StackOverflow is an online community for programmers launched in 2008 that has grown to 50 million monthly visitors. It enforces strict moderation policies to ensure high quality questions and answers. Members earn reputation points and badges for participating. The community is focused on getting great answers to great questions through gamification and rewards.

1. A D E TA I L E D
B R E A K DO W N O F
S TA C KO V E R F L O W ’ S
O N L I N E
C O M M U N I T Y
By Richard Millington,
www.feverbee.com

2. StackOverflow was launched in 2008 as a Q&A site for
programmers. It has since grown to 50 million monthly
visitors and is the crown jewel of the expansive
StackExchange network.
StackOverflow enforces extremely strict moderation
policies designed to get great answers to great questions.
It does not allow casual chatter on the main community
platform. This is unique amongst most organizations.
StackOverflow earns direct revenue from the community
via recruitment (talent), advertising (ads), and helping
companies create their own private instance of
StackOverflow within their organization.
C O M M U N I T Y C O N C E P T
StackOverflow is an
online community for
programmers
CONCEPT AND BACKGROUND

3. O V E R V I E W O F S T A C K O V E R F L O W ’ S O N L I N E C O M M U N I T Y
STACKOVERFLOW’s
Community
QUESTIONS
BUSINESS
SOLUTIONS
USERS
TAGS
DEVELOPER
STORIES
JOBS Members can browse through the
list of users and search by
keywords
Users
This is where members can create
their ‘online resumes’
Developer Stories
For businesses who want to hire, advertise, or
use StackOverflow in their work.
Business Solutions
Programmers can search and find
jobs published by paying
advertisers on the community.
Developer Jobs
Tags
These are keywords or labels that
members can browse through to
find relevant information
Questions
The community is entirely orientated
around ‘questions’ which also appear on
the landing page of the community.

4. H O M E P A G E
D E S I G N

5. 5
THE COMMUNITY HOMEPAGE(S) A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
The community has a different homepage for visitors compared
with logged in members. This is really smart to do. Visitors have
different needs than logged in (and returning members).

6. 6
THE COMMUNITY HOMEPAGE A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
The community is entirely focused
on the latest activity. Members are
expected to scroll through and find
questions to answer. This is a fixed
list rather than infinite scroll.
Good use of showing the
popularity of questions by
votes, answers, and views.
People know how popular
a question is without
having to click the link
Most of the questions here
seem very unpopular. This is
due to the sheer ferocity of
questions StackOverflow
receives. Might be
worthwhile showing
questions which are popular
but not answered yet.
Excellent display of tags.
Clearly showing what the
question is about.
Nice integration to show
the latest news about the
community here. Doesn’t
intrude on the main
activity, but lets people
know the broader
community news
The ‘Ask Question’ button
is a little hard to see.
Clear gamification features
and notifications on previous
posts here
Love this simple way to
add and update favourite
tags.
This advertising works. It’s
not too intrusive upon the
rest of the site.
The ‘latest activity’ metrics show a
clearly active site. This is good to
show before clicking the question.
Search box is slightly hidden,
but not too hard to find.
Good selection of tabs. But it’s not
clear what the difference between
interesting and featured is. Can
probably remove a few of these.

7. ASKING A QUESTION / GETTING HELP A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
The mobile version of the visitor homepage removes
the registration form and tags. It focuses purely on
showing the latest questions. The ‘ask question’
option has also curiously vanished.
Presumably, most people ask questions via desktop
computers while programming. The slimmed down
nature of the site makes it ideal for visitors looking to
scroll through questions - possibly without
participating.
SLIMMED-DOWN
MOBILE SITE

8. U S E R
E X P E R I E N C E A N D
P A R T I C I P A T I O N

9. ASKING A QUESTION / GETTING HELP A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
StackOverflow is hosted on a custom-built site. While
most main platforms have auto-complete search,
StackOverflow does not. The search bar expands, but
does not display the relevant questions and
discussions in drop down mode.
However, given the programming-nature of the site,
there might be a very functional reason behind this.
NO AUTOCOMPLETE
SEARCH

