Discussions: Subjective content within Collectives™

A space for threaded, public conversations on Stack Overflow where you engage in deeper dialogue and share perspectives on technical topics.

Last updated September 28, 2023
ProductCollectives™ on Stack Overflow

Now available!

Try Discussions in the following Collectives™ on Stack Overflow:

Why do this?

When developers are learning something new or formalizing a direction for a project, they often turn to others in the technical community to seek their advice and expertise. This experiment will explore a new space on Stack Overflow where users can share quality, subjective content related to an area of practice.

Discussions can provide a fluid, conversational way for users of all skill levels to tap into the collective knowledge of the community. They can explore technical approaches, share different perspectives, and make more informed technical decisions.

Feature set

  • Users can browse and view open Discussions posts.
  • Collective members can create new Discussions, and any registered user can reply to existing Discussions.
  • Nested replies are supported.
  • While voting is supported and post scores are tracked, there is no reputation impact to voting within Discussions.

About Labs

Since 2008 Stack Overflow has pioneered open source conversations in the technology community, helping us become the most visited, most trusted destination for developers in the world. In 2017, we unleashed the same productivity gains inside companies with Stack Overflow for Teams.

Knowledge sharing between peers and experts is fundamental to software development ‒ you can see it happening in Slack, in meetings, or quick hangs. Advances in technology, like GenAI, puts everyone in learning mode and knowledge sharing is at the core of that experience.

Stack Overflow for Teams sits at the very intersection of curiosity and innovation, a place to ask & answer your peers’ questions, learn from other experts within the company, and keep up with ‒ or be the driver of ‒ all new developments.

Our guiding principles

Find new ways to give technologists more time to create amazing things.
Accuracy is fundamental. That comes from attributed, peer-reviewed sources that provide transparency.
The coding field should be accessible to all, including beginners to advanced users.
Humans should always be included in the application of any new technology.

With these in mind, starting over the next few months, we will be sharing our ideas, opinions, designs, research and product ideas which combine emerging technologies with our platforms and services.