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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

#471

Post by bad_user »

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…

Your kind of answer is precisely why I find SO useless.

When a user asks a question on X, it would be better to first assume that he knows what he’s freaking doing.

E.g. yes there might be valid reasons for inserting 500 MB as a string, and myself as another user desperately searching for an answer to it, I get pretty annoyed when I see answers for a Y instead.

SO contributors should answer the freaking question first. Can it be done and how. Otherwise the answer is of no use to people having the same question but for a different problem. Not to mention that I’ve seen questions closed as duplicates.

This is why I rarely go to SO for answers. I don’t want an opinionated forum, I want a mailing list where people assume you’re a grownup that really wants a solution to the question and not something else.

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

#472

Post by castlecrasher2 »

sigstoat wrote: post #301
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…

> 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,…

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

I'm in that group and the problem is Google results seem to favor the recent, locked and left unanswered question over the so-called authoritative one

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

#473

Post by kevintb »

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…

Are you a new coder who is female and in a marginalized group?

Given your astonishingly ignorant response, I can bet dollars to donuts that you are not.

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

#474

Post by swyx »

I like the idea of a Beginner box. Github is doing the same with issue templates. I would suggest going one step further - give a “question quality” score made up by some algorithm that SO controls. could be machine learned, could just be a bunch of rules like a Linkedin Profile score. Gamify asking great questions, not just answering.

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

#475

Post by Joeri »

lambda wrote: post #429
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'm a high-scoring user who has been put off by this exact behavior. The problem is, the behavior is pervasive among other high scoring users, and whenever I advocate against this kind of behavior, I get a whole bunch of pushback about it. No one seems to want to change. No one seems to want to even engage with criticism about the culture; they just push back and pile on when criticism is brought up. After a couple t…

I’m in the same boat. 10k rep on SO and softeng.se, and I barely participate anymore. For me the most frustrating part is that the rules forbid vague questions with opinionated answers, but that at this point in my career most of the things I find interesting are all like that so there’s almost nothing I want to get answers to that I can ask.

Software architecture questions are very difficult to ask without triggering overbroadness. Another category that is off limits are getting started type questions, again they’re considered too vague (but that’s the whole point, the user doesn’t know where to start). And the illogical ban on pointing to research involving statistics also drives me batty. I’ve had arguments with moderators before where my answer was bad because it pointed to capers jones’ research, one of the most authorative sources of good software dev practices.

I always feel like it’s a game of dodge the moderator bot to get questions to not be closed, unless they’re of the boring easy to answer briefly and precisely variety.

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

#476

Post by sosborn »

bad_user wrote: post #471
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…

Your kind of answer is precisely why I find SO useless. When a user asks a question on X, it would be better to first assume that he knows what he’s freaking doing. E.g. yes there might be valid reasons for inserting 500 MB as a string, and myself as another user desperately searching for an answer to it, I get pretty annoyed when I see answers for a Y instead. SO contributors should answer the freaking question firs…

The people that really need to know how to insert a 500mb string will actually explain why they need to do so (beyond the typical “it doesn’t work”).

The ones that can’t explain why are almost always unaware of the actual problem they need to solve.

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

#477

Post by donmatito »

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…

> No one knows anything about a user on Stack Overflow unless they explicitly announce it

For example, it's quite easy to tell you are a white male. What gave you away? The "I'm not listening and I know better than you that your concerns are not valid" part

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

#478

Post by pugworthy »

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…

+1 to this. I'm a high 9000 rated mod on a stack, and I've been berated by other mods for answering the "n00b" questions. "With your rating you should know better!"

I LOVE the idea of flagging moderator actions - it doesn't have to be visible to non-mods, and I'm sure it could be abused, but I wish there was such a thing.

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

#479

Post by dgreensp »

valtism wrote: post #369
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…

> 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 to be a disdain towards newer members in general, not ones from any particular group. Why would you say this with such conviction when you don't know anything about what the team is doing behind the scenes? They do yearly surveys that do include things like culture / minori…

100% this. To say that the author of the post — whose job includes knowing whether women and minorities feel particularly unwelcome or not, based on actual data and talking to them — must have invented this point is rather outlandish. Based on what?

An online community can’t possibly be less welcoming to women, for example... because it has screen names? Because people don’t express open disdain for women like they do for newbies? You don’t have to be an expert on this stuff to know not to rush to hasty conclusions, especially in the face of evidence.

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

#480

Post by Twisell »

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #472
sigstoat wrote: post #301

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'. there's also the third, silent,…

>it seems as though the single authoritative, comprehensive answers is what helps those people the most. I'm in that group and the problem is Google results seem to favor the recent, locked and left unanswered question over the so-called authoritative one

I just realized that here we got a point where DuckDuckGo is actually way better than Google. Having it as default I never stumble over this problem and usually find a pretty relevant answer in top results.
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