-01-06
- New users found the on-hold change confusing, so it was reversed2026-01-04
- Correct answers buried under upvoted wrong answers with no accepted marker visible2026-01-04
- Real-time chat help means asking repeatedly and questions are hard to find later2026-01-04
- New users find the question closing and reopening process opaque and unintuitive, and reopen queue rarely works2026-01-04
- Clarifying a question's problem gets buried in comments and edits, with no clear discussion mechanism2026-01-03
- Legitimate questions get closed as duplicates when they are not duplicates2025-12-23
- Can't set up email notifications for watched tags and can't tell read from unread questions2025-11-30
- Multiple overlays cover content before the user can see any question or answer2025-07-21
- Embedded questions get closed as duplicates of unrelated desktop or web questions2025-07-21
- Content is gated behind ridiculous captchas, making the site difficult to use2025-07-20
- Users get shamed as lazy and scolded for asking basic questions2025-06-03
- Users never search Stack Overflow's own site, going through Google instead2025-05-31
- Layout is cluttered, forcing user to block many page elements with an ad blocker2025-05-16
- Questions get instantly closed as duplicates with inapplicable answers, so users can't get help2025-05-16
- Valid questions get closed as unclear or off topic, frustrating users2025-05-15
- Can't answer questions until reaching 50 reputation, which feels impossible to reach2025-05-13
- Cookie popup covers a quarter of the page on search results2025-05-10
- Site's own search doesn't work well, so duplicates are hard to find2025-05-08
- Hard to find the right answer; accepted answers are often wrong or outdated2025-05-07
- Keeps asking for cookie preferences every visit instead of remembering them2025-04-11
- Searching for a simple answer returns outdated or overly complicated posts2025-03-01
- Questions closed as duplicates despite explaining why the situation differs2025-02-07
- Searches for tool recommendations surface closed threads that can't be answered2025-02-07
- Every click from search results to answers triggers a captcha, so the user avoids the site2025-01-13
- Site search is so poor the user falls back to Google to find answers2025-01-08
- Hard to find questions worth answering; signal-to-noise ratio is terrible2025-01-08
- First question is pushed to the bottom half of the screen by banners and headers2024-12-23
- Stack and Google searches now return unhelpful results, so users turn to AI for answers2024-11-26
- Stack Overflow's own search is poor, so users rely on Google with a site filter2024-10-29
- Downvotes arrive with no explanation of what was wrong with the question2024-08-28
- New user's question never reaches main site; stuck in staging with no way to get answers2024-08-28
- Questions get closed as duplicates with a ritual of voting to reopen, so users don't get answers2024-08-28