"Programmers all over the world helped make an American Dream happen in 2008
when we built Stack Overflow, a Q&A website for programmers creating a shared > Creative Commons knowledge base for the world. We did it democratically,
because that's the American way. We voted to rank questions and answers, and
held elections for community moderators using ranked choice voting. We built a digital democracy – of the programmers, by the programmers, for the
programmers. It worked."
I don't know if StackOverflow should be his legacy. The site has become very heavy handed in moderation. The satellite sites are better (not SuperUser or the other one).
Nothing's perfect, but I do not wish back the alternatives we had (Experts Exchange, Quora, a myriad of forums where the first response was - did you use the search function, endless discussions that don't answer the original question, and so on).
It saved me so much time as a developer who just wants to get no-nonsense answers to my questions. The platform could not work without good moderation, or the site would drown in duplicates and low-quality content.
I don't know if StackOverflow should be his legacy. The site has become very heavy handed in moderation. The satellite sites are better (not SuperUser or the other one).