Gleaning lessons from SO: which traits to keep or toss?

Question

It's clear that StackOverflow is the literal and meaningful precedent for many users on this site. But SO is an immense project with thousands of users, as many opinions, and both good and bad traits. Which ones are good? Which ones carry over?

I raise this question because:

• People use SO as both the canonical example of what we should do and what we should avoid. SO isn't always right, nor should we expect it to be. But which traits are worth copying?

• Some aspects of SO are specific to the coding community, to coders, to the unique demands of the profession. Cooking is in some ways a very different kind of act. But which traits are universal and which unique?

Below I listed traits or moderation choices from SO as individual answers. If you think that perspective of SO is accurate, vote it up. If you think that perspective is inaccurate, vote it down.

I'm not trying to encourage false-dichotomies, that anything was 'all' good or bad. The idea is to simply answer: what happened on SO, what worked, what do we want to copy.

Answer 1

SO sought to attract experts first and foremost. Even though cooking is an act done by more people than coding, we still need to appeal above all else to cooking professionals.

Answer 2

SO allowed "fun" and "discussion" questions to proliferate. This muddied the site and made it less reputable.

Answer 3

SO has 800k questions. We should employ more careful moderation, stricter culling of duplicates, and other approaches to stay focused on a select group of questions rather than a continual inflow of marginally beneficial additions.

Answer 4

SO allowed the proliferation of web-forum culture: sarcasm, humor, internal and external memes, specific discussion of users (both good and bad). This is a feature of all online communities and we should encourage it the same.

Answer 5

SO allowed the proliferation of web-forum culture to its detriment. Sarcasm, comments about users, and referencing of internal and external memes distracted from the core purpose of the site. In addition, they may be a turn-off to the community of cooks who are less familiar with the merciless banter of the web.

Answer 6

SO sought to attract experts, but cooking is a much more populist act. Almost everyone cooks, and the average cook deserves more attention and toleration here than the average coder would receive there.

Answer 7

SO harnessed fun questions and discussion to engage its community. It's a strength we should try to emulate.

Answer 8

SO has 800K questions. It's better not to overmoderate. We shouldn't worry too much about the proliferation of duplicate questions, as long as individually they are on topic.