10. ASKING A QUESTION / GETTING HELP A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Search works well. It shows not just
relevant questions, but also the specific
and highest voted answers to those
questions.
The speed of search is also faster than
any other site we’ve seen.
SHOWS ANSWER
AS WELL AS
QUESTIONS

11. ASKING A QUESTION / GETTING HELP A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Next to the search results are also
‘advanced search tips’. This is an
incredibly useful and interesting
addition to programmers. It helps
people find the answer to their question
even faster.
ADVANCED
SEARCH TIPS

12. 12
ASKING A QUESTION / GETTING HELP A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
This is REALLY
interesting.
StackOverflow tackles
the ‘repeat question’
problem by forcing you
to thoroughly research
the answer first. This is
the screen you see
when you select ‘ask
question’
Good tips with
relevant links. I
suspect the quantity
of text might
encourage some
people to skim past
this.
I love this ‘tick box’
along with the ‘open
mind’ text to confirm
that this has been
read.
Haven’t seen this
before, but could
easily be adapted to
any other online
community out there
today.
More links to ask a good
question. It might be a
good idea to guide
newcomers to read this
before asking a question,
otherwise I suspect most
people will ignore this.

13. ASKING GREAT QUESTIONS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
StackOverflow continues its maniacal focus to
ask good questions by providing prompts at
each stage of asking a question. Here there is
a prompt in default the title itself to be
specific along with advice on the right hand
side to provide details, share research, and ask
unrelated questions about the community in
the meta area.
StackOverflow also provides a relevant link to
the help center. This ensures people begin
questions with the right mindset and a good,
specific, title.
NOTIFICATIONS
TO ASK GOOD
QUESTIONS

14. ASKING GREAT QUESTIONS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
When you click on the box to enter your question,
formatting help appears on the right-hand side.
Each of the main tabs (links, images etc…) also
drops down to reveal further advice as part of
advanced help.
StackOverflow is focused on ensuring they only
receive good questions which other members can
answer and help improve the site. As you begin
typing the question, it appears in preview mode
below so you can see exactly how the question
will appear. Similar questions will also appear on
the right-hand side.
FORMATTING
QUESTIONS

15. ASKING GREAT QUESTIONS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
This appears complicated as you begin typing the
question. However, if StackOverflow detects
something which is incorrect, you receive a bright
red notification. You cannot post the question
until you’ve resolved this problem.
You can also see the advanced help above, the
preview below, and the similar questions on the
right hand side.
Again, every question that gets posted must be
terrific.
ERROR MESSAGES

16. ASKING GREAT QUESTIONS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
The community clever shows suggested tags from
those mentioned in the question or using AI from
previous questions.
If you begin to to type your own tag, a drop-down
box of relevant tags appears below along with a
description. This makes tagging really easy.
SUGGESTED TAGS

17. R E S P O N S E S A N D
E M P A T H Y

18. RESPONSES AND EMPATHY A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Questions are clearly displayed with regard
to the audience’s expectations. Coding is
properly formatted and shown within the
questions with simple tags.
Members can do two things. They can
either vote, favourite, comment, or answer
the question. However, newcomers are not
allowed to vote on questions until they
have a 15-point reputation score.
QUESTIONS
ARE WELL
DISPLAYED

19. RESPONSES AND EMPATHY A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Commenting on a question is a novel feature of
StackOverflow. It’s designed to improve the quality
of the question and provide feedback to the
original poster as well as providing more
information for people to create good answers.
This would be distracting in most online
communities, but works well when good quality
answers is the overriding part of the community
concept.
COMMENTING
ON QUESTIONS

20. RESPONSES AND EMPATHY A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
As we can begin to expect now, answering
questions contains further prompts about what to
do to provide a really good answer.
The link to further tips on writing great answers is
also a great practice.
ANSWERING A
QUESTION

21. RESPONSES AND EMPATHY A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
One of the truly unique aspects of StackOverflow’s
community is the ability of members to edit the
questions and answers of other members.
Everyone has the ability to do this, although the
process is peer-reviewed.
Edits are used to fix grammatical errors, clarify
meaning, correct minor mistakes, and add related
resources.
Aside from Wikipedia, I haven’t seen any other
community ever implement this feature.
EDITING AN
ANSWER

