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

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

#301

Post by sigstoat »

wheelie_boy wrote: post #283
wwweston wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Suddenly a "higher ranking" individual started leaving comments on my answers that I needed to stop answering certain questions, and only address "well asked" questions. I love Stack Overflow, and it's sure a valuable if imperfect resource, but this is something that drives me bonkers about it. If the question is intelligible enough to receive an answer, and if your answer is potentially helpful to the asker, then…

I think the core problem is that they've focused too much on being like wikipedia (a single authoritative, comprehensive answer to each important question), and not enough on helping people to learn. Over time a site will grow a culture, and experts on the site will outweigh and overrule experts on the subject matter. In this case, we're also seeing answerers' needs outweigh askers'. If you could only meet the needs…

> I think the core problem is that they've focused too much on being like wikipedia (a single authoritative, comprehensive answer to each important question), and not enough on helping people to learn. Over time a site will grow a culture, and experts on the site will outweigh and overrule experts on the subject matter. In this case, we're also seeing answerers' needs outweigh askers'.

there's also the third, silent, probably much larger group, who neither asks questions nor answers them.

it seems as though the single authoritative, comprehensive answers is what helps those people the most.

> Specifically, if I was trying to fix this I'd set up a two-tier system for questions and answers. ... For questions that are sufficiently well-asked, and not duplicates, elevate them to a wikipedia-like status ...

i think i'd very much like that to happen.

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

#302

Post by singularity2001 »

s2g wrote: post #226

I had hopes based on the title, but... > Too many people experience Stack Overflow¹ as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups. Maybe that's a problem. I don't know. I'd rather see them address the problem of rampant question closures for dubious reasons and people who like to treat questions like a damn medium post. edit: Okay so reading further…

I agree that they should not focus too much on minorities when SO is hostile to everyone.

> rampant question closures for dubious reasons

That is the biggest problem

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

#303

Post by abakus »

s2g wrote: post #226

I had hopes based on the title, but... > Too many people experience Stack Overflow¹ as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups. Maybe that's a problem. I don't know. I'd rather see them address the problem of rampant question closures for dubious reasons and people who like to treat questions like a damn medium post. edit: Okay so reading further…

I second that. They are avoiding the real problem by pretending to fight for social justices.

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

#304

Post by singularity2001 »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #201

What the StackOverflow company fails to get is that their product is assholes and industrial level asshole production. Every question is moderated by volunteers, who have curated every high value question there. From an askers perspective, sure you may have asked 1 slightly off-topic question, but for a reviewer, that’s the 30th off-topic question today - and SO gamifies reviewing so you are encouraged to do so. I us…

Good explanation, but what's the purpose of deleting duplicates and "off-topic" questions other than saving some SO storage space?

Edit: IMO closing duplicates makes sense, IFF users are asked 'does the linked duplicate answer you question' and confirm. Deleting only makes sense in case of exact duplicates, otherwise they might be useful variants worth linking.

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

#305

Post by bcoughlan »

freeflight wrote: post #249
jakear wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. While I do think “newer coders” may very likely feel unwelcome, as an extension of the elitism issue, there’s no mechanism by which “people of color”, “women”, or “minorities” can even be identified... I fear people are subconsciously correlating these groups with “less able coders”. Obviously this correlation serves only to damage.

> there’s no mechanism by which “people of color”, “women”, or “minorities” can even be identified That's a legit question: If people don't even know what gender you are/what color your skin is, can they actually be intentionally racist/sexist towards you? Which makes me wonder if the actual wrong turn we took was making social media as prevalent as it is today. 20 years ago people on the www were really careful abou…

I was just thinking the same thing recently with all of the Facebook shenanigans. Anonymity was common sense on the net 20 years ago. Many who grew up in that time will recognise the sentence "We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias". The dream of the net was a world in which only words mattered.

We sold that out when our Github account, SO profile, email address proved to be useful for finding jobs or improving our social status.

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

#306

Post by _kst_ »

ldiracdelta wrote: post #166
grzm wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Sneering comments from neckbeards" Condescension, like any other dismissal, can be rough and is definitely detrimental to communication. That said, I encourage you to be the change you want to see. Name calling as you've done here, and snark, as you've done elsewhere in this thread, similarly degrade conversation and communication.

I'm not directing this at anyone in particular and so I will use "bad", yet colorful, words for people behaving bad. No one is going to read these comments and think they are the neckbeards, but most people who have participated in Stack Overflow have interacted with a preening, sneering neckbeard and neckbeards are indeed a problem on Stack Overflow.

Speaking as someone who happens to have a full beard, I find your use of the slur "neckbeard" insulting. Find another way to say whatever you meant.

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

#308

Post by asdsa5325 »

_kst_ wrote: post #300
legostormtroopr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe SO has a field for race, so unless you put it in your profile or username I doubt anyone is even aware what colour you are or country you’re from.

People can make assumptions based on names and profile photos.

But you would have to also assume that rudeness against someone is due to their race, unless it's specified in the rude comment.

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

#309

Post by icc97 »

mark-r wrote: post #245
squeaky-clean wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how your [1] has 2 opposing opinions as the top comments, both at exactly 147 points. > Whats wrong with hi or thanks? Boy what is this world coming to. Mundane mutes who just want answers. > Kill it with fire. You want to do social you get on Facebook. :) I like the questions just to be questions (without any noise).

The idea of removing noise came from Jeff Atwood. He really took it to an extreme, and I think the site is worse for it.

You're quite right - here's the link to his answer [0].

He's talking about removing 'Hi ya' rather than 'thanks'.

But it is disheartening when someone edit's your post to make it less friendly.

Edit: plus there's an answer from Jon Skeet too [1] who also agrees with removing thanks

[0]: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/93989

[1]: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/2960

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

#310

Post by greenhouse_gas »

porker wrote: post #197
greenhouse_gas wrote: post #83

It's for several reasons (and why I personally find reddit (of all places!) a much more welcoming and useful community): 1. Points. They're very visible, giving you power. If you want power, you mine for points, and once you earn them, well you worked for your power, you use your power. You are expected by the powers-that-be to close questions for being bad, or for being duplicates, or whatever. In contrast, reddit d…

Points are damaging, especially the way they've done them on StackOverflow. It's fine for anyone who got in on it in the early days, or cares about collecting them. But to make a better community the points need to decay (exponential decay preferably) so there isn't such a power imbalance. This would incentivize everyone to gain points by being helpful, rather than enjoying being an 'authority'.

The problem with points is that they become the way to gauge your reputation. In contrast, in fora like HN or reddit (where points are, well, pointless) the username is the way to gauge your reputation.

So I don't care how many points you have in HN, but people will notice if you comment a lot and have deep knowledge.

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