Another quarter down, and it's time for a fresh look at what the Community Products team here at Stack Overflow is working on. As Stack Overflow keeps growing to better serve all of us in tech, we're putting a lot of energy into what comes next.
The way developers learn and connect online is changing, and Stack Overflow needs to keep up. While core Q&A will always be a critical resource, we're exploring and building new ways for technologists to learn, share, and collaborate. Think of it as expanding the platform with new tools and spaces that go beyond the traditional question and answer format, supporting different modes of learning.
Our goals include:
- Reaching and supporting technologists: By trying out new content formats and ways to connect, we want to make sure Stack Overflow is relevant and useful for all developers, whatever their learning style.
- Expanding conversations: We're looking at ways to go beyond just quick answers and to have more in-depth discussions about technical topics.
- Creating more ways to learn: We want to offer different kinds of content, from short tips to deep dives, to help grow skills.
We're building these new things to work with, not replace, Q&A, making Stack Overflow a more complete resource for the whole tech community. Today, I’ll dive a bit deeper into our key focus areas as we work to build the next generation of Stack Overflow.
Growth through knowledge creation: Expanding beyond Q&A
While the Q&A format will always be central to Stack Overflow, we believe there's value in supporting more ways to share and learn. That's why we're experimenting with ideas for new kinds of content that can help us dig deeper into topics and connect in different ways.
Imagine having a space for more open discussions, where experienced folks can share their thoughts on the best architecture. Or maybe longer-form articles that really break down complex concepts. We're even thinking about quicker, more informal ways to share tips and updates. You’ve already seen some of this exploration through chat, comments, follow up questions, and discussions.
This isn't about changing what Stack Overflow is at its core; it's about adding more ways for the developer community to learn and share.
We also recognize that all content formats, existing and new, require better moderation methods and tools to support community growth. Moderators and power users are often the most invested in managing and growing communities, yet have lacked the proper tools to be able to support their communities. We are excited to reinvest in this area to support some of the most important behind-the-scenes work that moderators and power users perform today.
Leveling up community engagement: Making Stack Overflow more connected
Did you know code on Stack Overflow is copied roughly two million times a day? Wouldn’t it be neat to know how impactful your contributions are around the world? Stack Overflow is nothing without its community. To keep it a vibrant place, we're looking at ways to make it even easier to connect, engage, and get recognized for all the ways users participate and contribute. We’re looking toward:
- Better ways to recognize and reward contributions. We're exploring improved ways to reward and acknowledge the various contributions of community members, particularly with the expansion of content formats. We want to celebrate your contributions both on platform, within the community, and in ways that might help you land your next great opportunity.
- Ways to make it easier to participate. We want to make it smoother for new folks to get involved and for everyone to find their place in the community for the long haul. Through better help, support, onboarding, and education, we believe we can help new users quickly grasp and appreciate the value of Stack Overflow and of all the network sites.
Our goal here is to foster an even stronger sense of community where everyone feels valued, safe, and empowered to learn and contribute.
Smarter discovery: Getting you to the right content, faster
Sifting through the vast body of knowledge on Stack Overflow can be a time suck. We're working on making Stack Overflow the fastest way to find exactly what you need. Through personalized experiences and AI powered search, we want to show you what's most relevant and helpful to you—whether you’re stuck on a problem or you’re ready to share the knowledge you’ve gained.
Put another way, we want Stack Overflow to get smarter about what you're into so you spend less time searching and more time building. We will do this through:
- Recommendations that actually help. We're building systems to suggest questions, answers, and new stuff based on what you're doing and what you're interested in.
- Smarter search and discovery. Leveraging machine learning and AI to give you more accurate and useful results and suggestions.
The goal is simple—get you the info you need right here on Stack Overflow as quickly as possible.
To round us out, here’s a recap of what was worked on last quarter (January - March 2025):
- Question Assistant - Tested scaling the Question Assistant to all new askers which held the improved question success rates of 12% we observed in smaller scale tests.
- Improved the question-asking flow - Ran a series of experiments and implemented refinements to the question asking process that improved question completion rates by 10% against the baseline.
- Expanding comments - Ran a series of experiments to expand commenting.
- Stacks Editor update - Introduced a new editor, which provides a rich text editing environment, and boosted answer completion by 8.6% against the baseline experience.
- Stack Snippets update - Our Stack-native tool to add runnable code to Q&A for frontend tags needed an update to run in the new editor.
- Improving user activation - Updates the main landing page and ran a series of experiments to redirect users from actions they can’t yet perform (like upvoting) to a related action they can perform (like saving), which helps them still participate on the site without hitting a dead end.
- Community Asks Sprint - Completed a dedicated sprint where we focus on community requests, quality-of-life improvements, and long-standing bugs.
Looking ahead
Stack Overflow is evolving, and we're all part of it. We're genuinely excited about building a better platform for everyone—one that's more helpful, more personal, and more engaging.
We'll continue to keep you in the loop as we move forward. Your feedback and participation are what make this place work, so keep it coming. Together, we can make Stack Overflow an even more valuable resource for technologists everywhere.
Thank you for being such a vital part of the Stack Overflow community! As always, we’re excited to share findings as we go, and we value your input along the way. If you’d like to participate in user research (interviews, unmoderated tests, surveys, etc), opt into our user research list by toggling on Research Invitations in your settings.