22. RESPONSES AND EMPATHY A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Unlike most organisations where empathy in
responses is a critical part of the response,
StackOverflow is designed for an audience that
only wants good, quick, answers to questions.
Almost all questions receive a quick response. The
responses are usually detailed and specific to help
the person. In this case, it’s code that the
programmer might like to use to resolve the
problem they are facing.
QUALITY OF
ANSWERS

23. R E G I S T R A T I O N
A N D O N B O A R D I N G

24. REGISTERING TO JOIN THE COMMUNITY A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
StackOverflow doesn’t have a separate
registration page, visitors are
encouraged to register with the fields
shown within the header at the top of
the page. This also shows Google and
Facebook sign on.
This is a genius feature to encourage
more registrations within the
community. The visitor-landing-page
copy is designed entirely to get people
to register.
NO
REGISTRATION
PAGE

25. REGISTERING TO JOIN THE COMMUNITY A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
StackOverflow has the easiest email
confirmation page you will ever see.
They have reduced the amount of copy
to just 9 words. You can consider doing
something similar with your email
confirmations.
EASY
CONFIRMATION

26. 26
THE PROFILE COMPLETION PAGE A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Simple copy to get people
started. Not sure on the logo.
Profile photo is easy to
drag and drop into
place.
Notice the ‘all fields are optional’
- I’d move this to the top of the
page
I like the phrasing of
‘what should we call
you?’
Standard feature to
select a few topics to
receive updates and
notification about. A
good benefit of using
tagging.
Not sure why this
section is relevant,
possibly the only area
here I’d remove.
Most importantly here is you
don’t have to write detailed
‘about me’ paragraphs. You can
select the key things that
matter.
Great way to merge in
advertising
opportunities.

27. WELCOME EMAIL A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
WELCOME
EMAIL
This welcome email is triggered by
participation in the community. The
quick summary, learning how to write
great answers, and custom views are
pretty effective ways to help newcomers
get started.
I suspect there might be an opportunity
for improvement here based upon tags
people have selected and what the
latest activity of the community is.

28. TUTORIAL PAGES A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
TUTORIALS FOR
NEWCOMERS
Once you join the community you
receive a notification with a link to the
tutorials page.
This tutorial page is detailed and
explains each of the steps required you
become a great participant of the
community. The visual element is
especially useful.

29. D E V E L O P E R J O B S
A N D S T O R I E S

30. TUTORIAL PAGES A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
DEVELOPER
STORIES
The jobs section revolves around
developer stories which members are
prompted to complete in the
community if they want to be open to
new job offers. The forms are relatively
simple to complete and all fields are
required.

31. TUTORIAL PAGES A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
THE TIMELINE
The developer stories are presented
really well, with tags at the top (not
shown), and then a detailed timeline of
previous jobs and experiences below.
Most communities could adapt this idea
to immediately upgrade their member
profiles.

32. USER TIPS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Relatively standard
and simple list of job
adverts. With a
search function and
location at the top
and list of ads
displayed below.This
might be the most
‘common’ area of the
community
Showing the salary,
tags, and ‘be one of
the first applicants’
is incredibly smart.
Showing the
previous searches is
a nice touch and
job preferences.
Easy to edit from
the front page.
Letting applicants
create job alerts is
also extremely
clever.

33. USER TIPS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
STANDARD JOB
ADVERTS
This section is a relatively simple and
clean way of showing the job adverts.
This might be the least innovative page
of the community.

34. USER TIPS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
APPLY FROM
WITHIN THE
PLATFORM
A major innovation of the community is
to enable members to apply for the job
directly within the platform. This
includes using their current reputation
score to apply for the positions.

35. M E M B E R
P R O F I L E S

36. MEMBER PROFILES A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Showing users where they rank
comparatively is a smart where to drive
more participating and reward the top
members.
Number of badges
and reputation
points are clearly
displayed.
Over communities
where the member
participates in. Not
relevant for most
communities (or
here, really)
The ‘impact score’ here
is genius. A great way of
showing a member’s
total contribution.
Excellent breakdown of
a member’s vital
statistics. Not sure what
‘4 hats’ are though.
This is a further good
breakdown of where
their expertise lies. You
can clearly see where
this member’s real
expertise is.

