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A snarky dig at someone in a post about how SO wants to be less mean and snarky is an interesting editorial choice.
There seems to be a recent tendency where web-based business that wish to make changes to their platforms cite lack of inclusiveness for the main reason for the change. SO is a trash fire. For everyone, not "women", not "people of color", not "people without color", not "groups". Everyone. It's an openly hostile place where mods close questions unrelated to their expertise based on the whims of those in private chat…
I agree that SO has an arrogance problem and the diversity appeal is pandering, but the "trash fire" characterization is too hyperbolic. The site is still immensely useful if suboptimal.
Great place for finding answers to older common questions, really awful place for asking new ones.
>Too many people experience Stack Overflow¹ as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups. Women consider SO an elitist place? People of colour? What colour? Black? White? Marginalised groups? Which groups are those? Are people in SO hostile to Palestinians? Amputees? Such an accusation, where's the data to back it? I'm white and male and completely…
How does anyone even know what color or sex someone is on SO? Seems like those people are either imagining it or they're generally intimidated by programmers and their typical arrogant or blunt attitudes everywhere.
Similarly, if minority groups are more prone to imposter syndrome, it may be that aggressive and blunt answers impact them disproportionately.
In both of these cases, it needn't be intentional or directed at any particular individual to have a disproportionate impact on a group of people. Just as a group can get a reputation of being a "boys club" without explicit "no girls" rules.
There seems to be a recent tendency where web-based business that wish to make changes to their platforms cite lack of inclusiveness for the main reason for the change. SO is a trash fire. For everyone, not "women", not "people of color", not "people without color", not "groups". Everyone. It's an openly hostile place where mods close questions unrelated to their expertise based on the whims of those in private chat…
I agree that SO has an arrogance problem and the diversity appeal is pandering, but the "trash fire" characterization is too hyperbolic. The site is still immensely useful if suboptimal.
If your problem has not yet been solved (especially if it's similar enough to another problem to look like a "duplicate" to someone who does not actually understand the problem), then "trash fire" is hypobolic if anything (is that a word? It should be a word).
As relevant context, the impetus for this post was likely this Medium article + initial tweet, which received replies from SO leadership: https://medium.com/@Aprilw/suffering-on-stack-overflow-c4641... As an aside, if anyone has a good heuristic to identify bad behavior on Stack Overflow, I'd be interested in looking into it since SO data is public. (please do not suggest "build an AI to identify toxic comments")
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…
From the linked article: > Too many people experience Stack Overflow as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups Breaking that down... "...people experience Stack Overflow as a hostile or elitist place..." This is obvious just by looking at the discussions that happen here, or, even by observing the SO-related memes that bubble up to the top of Red…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think what they mean is that when a minority goes to SO and they get a condescending response it's because of their race/ethnicity/gender. What they mean is that, since minorities might have insecurities about their ability to code because there are not that many people who look like them in the industry, when they receive a condescending response their insecurities aggravate. Therefore, SO can be consider mo…
Isn't it more offensive that you're saying minorities are insecure and/or oversensitive?
> Feelings have no “technically correct.” They’re just what the feeler is telling you. When someone tells you how they feel, you can pack up your magnifying glass and clue kit, cuz that’s the answer. You’re done. This is such an important point and missed so often by technical types. Impressed to hear it stated so clearly here.
Oh, when will the HN community step in to stop such flagrant abuses.”
See where unconditionally believing feelings gets you?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think what they mean is that when a minority goes to SO and they get a condescending response it's because of their race/ethnicity/gender. What they mean is that, since minorities might have insecurities about their ability to code because there are not that many people who look like them in the industry, when they receive a condescending response their insecurities aggravate. Therefore, SO can be consider mo…
Isn't it more offensive that you're saying minorities are insecure and/or oversensitive?
I think "being nice on the internet" is typically a learned skill, unfortunately. That said, sometimes comments that appear scathing are actually warranted criticism - perpetuating "bad" knowledge can be very harmful to the person using it and to those that use their products or code.
That's really true, not repeated enough, and much deeper than it appears.