Tired of Stack Overflow • Hacker News Board

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#151

Post by lovelearning » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

rgoulter wrote: post #111

lovelearning wrote: post #53

I avoid SO too. However, I didn't understand this: [...] There is no pass by reference, so I’m not sure where you got that. You’re simply passing the value, which is a copy and not going to change the original. ...is parading that they’re stupid and wrong, while beating your chest about how much smarter you are. [...] It sounds neutrally worded to me. Can somebody here point out what part of it is considered hostile…

Sometimes 'explaining what you said was wrong' is interpreted as showing you're a smarter/better person, rather than information sharing. I liked this blog post about it. https://status451.com/2016/01/06/splain-it-to-me/ Yes, that comment could just be trying to be helpful / clarifying. I think it's not much of a stretch to say the upvotes incentivise the "popularity seeking" behaviour over "information sharing" beha…

As a non-native speaker, I have to admit I find it very very subtle, the kind of sentence I might speak / write / hear without even realizing something is off. Thank you for the link - the author's done a great job explaining it.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#152

Post by booleandilemma » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #59

jnovek wrote: post #21

This culture is why I've never contributed to Stack Overflow. I'm a reasonably senior engineer, I've been lucky to experience an extraordinary breadth of technology in my career, and I love helping people learn to program... but I just don't have the time or emotional energy for SO's top posters to pick apart the minutia of every word I say in an answer. The ROI for me is nil.

Same here, I’ve been a reader for 10 years or however long, but their rules were too difficult for me to follow in order to vote. I had to visit every day and do menial, non-useful things just to be able to vote or answer. This didn’t work for me because SO wasn’t something I typically visited every day. So I just couldn’t get into the habit of being enough of a user to browse and vote so it was a vicious cycle of ap…

Experts Exchange, where the paywall could be bypassed if you scrolled down far enough.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#153

Post by ilaksh » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

I just usually try to avoid participating in Stack Overflow now because it's not worth it. If there is any way for people to abuse you passive aggressively, they will.

If you try to answer a question there is a good chance someone will come along and invalidate your effort somehow. Either pointing out a subtle issue that isn't really important, or copying your answer into a comment and voting the original question closed, or they will write a long-winded answer with a bunch of custom code that technically does what the original poster asked but is actually an outdated approach. Or any way to make your answer less important so they can get the points.

The other problem I have with Stack Overflow is that a lot of times the answer to a question is to use an existing module or library but if you write that someone will come after you reinventing the wheel with some custom code they are supposed to copy paste and then nail you to the wall for not including code. I mean part of the concept of Stack Overflow is actually outdated because it is based on the idea that we should reuse a ton of code by copying and pasting snippets. And I know people love to hate on dependencies but copying and pasting a hundred functions is not a better solution.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#154

Post by fourthark » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #140

el_cujo wrote: post #16

I really think it's better to just have an up vote arrow and no down vote option, for questions at least. The only reason on a site like that to really vote something down should be if something is off topic or against the rules, in which case you have a report button. If a question just straight up doesn't interest you or you don't want to answer it, then ignoring it rather than voting it down seems like the reasona…

>If a question just straight up doesn't interest you or you don't want to answer it, then ignoring it rather than voting it down seems like the reasonable response. Just remember that if you don't give users a built-in and formal downvote button, they will rebel against that UI and invent an informal downvote mechanism to express their disapproval. E.g. a bunch of stackoverflow users would type "-1 downvote" in the c…

There are still flags, which are also hurtful but more informative.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#155

Post by notatoad » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

baud147258 wrote: post #84

mholt wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ironic

In case of post on meta, the downvotes means "I disagree with this proposal", not that the question isn't good.

