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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

#451

Post by MikkoFinell »

closeparen wrote: post #422
CM30 wrote: post #59

> 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…

I think the idea is that someone who feels less secure in their place in the programming community may be more powerfully affected by the same level of hostility than a nerdy middle-class white guy who grew up in gamer/internet culture and feels it’s his birthright. It takes a certain sense of entitlement to continue to participate in a community that rebukes you.

No. Entitlement would be to expect a community not to rebuke you despite the fact that you're breaking their guidelines and posting low quality content.

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

#452

Post by closeparen »

MikkoFinell wrote: post #451
closeparen wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that someone who feels less secure in their place in the programming community may be more powerfully affected by the same level of hostility than a nerdy middle-class white guy who grew up in gamer/internet culture and feels it’s his birthright. It takes a certain sense of entitlement to continue to participate in a community that rebukes you.

No. Entitlement would be to expect a community not to rebuke you despite the fact that you're breaking their guidelines and posting low quality content.

That's not the flip side, that's literally what I'm saying. To stick with the internet programming community after i.e. getting your StackOverflow question curtly dismissed requires a level of confidence that not everyone has.

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

#453

Post by hackits »

wolco wrote: post #444
warty wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nuance here. There are plenty of cases where individuals ask XY questions, meaning they've gone down a strange route to solve X and now need help solving Y, and it's always been debated within the community on whether you should solve X or oftentimes go to great lengths to solve Y. I've seen many questions where a solution to X is answered and heavily downvoted. I'm not sure how you resolve that. Question: Ho…

Bad questions bad accepted answers go hand in hand.

Oh look a question, oh look bellow the accepted answer is the real answer to the question!

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

#454

Post by LeoNatan25 »

chillfox wrote: post #420
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that matter on a site like SO? I usually use “they” not to assume gender, but does it really bother you if someone assumes male?

Don't know about others, but for me the answer is: A little bit. Not a huge amount, not because someone on the internet got it wrong. But because it is a reminder that I basically have to try and hide my gender on a huge part of the internet to not be harassed. I already have to stay away from LinkedIn unless I am applying for a job due to guys thinking it is a dating site. I have to pick ambiguous usernames that don…

That’s a pretty sad tale. I cannot even presume what that’s like.

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

#455

Post by MikkoFinell »

closeparen wrote: post #452
MikkoFinell wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Entitlement would be to expect a community not to rebuke you despite the fact that you're breaking their guidelines and posting low quality content.

That's not the flip side, that's literally what I'm saying. To stick with the internet programming community after i.e. getting your StackOverflow question curtly dismissed requires a level of confidence that not everyone has.

I'd call it humility rather than confidence.

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

#456

Post by closeparen »

MikkoFinell wrote: post #455
closeparen wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the flip side, that's literally what I'm saying. To stick with the internet programming community after i.e. getting your StackOverflow question curtly dismissed requires a level of confidence that not everyone has.

I'd call it humility rather than confidence.

Absolutely not. The humble thing to do is to correctly interpret the signal that you are not welcome, and leave.

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

#457

Post by mbfg »

I'm curious, how do you know a persons ethnic group or sexual orientation, or other categorizing group on stack overflow, unless you the person wants that information out there? I can certainly understand some responses and/or behavior are troublesome, but i don't get the tie in between the bad answers tied to certain groups. Their certainly can be a superiority complex problem, but it seems to be more around people's sense of their mastery of a language, or technology, or coding style or whatever. I certainly haven't traveled to all corners of stackoverflow but have contributed a good bit, and yes, my java is better then your java (or whatever) is present, but is it really tied to people's identities?

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

#458

Post by dingo_bat »

warty wrote: post #384
wheelie_boy wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's nuance here. There are plenty of cases where individuals ask XY questions, meaning they've gone down a strange route to solve X and now need help solving Y, and it's always been debated within the community on whether you should solve X or oftentimes go to great lengths to solve Y. I've seen many questions where a solution to X is answered and heavily downvoted. I'm not sure how you resolve that. Question: Ho…

> Me: Don't do this, your compiler isn't designed for this! Consider loading the text from a file instead!

A better answer would be:

This is wrong because . Consider loading the text from the file. If you want to #include it anyway here's what you can try.

This will ensure that the code golf people can do what they want and normal people try the recommended thing.

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

#459

Post by MikkoFinell »

closeparen wrote: post #456
MikkoFinell wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd call it humility rather than confidence.

Absolutely not. The humble thing to do is to correctly interpret the signal that you are not welcome, and leave.

On StackExchange, it's not "you" that isn't welcome, it's low quality content that is unwelcome. The humble thing to do when having been rebuked for posting low quality content is to accept the criticism and improve yourself. Expecting to be treated like a valued member of the community even though you posted some garbage is entitlement.

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

#460

Post by twblalock »

They can start by accepting that a lot of the good answers on the site are outdated and aren't applicable to current versions of the language or software they pertain to. Stop flagging questions as duplicates when the question they are supposedly a duplicate of is 6 years old.
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