I have been doing some thinking:
I am a rookie developer, and I am learning the basics right now.
Stack Overflow has helped me immensely, and I appreciate both the presence of the site and of the community.
However I feel that the current structure of the site is a bit aggressive. Sometimes you really try your best, and then you might get stuck upon something that is really hard for you, but extremely obvious to others.
I have felt quite a lot of anxiety lately on whether I should ask a question or not. Sometimes this has been productive as it forced me to dig deeper before asking for help, but sometimes it gets plainly toxic.
For this I have been thinking that there should be two kinds of questions on Stack Overflow:
a) Permanent questions
and
b) "I am desperate for help questions" that will self destruct after 48 hours.
In order to put some limits upon help-vampires, each user should be able to ask only three desperate questions a month AND in order to not pollute the amazing educational legacy of the site, these posts will self-destruct after 48 hours.
Points gained by these questions and answers should be kept on a different reputation board, and for every 50 points earned through asking "desperate questions" you could be gaining 5 regular reputation points. Answering desperate questions however should give you half the amount of regular reputation points.
I think that this kind of division, is truly needed in order to keep people happier and limit question pollution without stiffling the efficient diffusion of knowledge.
New users should think before they ask but they should also have a credible way to show how engaged they are.
I believe that this kind of structure I propose will be hugely beneficial for the site (cause it will rekindle active interest) while also limiting noise pollution.
What the community thinks?