Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming – It’s Time for That to Change • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by nanis » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:30 PM UTC

jsmeaton wrote: post #131

nanis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here’s a slightly different response that is hopefully more welcoming. “The error message says the problem is on line 49 but you haven’t shown that line in your example code. Can you please show the code referred to on line 49 and the surrounding code for context?” I think power users on SO are frustrated by newer users not learning the rules and not helping themselves. But if you respond with kindness you’re teachin…

> Can you please show the code referred to on line 49 and the surrounding code for context?”

If you are paying me my hourly, I'll pretty please you to no end. Otherwise, I am not sure why I am expected to beg for people to give information that would help me help them.

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

#332

Post by juliangoldsmith » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:30 PM UTC

protonimitate wrote: post #3

Glad to see an active approach is being taken. SO is a great resource and contains some of the best information on the web IRT programming. If there was only one thing I could change it would be this: If someone marks a question as duplicate, and closes, make them provide a link to the 'original' question and a brief summary as to why it is a duplicate. Closing something as duplicate and then forcing the user who sub…

StackOverflow is good if you come there via a search.

Otherwise, in my experience, it is utterly worthless for getting actual answers.

For instance, I've asked a total of 4 questions on the DBA Stack Exchange. Almost all of them were specific but easily generalized, weren't answered anywhere else. Three of them would have been easily answered by someone with good knowledge of the relevant products. (The other was only answered by significant trial and error.) On three of them, I was the only person to answer. Each of those took hours of research. On the fourth, someone else answered, but didn't appear to actually understand the question.

On StackOverflow itself, I've asked a single question. A moderator told me to do what I explicitly stated in the question I didn't want to do, and closed it as a duplicate.

The bounties are equally useless: earlier today I sacrificed 90% of my DBA reputation to get around 6 more views on my question. I'm pretty sure most of the views I got are from me refreshing the question.

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

#333

Post by IAmEveryone » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:31 PM UTC

warent wrote: post #45

I've experienced a form of hostility in StackOverflow just recently--as in a couple of days ago. On a whim, I visited the website and answered a couple questions, something I'd never done before. I realized it was actually a lot of fun, so I started rapidly answering the all JavaScript questions I could as they were asked. Suddenly a "higher ranking" individual started leaving comments on my answers that I needed to…

I think it's a natural reaction to dislike questions that are asked without much attention to detail, contain spelling mistakes (often in the headline), don't use code formatting or otherwise make it more difficult to understand.

Note that these problems may not make answering the question impossible. If, for example, the headline/question is "How do I do this???", then you can still answer, provided the body is more specific.

But such a meaningless title makes it harder to spot the question in lists when you're searching, or willing to answer questions.

That's bad for the usefulness of SO, and moderators and other users who have spent a lot of time on the site may notice such problems far more than you do when first visiting it.

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

#334

Post by Jill_the_Pill » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:32 PM UTC

AdeptusAquinas wrote: post #315

freeflight wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> If people don't even know what gender you are/what color your skin is, can they actually be intentionally racist/sexist towards you? Not directly, but often indirectly since in such a situation it is common to assume you are a white male. That's a bit off-putting if you are not one, but you might put up with it rather than clarifying your gender/race if doing so opens you up to a risk of direct sexism/racism

I use my initial on SE to conceal my gender, and I am usually assumed to be male in third-person references.

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

#335

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:34 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #51

metalliqaz wrote: post #19

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…

> 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 wh…

[deleted]

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

#336

Post by nkkollaw » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:34 PM UTC

warent wrote: post #45

I've experienced a form of hostility in StackOverflow just recently--as in a couple of days ago. On a whim, I visited the website and answered a couple questions, something I'd never done before. I realized it was actually a lot of fun, so I started rapidly answering the all JavaScript questions I could as they were asked. Suddenly a "higher ranking" individual started leaving comments on my answers that I needed to…

Seems to me like many communities end up being like that.

The extreme is some open source projects, in my experience.

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

#337

Post by singularity2001 » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:35 PM UTC

singularity2001 wrote: post #240

Ajedi32 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason why HN has both up/down votes, and actual moderators.

And the reason is ... ? What's wrong with comments just being grayed out, collapsed and moved to the bottom if they are downvoted for being (too) stupid / trolling / fascist etc? Moderators could just have more voting power.

OK reading the Medium post [0] I see that toxic comments were the starting points here, not the rampant practice of closing questions for dubious reasons.

[0] https://medium.com/@Aprilw/suffering-on-stack-overflow-c4641...

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

#338

Post by Johnny555 » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:37 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #246

warent wrote: post #45

I've experienced a form of hostility in StackOverflow just recently--as in a couple of days ago. On a whim, I visited the website and answered a couple questions, something I'd never done before. I realized it was actually a lot of fun, so I started rapidly answering the all JavaScript questions I could as they were asked. Suddenly a "higher ranking" individual started leaving comments on my answers that I needed to…

Related to this, I'm sick of the moderators deleting comments and moving discussions to chats on a whim just because they're seeing too many comment. They don't seem to realize they're not helping anybody; they keep doing this as if it's Truth ordered by God. Like, StackExchange admins: If you're getting flags, there's offensive material, the comments are blatantly off-topic, etc., then OK, I get that; you can step i…

I agree with this -- sometimes the comments are more interesting and informative than the answer. And why is it ordained that "Comments aren't for extended discussion"?

Only a handful of upvoted comments are shown by default, you have to deliberately expand the list to see more, so why not retain them all? If someone wants to wade through 200 commments and add one of his own, what's the real harm? They could add an option for askers/answerers to "Stop notifications for new comments', if that's the issue.

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

#339

Post by biocomputation » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:37 PM UTC

Super useful community in some ways. Like many others in this thread, I was more or less scared off by super users. I know quite a lot about GLSL, shader programming, and GPU tech, but my experience was similar to what others describe. I answered questions that were 'poorly asked' or 'not constructive' and found that threads were locked pretty quick.

But on the other hand, there's a ton of great stuff, and a lot of users have invested serious time providing extremely helpful answers.

It's a really bizarre place.

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

#340

Post by Rotareti » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 11:39 PM UTC

cpburns2009 wrote: post #146

ggregoire wrote: post #61

I'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…

This will be the downfall of Stack Overflow eventually. The rules for question and answers try to be objective and specific, but they end up being too strict and are making the site less useful over time. What they should do is allow broad, general, subjective questions. That would allow for answers with general guidance instead of directly answering a broad question. It would also allow a clueless person to get some…

> This will be the downfall of Stack Overflow eventually. The rules for question and answers try to be objective and specific, but they end up being too strict and are making the site less useful over time.

I never really understood what their issue is with broad questions. There are so many question from the early years of SO which became popular healthy Q&A despite being "broad" and they are now too popular to get closed by some trigger happy mod. Some of these questions wouldn't survive a minute if they were asked today. The typical mod on SO shoots a question dead as soon as s/he has the slightest suspicion. I guess the site would be better off with (a lot) less mods.