Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change

> I cannot recall ever, even once, seeing someone's race, sex, or orientation being mocked or even mentioned.

If all you're doing is googling for mature, well-curated answers, then you're not seeing this. Go post a "dumb question" and see how you're treated.

And the contention isn't that people are being deliberately mocked, it's that they don't feel welcome, which is a different thing.

So... how might a woman (or whoever) not feel welcome? Maybe because the forum she's on sees people regularly doing stuff like saying discrimination is "not even possible", or mocking those talking about it for "pointless virtue signaling"? I mean, seriously: go back and read the very post you just typed: does that seem "welcoming" to you?

It's not.

My issue with the site is the opposite.

Asking a specific nuanced question results in a response of a) tell me what you are really trying to accomplish and i'll answer that question or b) don't do what you are doing.

Don't presume I don't know what I'm doing or know the right question to ask. This happens so often and is such a time waster I hesitate to use the site. Their culture even invites it by giving it a fancy name of the "xy problem".

Please provide a way to flag a question as "Don't respond with an XY question" or alternatively "I know what I am doing and still have a question".

First time I asked question on SO I got a very curt response "this isn't a code writing service" and pretty much told to gtfo, but my question was very much asking for advice about _how to proceed as a beginner_ and I was clear about that. I was explicit in framing a coding a problem and asking for direction, not a solution to my homework.

Maybe it was the wrong site for that, but the elitist response, I think the question even got deleted by a mod along with the scathing comment, made me leave and only use SO as a reading resource. Never contributed and probably never will even though 8ish years later I have learned enough to be able to contribute.

Here's something she complains about (she posted a screenshot of a comment): "If the error says line 49, it tells you exactly where the problem lies. If you post 7 lines of code here, we clearly cannot tell you what the problem is in line 49." [1]

I see nothing wrong with that.

As luck would have it, today some random stranger recognized me from my Stackoverflow profile at a Panera and asked me to help him debug his Django app. It was straightforward to fix because the error message described the problem exactly, but, for whatever reason, it wasn't apparent to him. I pointed this out, explained the problem, and showed him how to look for additional information based on the error message. Maybe this sounds softer in person, but there is nothing wrong with reminding people to pay attention to error messages, and the importance of giving people adequate amounts of information when you ask for their help.

Now, as a person who's answered many a question on Stackoverflow, I've had people threatening physical harm to me and my loved ones, as well as setting up Twitter accounts to harass me. To their credit, Stackoverflow admins always take swift action when actual harassment occurs. However, Twitter and Facebook seemed rather uninterested.

[1]: https://twitter.com/aprilwensel/status/974859164747931650

> Too many people experience Stack Overflow¹ as a hostile or elitist place

True. There's definitely an elitist undertone at Stack Overflow, and the voting system has a huge effect on that...

> especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups.

But this isn't true. No one knows anything about a user on Stack Overflow unless they explicitly announce it, and generally my perception seems to be a disdain towards newer members in general, not ones from any particular group.

Trying to make this about minorities feels like a desperate attempt to fit in with the 'social justice' sphere, and to virtue signal to people on sites like Twitter.

Still, the rest of the article seems fairly sane, and I guess this point stands out above all:

> Let’s reject the false dichotomy between quality and kindness

Because at the end of the day, we need to kill the 'brilliant jerk' archtype already. No, most intelligent people are not Dr House or Rick from Rick and Morty, and we shouldn't make the assumption that a community has to tolerate that sort of behaviour in order for it to be good. Moderate the community well, stop tolerating jerks because they're 'smart' and fix your voting systems, and Stack Overflow can easily become a great community to be part of again.