My perspective: Stack Overflow was started to be a documentation site, but was implemented as a Q/A site. And that doomed it from the start.

If someone wants to get help, and they end up on Stack Overflow, the structure looks like a Q/A site, and they treat it that way. The people "in the know" then accuse them of being "bad" for posting a question to a documentation site. Combine that with the gamification, and it had to turn into the toxic mess that it did.

When I first heard of the gamification method of moderation, I thought it was a really good idea. But, over the years, it has proven to be a means to enforce an echo chamber, rather than a way to filter out bad posts. I have yet to find a site (HN included), where that isn't true.