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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

#591

Post by vk23 »

edem wrote: post #589
learnstats2 wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do "low quality" questions matter? I don't believe "low quality" is really a problem. Stack Exchange could have dealt with this by developing a mechanism for identifying and promoting general and well-written questions to search engines, and so on. People sometimes have specific or incompletely formulated questions, and people sometimes enjoy figuring out answers to those questions. By stamping on these situation…

> Why do "low quality" questions matter? As I have said it encourages additional low quality questions which is more work for the mods.

> As I have said it encourages additional low quality questions which is more work for the mods.

"low quality" question could just be marked as such and kept mostly unmodorated. By marking them there is also an incentive to produce "high quality" questions. You could also make badges and reputation around it so asking good questions gets more rewarding.

Also, answering those "low quality" can really help the asker to understand his problem better and improve his problem solving ability, so maybe the next time he can provide better information in his question.

If you just close the question and tell people to go away you will just scare people off (which btw also leads to a smaller number of mods)

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

#592

Post by galangalalgol »

warty wrote: post #498
bad_user wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty big assumption on your part. Unless you're going to cite some SO stats or a study on it, I'm going to assume that you're wrong. Also good questions shouldn't need explanations for the reason you're trying to do something. It's not like I'm going to explain my business requirements on a public forum to complete strangers. And I'm going to mention this again — if the purpose of SO is to provide a search…

> Which is a pity, because I thought SO is a place where you can ask questions on obscure features of the tools we're using. You can, as long as you're clear on why you need these obscure features. So there's nuance... if someone asks "hi, I want to call `add` like `add(10, 20, 30)` and it's not working" and the answer is "Use `10 + 20 + 30` instead!", they're answering the intent of the question. They've totally not…

This removes a great deal of utility from the site. The majority of value in the site is not answering one individuals question at a time. Every single time I ask the search engine a programming question SO pops up as the first result. Most of the time that link has the answer I need, but every single time the conversation has violated some inane rule and has been shut down. Every single time. The rules are wrong, it is that simple.

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

#593

Post by kadenshep »

paulriddle wrote: post #516
javadocmd wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this isn't true... You completely missed this point. To quote the article: > Many people, especially those in marginalized groups do feel less welcome. We know because they tell us. Hanlon doesn't claim to know why the marginalized groups feel unwelcome. He doesn't even claim that the root cause is a bias of action -- conscious or subconscious -- on the part of SO's users or staff. What he said was these groups…

> We know because they tell us. But not marginalized groups also tell them. Now the question is who tells more? I think marginalized, because they read all these blogs and tweets about being opressed, shift their selective focus to minor injustices, and feel empowered to complain. The SJWs are the complainers, they are the warriors, that's why you hear from them more than from anybody else. They have the momentum of…

"I don't understand the problems you face so clearly it's just you making up shit."

That's an anstoundingly lack of emapthy and self-awareness. Also extra points for the unironic use of SJW.

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

#594

Post by shagie »

oldcynic wrote: post #571
jpindar wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>discussion Ooooh, You used the d word! Closed because Stack overflow is not for discussion. What SO needs is a forum - not an ephemeral chat but a forum whose topics can be linked to the questions that people want to discuss.

No, please don't push things out to a forum - few would use a forum and it doubles the pages a searcher has to check to see if they've got the appropriate question/answer. A lot of the time if there's many comments on a question or answer it's because there's some nuance that needs to be brought out or the answer has limitations etc. Someone arriving from search probably needs and wants to know that - and will take b…

Stack Overflow has had problems with too many comments. In https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/204402/hide-trivial... there is a question about how much comments cost in terms of signal to noise. Do comments make finding good answers further down on the page harder to find? Do they make good answers get less votes?

Note that in that post, everyone who has a diamond after their name is a StackOverflow employee.

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

#595

Post by gaius »

javadocmd wrote: post #493
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... You completely missed this point. To quote the article: > Many people, especially those in marginalized groups do feel less welcome. We know because they tell us. Hanlon doesn't claim to know why the marginalized groups feel unwelcome. He doesn't even claim that the root cause is a bias of action -- conscious or subconscious -- on the part of SO's users or staff. What he said was these groups…

What he said was these groups report at a higher than average rate the feeling of being unwelcome

As a non-white I call shenanigans. My non-whiteness is very obvious in my SO profile pic and not once in 8 years of active use of the site has it ever come up, nor have I perceived being treated any differently. Also, no one ever asked me if I felt “unwelcome” nor is there a button to click for that, so I don’t know where this really comes from...

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

#596

Post by gaius »

Sacho wrote: post #552
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only information we have from the blog post is that Stack Overflow has survey results telling them that marginalized groups feel particularly unwelcome, unless you have some other source of info I didn't notice. From that single datum, you've concluded that this is because marginalized groups must over-complain, and in fact, you claim to have achieved perfect certainly that most members of marginalized groups hav…

Alternatively, assuming good faith, he claims that this is a possible explanation, and that perhaps Hanlon fell victim to the very common base rate fallacy on his off-hand comment.

Or Simpson’s Paradox

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

#597

Post by shagie »

scardine wrote: post #213
notatoad wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, it is not that toxic communities produce better content, it is just the fact that encyclopedic content websites tend to atract borderline autistic people obsessed with some subject who sound like absolute jerks for everybody but themselves.

I am curious as to how Stack Overflow is perceived as toxic.

Name calling of "borderline autistic" and "absolute jerk" would be met with fairly quick community moderation and condemnation there or on Wikipedia. Meanwhile, calling someone autistic as either a pejorative or an insult here (or reddit) is seemingly acceptable and is being defended.

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

#598

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #396
Jill_the_Pill wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

Yeah, kind of. True or not, I feel the assumption is that if I ask a sensible question or give a good answer, I must be a guy. I don't bother to correct, given the environment, so the stereotype is reinforced. But at the same time, I do want that gender ambiguity so I am treated as an equal. It's a funny catch-22.

"They" is a good compromise.

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

#599

Post by wool_gather »

singularity2001 wrote: post #304
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.

The general policy is exactly as you've described: duplicates are pointers; they are not deleted. That said, some queries reach a point where they become FAQs ("Why am I getting a NullPointerException?" being the canonical example) and at some point, there's diminishing returns from yet another search target for it.

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

#600

Post by nailer »

kevintb wrote: post #575
ItsMe000001 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Many people, especially those in marginalized groups do feel less welcome. We know because they tell us. This particular argument is really bad IMHO. OP has a point - nobody knows who you are. That means if some people feel they are treated worse it is due to their own perception. After all, objectively they are not treated worse then everybody else. Which to me sounds more like a bias in their perception. They m…

To be fair, it sounds like OP u/CM30 has a bias himself, turning a blind eye towards toxic gaming communities[1] [1] https://gamingreinvented.com/nintendoarticles/no-the-gaming-...

Is that a bias, or simply a different viewpoint than yours? Why are you going to so much effort to chase down the external postings of another HN user?
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