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Tired of Stack Overflow

arp242.net

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Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#481

Post by bhandziuk »

benologist wrote: post #474
bhandziuk wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who enforces the beginner tag? Will people be offended by the beginner tag, too? Just seems like it's the same problem but with a different name.

Without the tag "enforcement" means censoring a co-user and the problem manifests as "who can wield this authority fairly and justly against their co-users"? With the tag enforcement means who can triage new posts to tag them appropriately when a co-user does not. They're not the same problems and I think objectively this is a better problem to have.

> who can wield this authority fairly and justly against their co-users

Not brand new users who don't appreciate how the site works and without moderation will make more work for users who are capable of answering question.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#482

Post by dang »

verisimilitudes wrote: post #231

Downvotes are useful for quality control, but there is no real difference between -3 and -4. This and many others comprise examples of precisely how downvotes aren't useful for much of anything. “How do I do X?”. Often, X is quite a simple thing, like “append to a list”, or “merge two dictionaries”. I find that the longer I program with all sorts of different languages, the more I struggle remembering all that sort o…

Please don't post flamebait or call names in HN comments. It breaks the site guidelines and evokes worse from others.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#483

Post by dang »

JaTochNietDan wrote: post #367
verisimilitudes wrote: post #231

Downvotes are useful for quality control, but there is no real difference between -3 and -4. This and many others comprise examples of precisely how downvotes aren't useful for much of anything. “How do I do X?”. Often, X is quite a simple thing, like “append to a list”, or “merge two dictionaries”. I find that the longer I program with all sorts of different languages, the more I struggle remembering all that sort o…

You sound like one of the most toxic people on the face of the planet. I just thought someone should tell you that in-case you're unaware of how horrific you are.

Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how bad another comment was. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting to HN? Note that they ask you to flag egregious comments instead of replying to them, a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#484

Post by [deleted] »

bhandziuk wrote: post #481
benologist wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the tag "enforcement" means censoring a co-user and the problem manifests as "who can wield this authority fairly and justly against their co-users"? With the tag enforcement means who can triage new posts to tag them appropriately when a co-user does not. They're not the same problems and I think objectively this is a better problem to have.

> who can wield this authority fairly and justly against their co-users Not brand new users who don't appreciate how the site works and without moderation will make more work for users who are capable of answering question.

[deleted]

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#485

Post by bradenb »

I think it's interesting that a lot of people are complaining about SO and saying how other systems would be more effective, yet nobody is trying to create a better SO.

Maybe it's actually just a much harder problem than people realize.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#486

Post by Izkata »

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…

There's an additional rarely-noticed feature tied to downvotes, that no one considers when they propose this: If a post gets a huge number in a tiny duration (like, -10 in under a minute after being posted), a bot will close and delete the post.

This is a way for regular users to immediately eliminate inappropriate content, such as porn or advertisements. I've seeing it go off many many times in my years at the SciFi stackexchange.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#487

Post by verisimilitudes »

dang wrote: post #482
verisimilitudes wrote: post #231

Downvotes are useful for quality control, but there is no real difference between -3 and -4. This and many others comprise examples of precisely how downvotes aren't useful for much of anything. “How do I do X?”. Often, X is quite a simple thing, like “append to a list”, or “merge two dictionaries”. I find that the longer I program with all sorts of different languages, the more I struggle remembering all that sort o…

Please don't post flamebait or call names in HN comments. It breaks the site guidelines and evokes worse from others. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That message may have been inflammatory, based on my opinions concerning Stack Overflow, but I don't see where I called names; I called some systems stupid, but I can't name call a system as I would an individual.

Anyway, sure, I could've made the message a tad nicer, and I really shouldn't have bothered commenting in the overcrowded discussion anyway, but some of the points in the discussion, from this author I've read before, compelled me to write it as I did. There was value, I think, in countering this faux-niceness presented in the submitted writing with a more genuine and plainly-phrased critique of the ideas.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#488

Post by coryfklein »

Const-me wrote: post #464
scardine wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can flag it for reopening (but you need at least 3k rep IINM).

I can flag, I can appeal, but it doesn’t change the attitude of the community. Apparently, SO community is trained for years to close vote every question they don’t understand. Once I was really motivated to reopen a question. It was an interesting question, it had 2 well written answers, one of them mine. Also it was from a new user account. I’ve spent hours trying to get or reopened, wrote questions on meta, wrote…

> I can flag, I can appeal, but it doesn’t change the attitude of the community.

Actually, that's _exactly_ how you change the attitude of the community, by making your voice heard. Sure you as an individual aren't going to override everyone else, but if you don't voice your opinion then your complaint about other folks loses some of its ground.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#489

Post by coryfklein »

arp242 wrote: post #328
waisbrot wrote: post #240

Every year I see a post complaining about how unfriendly Stack Overflow is, how their pet question got downvoted so unfairly, and how Stack Overflow is dying. Everyone agrees: Stack Overflow is too mean and is dying. But time and again when I search for a question online if there's an SO version of it it has the best answer. And when I can't find an answer anywhere and I ask on SO I usually get a good answer quickly.…

Yes, Stack Overflow is a success, but that's in spite of all of this, and not because of it. And "Stack Overflow is successful, therefore your complaints are invalid" doesn't strike me as a great argument to start with to be honest. > The first example from the article sounds reasonable at first, but are they asking for a shell command or some Go code or what? If they just said what they tried ("I expected it in `go…

> either way, no one actually asked for these clarifications

Which is actually contrary to SO guidelines. You are urged to leave explanatory comments when downvoting. It makes me wonder if adding some kind of free-form or multiple choice "Why did you downvote?" questionnaire would be productive.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#490

Post by coryfklein »

Const-me wrote: post #441
neves wrote: post #383

Children, SO is a blessing for humanity. Their creators should be canonized. You don't remember the pre SO times. You couldn't find anything to fix your problems and must read the source code or pay zillions for some sh*tty support. In the pre-internet times, you just would hit a wall and have to quit. I really love Jeff and Joel.

I do remember pre-SO times. Companies who developed libraries and frameworks had to do proper technical writing, otherwise people wouldn’t be able to use their technology. Microsoft did amazing job writing their MSDN, but others did well, too. Linux man pages, Java JDK docs, and similar sources contained more than enough information for a motivated reader to start using their tech, get stuff done, and be productive.…

If that documentation and forums were so good then why, do you suppose, that SO has been so wildly successful?
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