So I’m a little addicted to Stack Overflow. I’ll admit it. I browse it for fun, even during lunch-breaks and after work. As far as the reputation ranking goes, for the past 12 months or so, I’ve been sitting at around 30th to 40th place, first hitting the front page back in November 08, when 8000 rep was all you needed and even Jon Skeet was only third.

As you can see, I have been treating it as a bit of a game - trying to get a high score, trying to beat the other players. Obviously that’s not my only motivation, but you know what I mean: it’s always nice to see rewards for your work, even if it’s just a number. As such, I’ve looked at the profiles of some of the people above and around my score and very quickly noticed a trend: the top users on Stack Overflow ask barely any questions. Below is a graph of the number of questions and answers from the top 36 users:

Can you see me on there? Waaay over on the right, with 250 questions - sixteen times the median! My question-to-answer ratio is right on 4, whereas the median in this group is 139. There are two people there with reputations well in excess of 35,000 who have never asked a single question. Obviously, this baffles me.

It really makes me think about who these people are, and what they are doing in their daily jobs such that they have no questions? Some of the people we’re talking about here literally wrote the book on their chosen field of programming, so they’re probably excused, but still… no questions? It leads me to draw some conclusions:

1. This person knows everything there is to know about C#, or Ruby, or PHP. They are never posed with any programming problems they can’t solve without help.
2. This person considers asking the Internet for help to be unprofessional, or that the Stack Overflow community would be helpful in answering their questions.
3. This person works in an environment with a lot of other really-smart people, and help is attained offline.

In response to these:

1. Learn something new, man! Pick up some Javascript, or Go! or a new Framework in your current language, but choose something.
2. This doesn’t seem too likely, and I hope it’s not true. If someone who was already active in a Q&A forum had a question but withheld it to save face, that would seem a bit vain to me. I personally have no problems asking questions which would seem simple to my peers.
3. Well… top effort! Lucky you.

To me at least, asking questions is a sign that you’re learning. I always have questions about the work I’m doing, whether it’s how to actually get it right, or whether there’s a better way than what I’m already doing.

What’s your opinion on the matter? If you’re a Stack Overflower, what’s your question:answer ratio?