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Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

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Re: Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

#171

Post by Gmo »

getsat wrote: post #131
codyrobbins wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don’t use Stack Overflow as a contributor for precisely the same reason: I created my account with an OpenID, the provider is no longer around, and now I can’t log in nor fix it.

This poll is missing an option: I don't use SO because it required OpenID to register. I guess it supports other options now, but back in the day, that's why I never participated.

Hey, same here :) (although I did register a few months back when seeing that they finally had alternative options).

However, my reputation is at 1, several reasons to that :

- I use it mostly for "consuming". Which by the way, is problematic, because I can't upvote useful answers because my reputation is only at 1 (is there a way around that ?)

- I can't really spend time at work to answer questions, and, frankly, have other stuff to do at home (such as doing home projects). Besides, I guess there is always someone answering faster than you :p

Re: Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

#172

Post by cruise02 »

rbarooah wrote: post #161
cruise02 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overzealous mods shutting down my questions in the most condescending tone possible. SO moderator here. We just click a link. The pre-defined close reasons are inserted automatically. No one is taking a tone with you.

The fact that you use automation to produce your responses doesn't make you any less responsible for them.

I'm not shirking responsibility for putting the responses there. I'm saying that they aren't condescending. The messages are to inform people why their question was closed and to help them improve it.

Re: Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

#173

Post by bdg »

georgieporgie wrote: post #155
bdg wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even a moderator, but if you as a bad question I vote to close it. That's how the site works. Even if you feel you put a lot of work into something doesn't mean it's a valid question to the site. Read the FAQ.

First off, realize that I don't actually care about the FAQ or site rules at all. I care about getting value out of a site. That's true of everyone. Second, I asked a question, and I believe it was a good one. However, it was closed for being "too conversational," whatever that means. Instead of merely answering my question, the mods instead chose to make condescending comments, which eventually lead to an answer in…

> First off, realize that I don't actually care about the FAQ

Has it ever occurred to you that you're a fool? You complain about the site and have no regard for the rules or what the site is. It's not your spam-filled phpBB site that you dump the same 'plzzz halllpp I can't get $_[get] when I make a post!!11' nonsense onto every day.

> it was closed for being "too conversational," whatever that means

I'm calling you out on this.

Link to your question. You're totally full of it, there is no "too conversational" option. There does happen to be a "too localized" question, which is something we pick when users think the site is a place to dump thousands of lines of code and ask a question nobody else will ever have (ie, lazy slobs who don't read the FAQ and know what the site's about).

In short, you're full of it.

Re: Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

#174

Post by bdg »

compay wrote: post #150
bdg wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even a moderator, but if you as a bad question I vote to close it. That's how the site works. Even if you feel you put a lot of work into something doesn't mean it's a valid question to the site. Read the FAQ.

>> along with the overzealous mods shutting down my questions in the most condescending tone possible. > Read the FAQ. Your response seems to be a a perfect demonstration of what he's complaining about.

Help me understand what's condescending about being a normal user to the site (ie, I don't work for Stack Exchange, nor am I a moderator) and telling him to read the FAQ.

Help me understand this.

Re: Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

#175

Post by rbarooah »

cruise02 wrote: post #172
rbarooah wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you use automation to produce your responses doesn't make you any less responsible for them.

I'm not shirking responsibility for putting the responses there. I'm saying that they aren't condescending. The messages are to inform people why their question was closed and to help them improve it.

If the messages are written in a tone that people generally find condescending, then they are condescending. The intent may be positive but doesn't change the impact of the writing style.

As a matter of interest, do these template responses make it clear that they are indeed templates and not hand written?

Re: Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

#177

Post by compay »

bdg wrote: post #174
compay wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> along with the overzealous mods shutting down my questions in the most condescending tone possible. > Read the FAQ. Your response seems to be a a perfect demonstration of what he's complaining about.

Help me understand what's condescending about being a normal user to the site (ie, I don't work for Stack Exchange, nor am I a moderator) and telling him to read the FAQ. Help me understand this.

Ok, I'm going to assume that you actually want me to explain, and not that this is just an argument tactic you're using to try to score debate points. I hope I'm correct.

The OP's complaint was presented in a reasonable tone of voice, was articulate and carefully worded. Now, it may be that he has misunderstood something about Stack Overflow, or that he's looking for something the site doesn't provide. But, the OP does not come off as an idiot or a troll.

Your response to "read the FAQ" treats him as if he were a fool (the exact word you used in another reply). It was also so hastily typed, that you misspelled "ask" as "as" and you obviously cared so little about your writing, that you didn't notice this and go back to redit your comment and fix it.

So to sum up: somebody posts a carefully worded, slightly angry but non-offensive complaint, and you rapidly dash off a short, typo-ridden response telling him to read the FAQ.

In other replies to the same user, you put words in his mouth and beat him up like a straw man. You come off as an angry, petulant, mean-spirited and unreasonable person.

In other words, condescending.

Re: Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

#178

Post by notmuchtotell »

simonsarris wrote: post #14

I participate a lot , but almost exclusively in the (HTML5) Canvas tag. Because I don't answer much else I've got a smallish reputation for a frequent visitor(12K). I'm the top answer-er for the Canvas tag, having answered around ~10% of all questions ever asked about Canvas on StackOverflow. I would say that reputation numbers don't necessarily measure engagement per se in S.O. very well. I've found that if I answer…

I am similar to you (just over 10k rep). Often when I answer a question, it is a tougher one that others shun away from. I may put in some real work to help the person. However, because the the level of difficulty of the question is higher, the level of understanding of the voter also needs to be higher to know if he/she should vote for the answer. Of course, there are other factors like the narrowness of applicability to a more difficult question and the time taken to even read the question if it is a longer one.

Re: Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

#179

Post by DanBC »

georgieporgie wrote: post #155
bdg wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even a moderator, but if you as a bad question I vote to close it. That's how the site works. Even if you feel you put a lot of work into something doesn't mean it's a valid question to the site. Read the FAQ.

First off, realize that I don't actually care about the FAQ or site rules at all. I care about getting value out of a site. That's true of everyone. Second, I asked a question, and I believe it was a good one. However, it was closed for being "too conversational," whatever that means. Instead of merely answering my question, the mods instead chose to make condescending comments, which eventually lead to an answer in…

SO has decided what they think will make a good useful community. They might be wrong, but the way to tackle that is to create a different community.

Part of SO's strategy is to rigorously prune bad questions. A bad question has a specific meaning in SO. It's defined by the FAQ. Bad questions encourage more bad questions and dilute people available to work on good questions.

Becoming familiar with site guidelines is an established part of Netiquette, and has been for very many years.

(http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855)

> Read both mailing lists and newsgroups for one to two months before you post anything. This helps you to get an understanding of the culture of the group.

tl;dr: their servers, their rules.

Re: Poll: What is your current Stack Overflow reputation?

#180

Post by cruise02 »

rbarooah wrote: post #175
cruise02 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not shirking responsibility for putting the responses there. I'm saying that they aren't condescending. The messages are to inform people why their question was closed and to help them improve it.

If the messages are written in a tone that people generally find condescending, then they are condescending. The intent may be positive but doesn't change the impact of the writing style. As a matter of interest, do these template responses make it clear that they are indeed templates and not hand written?

They're not inserted as comments, but as a block of text that's offset from the rest of the post, so I think it's pretty clear that they're auto-inserted. You can search the site for "closed:1" to find questions with different messages that get inserted.

http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=closed%3A1

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