My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow • Hacker News Board

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#121

Post by strangename » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:19 PM UTC

SO jumped the shark for me when its scope shifted hard from the original goals. I remember the original seedling goals that Spolsky posted; for example, a question is likely inappropriate for SO if its answer couldn't involve code. That got lost awful fast.

Oh, and remember how it was going to be all Wikipedia of programming, where really good answers would be zipped together so that SO became the defacto good-idea repository? And could evolve over time? Such a good idea. Never materialized.

Proper props for putting in the effort. Better than e-e. Usually, though definitely not always, better than isolated boards. But now we're in a good-enemy-of-best world where I still want some site or system addressing the original problems, but SO is so dominant I don't see how it could germinate.

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#122

Post by spinlock » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:22 PM UTC

tjradcliffe wrote: post #83

jobu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Better to have a bad question closed quickly than have it accumulate bad answers and rude comments and downvotes." Unless it's offensive in some way, this seems like a terribly short-sighted way of handling bad questions. Ask questions back or offer suggestions for improving the question. Closing or deleting it doesn't teach the person anything, and it doesn't help the community.

Furthermore, it assumes excellent judgement on the part of the closers, who by definition don't have the full context. They are confident in imagining that a particular question will accumulate bad answers etc, but do they have any data to demonstrate that their imagination is any good? It may be, but then again, it may not be. It's not like no one has ever had bad judgement before. So it might be useful to bias the…

This is a fantasic point. My highest rated most viewed question was one that I thought was stupid when I asked it. 5 years later it has tons of votes answers and backlinks.

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#123

Post by monksy » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #32

_almosnow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I did ask, strange you didn't notice that since it's right there in the link you posted. And yeah, you are right, I used the word 'cunt' after they started behaving like that, I'm sorry if that scared you; I did it because I was really pissed off by all their bs. Have you ever felt annoyed some time in your life? Apparently not, lucky you.

Good Lord. The sense of entitlement it takes to use language like that and _then_ post it here and expect people will be supportive of your argument. This is a side topic but one I see often. I think it's very important that Europeans/UK/Aussie's realize the "c word" is one of the few swear words that doesn't travel well in the US. It's never used here and is extremely vulgar. So I would not use it on the web unless…

> It's never used here

It's not? I know of many men and women who use it. I've also heard some twisted logic how the use of it is "empowering" or some other nonsense.

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#124

Post by monksy » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:27 PM UTC

sejje wrote: post #24

_almosnow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I did ask, strange you didn't notice that since it's right there in the link you posted. And yeah, you are right, I used the word 'cunt' after they started behaving like that, I'm sorry if that scared you; I did it because I was really pissed off by all their bs. Have you ever felt annoyed some time in your life? Apparently not, lucky you.

apparently I pissed off one of the moderators (when asking him why is my question "off-topic") No, apparently you pissed off all of the moderators when you called them all dick-sucking cunts. You must be a really special dude to do that and then get your feelings hurt when you get downvoted for it.

If that is all it takes to piss off a mod, they need to be demodded immediately. That really the weakest insult you can throw. [The insults are more annoying than offensive]

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#125

Post by LeoPanthera » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:27 PM UTC

I stopped using StackOverflow a year or so ago, when I was astonished to discover that people can edit your questions.

I accept that this sometimes may be necessary, but I asked a question which was then edited to be a different question, so that the answers I got were entirely useless.

I understand the need for moderation but surely they should not be able to change the meaning of what you posted.

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#126

Post by i3arnon » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:29 PM UTC

gnarbarian wrote: post #92

monksy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to ask the following question [on 2 different situations] in the last 2 weeks: Are there any [lang] libraries that are backings for the [service] API? I stopped myself before going to SO because I knew that topic would get closed within seconds and I'd comments berating me for asking the wrong question. For the most part the only use I've gotten from SO has been from basic questions when I'm starting out…

Rather than outright closing a question it would be more productive if moderators could move the question to the forum it belongs. This type of question is quite common and if the powers that be have decreed that it doesn't belong in the general stack overflow area then a place for these questions should be created.

What forum is that? SO doesn't have forums AFAIK, only questions and answers.

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#127

Post by indymike » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:29 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #108

mkremins wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might get more results searching for "deletionism vs inclusionism", which seems to be the most widely used name for the debate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in...

What's the current general stance on that these days I wonder? What's the prevailing wind?

That discussion has been deleted.

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#128

Post by dhimes » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:33 PM UTC

Arnt wrote: post #98

monksy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to ask the following question [on 2 different situations] in the last 2 weeks: Are there any [lang] libraries that are backings for the [service] API? I stopped myself before going to SO because I knew that topic would get closed within seconds and I'd comments berating me for asking the wrong question. For the most part the only use I've gotten from SO has been from basic questions when I'm starting out…

Why would you ask that instead of browsing through the most recent 50 questions on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/lang+service ?

I don't know much about how SO works but your query got truncated to:

  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/lang

It didn't seem particularly useful for such a question. I could see why the poster might be tempted to ask.

Perhaps there is a particular way that SO should be searched? The recursive irony is both amusing and annoying: doing a google search, coming to an SO answer where a commenter rants "why don't you spend a few seconds with Google."

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#129

Post by charlieflowers » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:34 PM UTC

I can't think of another site that had such a huge gap between its very high potential and its very low fulfillment of that potential.

Re: My Love-Hate Relationship with Stack Overflow

#130

Post by Latty » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 9:37 PM UTC

_almosnow wrote: post #20

Latty wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked back at version one to see what people would have downvoted/closed for: 'I have tried to do that (by overloading operator[], operator=) but it doesn't seem like I'm going somewhere. Can anyone suggest me a way to achieve this behavior?' You said you have tried, but you didn't post what you tried, or how it didn't work. This makes your question hard to answer, and essentially means anyone answering is going t…

>You said you have tried, but you didn't post what you tried, or how it didn't work. >by overloading operator[], operator= It's literally there... >You then finished it up with a passive-aggressive FAQ section which was entirely unnecessary ... 'I want to do it this way, even if there is a better way' What's wrong with that? I wanted to achieve a very specific thing. Can you please tell me what is wrong with that? Th…

Yes, I have used SO, and those responses are rare. If they do happen, they'll get deleted or countered quickly. The 'FAQ' was unnecessary and condescending.

You gave a shorthand description of what you did. You didn't post the code, you didn't explain why it didn't work.

If you can't be bothered to ask a question people can answer, why should anyone bother to answer? You claim SO is a bad community because you get rejected - I counter that you get rejected because you are toxic, and you not being on the site makes everyone else's experience better.

You not being there is a feature, not a bug.