peeters,

"I'm not sure if you believe that or not... I have yield an EE result over SO."

Without knowing your username, I can't comment except to say that unlike SO, EE has built systems over the past couple of years -- at the community's insistence -- that allow us to take extraordinary measures to ensure you get responses and, hopefully, answers.

There's no question that today -- indeed, for nearly the last year -- SO's results have ranked higher than EE's. There are a number of possible reasons (and the true nature of why is probably a combination of them):
1. EE's decisions to worry more about SERP than about fixing the issues it had created with its site with the 2007 launch; in short, it was an idea that was founded in a total misunderstanding of the nature of volunteer Experts, people who ask questions, and the evolving nature of Q&A. By building the site it did, and then by trying to "fix" the problem that was created, you can make the case that everything EE did led to the establishment of SO (and any number of other Q&A sites) and -- given the nature of the relationship between SO's founders and Matt Cutts, even the Panda changes to Google's algorithm.
2. SO is free to use, and free trumps paid. Free is also a lot more difficult to pay the bills with (you can't make it up on the volume), but for the initial phase of developing traffic and SERPs, there's no question in my mind that Free will win every time.
3. EE's internal systems didn't really allow for it to quickly respond to an evolving landscape. The 2007 site was almost marketing-centric, and for at least two years, EE attempted to do things by using marketing-type solutions. They didn't work, because they addressed symptoms and not the underlying issues. Once EE realized what the problems really were, it was too late to go back, so it had to start from the ground up; it had to maintain its existing systems (and improve them incrementally) while at the same time rebuild the entire programming and data foundations... and allow for the migration from one system to the other with a minimum of disruption -- and given that EE is now nearly 15 years old, that was no mean feat by any stretch. Oh... and it had to do it on the fly, using only current revenues -- there's no sugar daddy bankrolling EE -- so the option of hiring 250 programmers and developers wasn't viable.

"I think this displays a fundamental difference in how you and I idealize technical research. You seem to follow the "RTFM" doctrine. I subscribe to the view that StackOverflow (and other community forums) is the f'ing manual."

I'm willing to accept that you believe SO is the effing manual. But what I consider EE to be is the place where you go when the effing manual isn't enough -- and in the 40 or so years I've been dealing with electronic data processing technology, I'm met exactly one English-speaking person who can actually "get" a technical manual or reference reading it the first time. That's not to denigrate the people at SO; in my experience, many are well-spoken, capable people who do their best to understand questions and offer solutions. But because of SO's systems, some user who may not be the most technically adept may or may not understand what s/he's being told -- and may or may not be able to formulate his/her question in a manner that can be relatively easily answered.

And THAT, to me, is the fundamental difference between EE and SO. EE's culture is such that any Expert worthy of the designation will try to understand the Asker's issues. It's not about the Experts; it's about finding the solution for the Asker. It's not about coming up with the perfectly written question and pristinely described solution; it's about helping someone who is faced with an issue s/he doesn't know how to resolve.

"If I haven't used Google or SO search within 5 minutes of hitting a library- or framework-related problem I've been wasting my time. I think it's unreasonable of you to call this laziness. To me it has proven very effective."

Apples and oranges. One of the most frequest complaints I see daily at EE is what we call "abandoners" -- people who ask, get the answer and don't even bother to say "thanks", and one of the most frequent complaints I see about SO is essentially the same thing. You don't fit that model. You search, as do most people who are EE members (including paying ones). You do not care to take the time to ask a question and get an answer (because, in your experience, it's inefficient); my experience is that it's inefficient to. But you're not the person I commented on. My comment was in reference to the person who drives by, asks a question, and doesn't say a word -- he just takes. He doesn't want to learn; he just wants it handed to him. And yes, that's lazy.

"Furthermore, if you want to disincentivise passers-by why is it so imperitive that your site be indexed by Google? After all, your community seems to know where to look already."

I may be passionate in my defense of Experts Exchange (they'll tell you I'm equally passionate in my criticism of them as well) -- but I'm not stupid. EE got brutalized by Google's algorithm update after brutalizing itself by some structural design decisions that were ... ummm ... let's call them "misguided". Like everyone else in the web world, with the possible exceptions of Facebook, Amazon, eBay and a few others, being visible in Google's index is important; it's where new customers come from.

I spent most of my life in a subscription-based business -- and what's true is that you lose customers every day, and you have to replace them, plus pick up a few more, just to stay even. When Panda was implemented, EE had been back where it had been prior to the 2007 launch in terms of traffic for a relatively short period of time; that means that what sustained EE for the better part of five years was solely its ability to perform for its existing customer base, because its SOURCE of new subscribers was reduced to a comparative trickle. If you ask me, that is a far more eloquent explanation of why EE is going to be around for the long haul than anything else: it works.

ep