37. MEMBER PROFILES A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Showing a member’s top
posts mid-way down the
profile is a great way of
letting the member ‘show
off their best work’ without
looking like an ass.

38. MEMBER PROFILES A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Each member’s badges gained are
displayed at the bottom listed by date
and the reason they earned the badge.
This is a simple way of displaying the
badges. There might be better ways of
doing this however.
BADGES
DISPLAYED AT
THE BOTTOM

39. G A M I F I C A T I O N
A N D R E W A R D
S Y S T E M S

40. GAMIFICATION AND REWARD SYSTEMS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
StackOverflow has one of the most
advanced gamification systems on the
web. This begins at earning privileges for
taking simple actions ‘such as creating a
post’ all the way up to getting access to
analytics with 25,000 points.
The ticks next to the scores is an
especially nice touch.
PRIVLEGES SYSTEM

41. GAMIFICATION AND REWARD SYSTEMS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
This the ‘Tom Sawyer’
effect in action. The
more privileges you
earn, the more likely
you are to take on
doing work for the
community for free
full privileges board
encourages members
to take on more work
for free.
Showing the next
privilege and what’s
needed to get there
is incredibly smart.
A good menu which
helps explain what’s
required.
There are multiple
types of privileges
members can earn,
as broken down
here.

42. GAMIFICATION AND REWARD SYSTEMS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
There are a near-infinite number of
badges members can earn in the
StackOverflow community. These range
from question, answer, participation,
moderation, documentation, and ‘other’
badges.
The diversity of badges means everyone
can and almost certainly will begin
collecting badges from the very early
days of the community.
EARNING BADGES

43. GAMIFICATION AND REWARD SYSTEMS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
All of the systems are fully documented and
explained in detailed guides. This limits
confusion and potential anger from
members when they don’t get the rewards or
privileges they expected.
It’s usually a smart move to fully document
your reward systems.
DOCUMENTATION

44. C H A T R O O M S

45. CHAT ROOMS A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Interestingly, StackOverflow also operates
chat rooms which members with a
reputation score of at least 20 are allowed to
participate in. This type of interaction allows
for more general discussion which would be
an ill-fit for the quality-information focus of
the community.
This is a good balance between ephemeral
and serious discussions which many
organisations struggle with.
CHAT ROOMS

46. C O N C L U S I O N

47. 47
A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
StackOverflow, with the exception of
Facebook, has the most advanced and
sophisticated community platform on the
planet. There are hundreds of tiny details
which are all designed to support its core
concept of getting great answers to great
questions.
To support this mission, StackOverflow
deliberates limits engagement in favour of
quality contributions. This has the desired
impact of attracting the highest quality
programmers to share their best advice on
the community, but it’s a tough path for
others to follow.
However, platform vendors and
organisations can learn plenty from
StackOverflow’s homepage setup,
gamification systems, onboarding systems,
and job pages.
There is also plenty to learn here about
creating tutorials and nudges throughout
the platform to ensure that members make
great contributions to the community.
Many organisations would benefit from
focusing less on driving as much activity as
possible and instead focusing on driving
the right kind of activity within their
community. This is the real frontier of our
work today.
CONCLUSION
THE MOST ADVANCED COMMUNITY ON THE WEB

48. 48
A BREAKDOWN OF STACKOVERFLOW’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Richard Millington is the Founder of FeverBee, an online
community consultancy, and the author of Buzzing
Communities.
Richard works to help organisations understand the
technology and psychology behind the web’s most successful
online communities.
In the past decade, Richard has helped 250+ organisations
develop successful online communities for their employees,
customers and fans. His client roster includes Facebook,
Google, Oracle, Lego and many more.
FeverBee’s community management academy has also
trained 1200+ of the world’s top online community
professionals from around the globe.
To learn more, please visit: www.feverbee.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RICHARD MILLINGTON,
FEVERBEE
richard@feverbee.com
@RichMillington