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I'm trying to come to grips with exactly what UX is and how it relates to my interests. So please allow me to get a bit meta here (without getting shunted off onto the meta forum).

I think stackexchange sites are great and use them a lot. But what would the UX discipline have to say about their limitations?

EDIT:

Having been asked for a more specific question, let's define some goals for the UX design of stackexchange.

  1. [SE's stated goal] to provide high quality Q&As for its communities
  2. [a deliberately broader one] To maximise the likelihood of valuable human-human interaction (via the internet) within the context of the topics discussed on each site

Can the SE framework (voting behaviour, reputation, mod policies, etc etc) be evaluated against those goals? I'll admit that (2) is a tough benchmark to use as it's not even SE's stated design principle, but it's certainly of huge importance to the community.

I'm also more interested in limitations as I think I already know the many positives. (Or do I? Is there stuff I'm missing? That would make for an interesting answer too).

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    I don't think that this question can be properly answered. Stack Exchange is a huge place. Please be specific on what you want to discuss. Furthermore, I think asking for a UX review of a site is not allowed here. That would, I think, include se itself. – André Jan 14 '14 at 15:14
  • Agreed with Andre; this is almost more of a Site Review (specifically listed as off topic) since it's really quite broad. You're rarely going to find just one UX issue with any site/product, so it's really better to ask about one specific feature/issue which can get very pointed answers. – Ben Brocka Jan 14 '14 at 15:17
  • I can't find where site reviews are listed as off-topic (not ux.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic or ux.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask), but I'll take it on faith as they are. Presumably one reason for this is to prevent lazy developers using UX for their usability testing - can I argue an exception as this is obviously not the case here? Will also edit to add specifics. – Sideshow Bob Jan 14 '14 at 15:32