Stack Overflow is the kernel from which all of this has grown. That was a community by programmers, for programmers.

The question now is, can the structure SO built there scale across a variety of human communities. I tend to think not.

Why not? As far as I know, it's been at least somewhat successful in some other fields already. The other surprising thing is how different the sites can be while still having the same structure and UI.

I think StackExchange is sufficiently flexible to be useful to people who aren't programmers--it just needs time to branch out. Remember that StackOverflow was not only the first site, but also had a big head start in the form of Spolsky and Atwood's blog audiences. Growing a different, non-programmer audience organically is naturally going to take some effort and time.

Crashes my iPad.

Which is all the more tragic given how hard they've worked to make the iPad version specifically awful, even when it doesn't crash.

i would love to augment my behavior with a little algorithmic discipline.