Which is kind of a perfect example of how downvotes are a bad interface - what they mean is context-sensitive, and needs to be explained. If meta had an explicit "disagree" flag, instead of an obtuse "downvote" that users have to intuit the meaning of, it wouldn't have to be explained in a HN comment.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#156

Post by ilaksh » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

human20190310 wrote: post #48

jnovek wrote: post #21

This culture is why I've never contributed to Stack Overflow. I'm a reasonably senior engineer, I've been lucky to experience an extraordinary breadth of technology in my career, and I love helping people learn to program... but I just don't have the time or emotional energy for SO's top posters to pick apart the minutia of every word I say in an answer. The ROI for me is nil.

At this point I just ask a question, get an answer, and if I don't like the commentary, I just delete it. I post there under my real name, which means I either have to address or accept dumb/nit-picking criticism, which is a no-win situation. If the person who answers actually needs the points, I'll give that some consideration, but it seems like a lot of the time the solution is offered in the comments anyway. I don…

I have noticed answers in comments a lot too. It seems like some aspect of the gamification. One theory is that people don't want to put any straightforward answers in actual answers because they seem anything straightforward to be unworthy of an actual answer.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#157

Post by outadoc » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #140

el_cujo wrote: post #16

I really think it's better to just have an up vote arrow and no down vote option, for questions at least. The only reason on a site like that to really vote something down should be if something is off topic or against the rules, in which case you have a report button. If a question just straight up doesn't interest you or you don't want to answer it, then ignoring it rather than voting it down seems like the reasona…

>If a question just straight up doesn't interest you or you don't want to answer it, then ignoring it rather than voting it down seems like the reasonable response. Just remember that if you don't give users a built-in and formal downvote button, they will rebel against that UI and invent an informal downvote mechanism to express their disapproval. E.g. a bunch of stackoverflow users would type "-1 downvote" in the c…

Simple alternative: show a downvote button, but make it so that the score must be >= 0.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#158

Post by mceachen » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #141

jolmg wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens here too. I imagine some people only downvote stuff that's against the site guidelines and simply doesn't upvote stuff they disagree with. Then, there are others that do downvote those with opinions different from theirs. On StackOverflow, I've wondered if I should upvote answers on topics where I can't really verify if the answer is correct, even if it looks really informative, well formatted, has picture…

People wouldn't follow such criteria anyway.

What if downvotes led to a popdown, with a series of radio buttons:

( ) I don't agree with this comment

( ) This comment is factually incorrect

( ) This comment is offtopic

( ) This comment is rude or inappropriate

(Add and replace verbiage to taste, of course)

Then people's downvotes would be imbued with some semblance of nuance.

And get rid of the score, and make downvote categories have hidden negative values (so people are truthful in their answer).

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#159

Post by jxfreeman » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

the_duke wrote: post #137

el_cujo wrote: post #16

I really think it's better to just have an up vote arrow and no down vote option, for questions at least. The only reason on a site like that to really vote something down should be if something is off topic or against the rules, in which case you have a report button. If a question just straight up doesn't interest you or you don't want to answer it, then ignoring it rather than voting it down seems like the reasona…

Agreed on no downvotes for questions. For answers, I would also do away with the downvote button, and offer multiple options instead, like: "does not answer the question", "misleading information", "off topic", "outdated", "i don't like the solution", ... . That would still give SO the capability to sort answers based on some quality ranking algorithm and hopefully reduce the unwarranted downvoting. PS, this line fro…

Or downvote until the score is zero. I.e. don’t allow negative scores. Then take reputation away from people who actively attempt to downvote beyond zero. In addition, you use reputation to downvote.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#160

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Mon, Sep 02, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

What kind of culture do you expect for a subject matter that is heavily tied to Google-style whiteboard algorithm trivia / Wall Street brainteasers as ways in which freshly minted Ivy brogrammer grads are made to feel more valuable or important than people with diverse perspectives & years of actual experience.

The social behavior of Stack Overflow is just an extension of tech culture. You can change message board formats, add community guidelines, add moderators, etc., not going to change anything until the capricious (& often socially harmful) cultures of tech are forced to change through significant legal accountability and through candidates simply saying “no” to touted jobs to punish the malignant culture.