Ugh. I find the use of `It's gross and corporate when Github does it in their "hosted with <3 at Github..." as well.
Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
171–180 of 739 posts
Re: Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
SO could make a site with all the same content, downvotes disabled, comments disabled, and all flags disabled. You would also get random upvotes to reinforce that your question was good. That would make everyone feel safe and appreciated since they are unable to see any negative comments towards them and their question.
I think the problem is that too many people think that "giving feedback" and "being honest" require being mean. They don't.
There are also lots of people who equate receiving negative, honest feedback with being attacked.
Re: Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
#173I've never seen minorities being mistreated on stack overflow. Does anyone have any examples?
It was few years ago, I asked a question and posted the code that I had written on a dynamic programming question. I used to keep a public profile had around 2k or so.
Dude(with a higher score than I had), left a comment. "You should consider another profession, you don't have aptitude for programming".
Re: Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
#174"You're driving our car wrong."
This blog post is all about how the users need to alter the way they use the product. I've always been a firm believer than software should be intuitive and should influence the users to use the software in the way the developers want. If you want users to act more kindly and welcoming, incentivize that behavior.
Some ideas for SO:
- Create new reputational incentives for kindness
- Offer the kindest users a vacation and write an article about them from time to time calling them out for acts of kindness
- Allow newbies to report unkind behavior which would hurt reputation of the offender
- Create workflow to assist the elite users in dealing with frustrating questions/answers/comments (a button to say, "It would help us if you clarified the question" would help eliminate a comment that says "You don't make sense idiot")
Re: Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
#175Earlier 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…
Yours is a beautifully written and well-considered reply. As someone who has had both academic and career success (and failures), I know I am capable as a developer and able to contribute meaningfully to technical discussions. As a person of color, however, I have also experienced harassment by police, suspicious looks from shop owners, and outright hostility from drunken young men. So, whenever I encounter what appe…
I do not like this line of reasoning because it basically advocates walking on eggshells around everyone since it is not possible to model the potential fragility of mind of billions of humans.
I read some arguments that being drive-by downvoted without comments somehow made people unwelcomed. And you add to that that this is practically a form of PTSD.
If I am supposed to model people at the other end of the screen as "my downvote might trigger PTSD" then, mildly put, I do not find that model to be very helpful. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems like some sort of game-theoretic trap.
Disclaimer: I don't see myself as a kind person and asking me to spend extra mental energy just to be nice is like asking for a pound of my flesh. Thus the above may be motivated reasoning to ignore people who complain about the lack of kindness.
Re: Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
#176I've been an active user for 7 years… and I lived my very first case of moderator abuse last week. A moderator closed a 1.5 year old question[1] with 20 upvotes, 25 stars, 9000 views and an answer at 28 upvotes without any vote or consultation, because it was too broad for him. StackOverflow has all the tools to allow the users to moderate the platform by themselves, kinda democratically. From my experience, it works…
> because it was too broad for him
Too broad has been the bane of my questions on StackOverflow. [0]
As cpburns2009 says in a sibling comment:
> When you're working with an unfamiliar technology, you frequently don't even know what to ask.
And if they don't, then provide some other place for questions which are exploring a field, or are more complicated than "How do I do X?"
0. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37610341/assigning-peopl... Note the tone of the comments...
Re: Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
#177I always thought Stack Overflow/Exchange should have a way to filter questions from users with less than a certain amount of karma and any of those questions/ansers/comments should not be able to be down voted or closed as duplicate or low quality or off-topic (the most annoying close reason). Anybody that gets annoyed by those questions can opt to not see them and focus on higher quality. Anyone that wants to help n…
That, or a spin off as Stack Overflow for Dummies. If I ask a question, frequently it's either too specific to be of much use, or it's too "simple" because I don't have a clue what I'm doing.
Re: Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same situation as Wikipedia: Absolute power corrupts absolutely - but so does a small, petty amount.
I think it's significant though that both wikipedia and stack overflow, despite being ruled by petty assholes weilding the smallest amount of power in seemingly the stupidest way possible, have become two of the most valuable references in existence. Do toxic communities produce better content?
> I think it's significant though that both wikipedia and stack overflow, despite being ruled by petty assholes weilding the smallest amount of power in seemingly the stupidest way possible, have become two of the most valuable references in existence.
Wikipedia is quite valuable. These days, I find StackOverflow to be nearly-useless.
Re: Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same situation as Wikipedia: Absolute power corrupts absolutely - but so does a small, petty amount.
I think it's significant though that both wikipedia and stack overflow, despite being ruled by petty assholes weilding the smallest amount of power in seemingly the stupidest way possible, have become two of the most valuable references in existence. Do toxic communities produce better content?
I wouldn't say toxic communities produce better content.
I would say heavily moderated ones often do. That's because in general, a community without much in the way of moderation often becomes a wasteland filled with spammers and useless posts and misinformation, as seen on many webmaster forums over the years. If Stack Overflow and Wikipedia are doing well here, it's merely because their assholery has also stopped the SEO merchants and junk peddlers from turning it into Warrior Forums or Wikia.
But that doesn't mean a toxic community is better. It's entirely possible to have a fair, evenly moderated forum with a high level of quality control, as seen on the likes of Ask Historians over at Reddit.
A truly toxic community will eventually die or be replaced, as seen by one I won't name which banned people for making typos or disagreeing with the staff on any topic in history.
Edit: Though I think even this may be a simplification. Basically, a small or niche forum can be extremely relaxed yet still have a high level of quality (see my own Wario Forums site), but it'll have to make a decision between going downhill in terms of quality or becoming harsher on the moderation as it turns into a big board if it doesn't want to become a wasteland.
Re: Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change
#180EVP of Culture and Experience lol