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A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

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Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#101

Post by rusk »

dirkt wrote: post #92
wokwokwok wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No... Just answer the question. You’re not there to babysit the question asker or convince them to change their approach/hair style/choice of library. I know it’s frustrating to see people doing something wrong, or that you don’t agree with, but you know what you can do? Just... don’t get involved if you can’t answer the actual question that was asked, and if it’s a bad question, let it die a natural death.

If Y actually has an answer - but often enough Y is so convoluted that it just won't work. Asking the poster about X, and offering a solution Y' which will solve X should at least be attempted. If the poster insists on Y, then he'll also have to accept the answer "sorry, you can't do it that way, for the following reasons".

Yeah, I know that this is the rationale for the rule ... but it really has become an excuse to close a question as duplicate just because one of the X solutions might "in theory" solve your problem, even if they don't. Even if you've stipulated in your question why, because you've anticipated all those alternative answers yourself, already.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#102

Post by jordanpg »

ceejayoz wrote: post #50
rusk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the good old "X/Y Problem" [0] Doesn't matter if Y is non-negotiable, or if I've purposely constrained Y, to get a specific answer for a specific technology. How infuriating for a "Questions and Answers" site, to be told when you're asking a question, that the question you're asking is wrong, and that "you should instead have asked ..." I swear to god, the SO mods are the dumbest, most priggish, humourless be…

About 90% of the time it is an XY problem, though. A couple clarifying questions and it turns out the OP really needed something much simpler. For example, people who insist they can’t use a Laravel package because of “performance”, but it turns out they just don’t know how the composer autoloader works.

The problem with this is that one of the best way to learn real lessons that stick in this line of work is to do it the hard way first. Being told you’re doing it the hard way and never learning firsthand why is no kind of lesson.

These XY answers should contain a mention of Y, if relevant, skip the scolding, and answer the question.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#103

Post by mieseratte »

baud147258 wrote: post #60
mieseratte wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First manager I've had, great guy and despite his shortcomings I'd work with him again. Straightforward honest guy, did he work well, mentored me well. Then one day he assaulted another coworker in the break room. Someone's on-the-job performance doesn't mean they are always and forever in the right. Given the lack of any concrete evidence posted but lots of hand-wringing and pearl clutching about vague incidences, I…

Considering how rarely the community get any answer from the SE company, I doubt we'd ever get their side of the story.

Well until someone comes forward with some concrete evidence we'll never anything beyond this he said, she said tale.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#104

Post by mieseratte »

syshum wrote: post #85
johannes1234321 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Volunteering is a common concept in many communities. We have volunteer fire fighters, volunteer paramedics, volunteer librarians, volunteer social worker, volunteer ... Some of these in fields, and sometimes even in close alignment to payed people. In the context of SO there is a community producing Creative Commons (while there was recently a license change making the company less trustworthy) contents to help peop…

Wikipedia and Mozilla were at one time mainly Non-Profits that people volunteered at for the same reason people volunteer at other non-profits, to benefit wider society Both are turning more and more to be more profit-seeking, (Mozilla more than Wikipedia ) and it is tarnishing their reputations SE has always been a for-profit business, this makes Volunteering more like Free Labor and less like "doing something good…

> SE has always been a for-profit business, this makes Volunteering more like Free Labor and less like "doing something good for humanity".

> If a business model can not pay for labor, then it needs to be a Non-profit Foundation, not a for-profit business

Considering executive compensation at many non-profits, I don't think non-profit status alone is a good indicator of anything.

As for SO / SE, I didn't volunteer time and effort in light of their non-profit status, I volunteered in light of their mission. It was about putting in some amount of effort to make the world a better place. I couldn't care less if they made money off of it, just like I don't care if someone takes my open-source work and manages to make a business of it.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#105

Post by charlesism »

bane wrote: post #94
rusk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the good old "X/Y Problem" [0] Doesn't matter if Y is non-negotiable, or if I've purposely constrained Y, to get a specific answer for a specific technology. How infuriating for a "Questions and Answers" site, to be told when you're asking a question, that the question you're asking is wrong, and that "you should instead have asked ..." I swear to god, the SO mods are the dumbest, most priggish, humourless be…

You see this phenomenon here on HN all the time. Find anybody asking a question or help to figure something out and the first couple answers will likely be "why are you doing it that way?", followed by almost completely useless advice to do something else entirely a completely different way.

Well, it is often useful to ask why a user wants to do something a particular way, and commendable to inform them if it’s bad practice.

The trouble is, if you’re going to reply that way, you should strive to first answer the question, as asked. If the answer is bad practice, of course, you should mention that.

That’s the respectful way to handle a misguided question, in my opinion. Give the reader both solutions, explain why the alternate is better, and leave it to the reader how to proceed from there.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#106

Post by pfortuny »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #57
MrStonedOne wrote: post #29

This is natural selection at work. Stack Exchange has become a frustrating site to use. "Closed as duplicate: different and unrelated question" reopen further explaining the question and how its not related "Closed as duplicate: the first question that was immediately closed with no replies" OR! Google around, find SE link on issue, everybody is arguing about why the user wants to do it that why, convinces them to do…

I deleted my account when I had a notification that a 5 year old question of mine was edited to remove a "thanks for any help" at the end. This was after the blog post stating SE had an unfriendliness problem and they would stop doing things like that. Edit: Wow speaking of edits, am I reading this right that Jeff Atwood himself edited the title to remove the word "stealing"?

Yep: it seems so. That is pretty unbelievable; one posts a question and it gets CHANGED.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#107

Post by fourthark »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #95
Avamander wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said you have to feel guilty? It's just that you belong in a group of people that basically oppress other users, often unjustifiedly so.

Who am I oppressing exactly? By downvoting, am I oppressing the asking person? That’s ridiculous. Why does everyone insist on being so weak-minded?

I think people don't want to feel like they're in some sort of social Darwin experiment where they have to compete to prove the worth of their questions. They just want help with their problems.

As many have noted, there is a conflict between the goal of a wiki and the goal of getting answers to people.

I speak as someone with a decent score answering questions, who had to fight tooth-and-nail for years to stop people from downvoting and close-voting questions they didn't understand in one of "my" tags.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#108

Post by wokwokwok »

dirkt wrote: post #92
wokwokwok wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No... Just answer the question. You’re not there to babysit the question asker or convince them to change their approach/hair style/choice of library. I know it’s frustrating to see people doing something wrong, or that you don’t agree with, but you know what you can do? Just... don’t get involved if you can’t answer the actual question that was asked, and if it’s a bad question, let it die a natural death.

If Y actually has an answer - but often enough Y is so convoluted that it just won't work. Asking the poster about X, and offering a solution Y' which will solve X should at least be attempted. If the poster insists on Y, then he'll also have to accept the answer "sorry, you can't do it that way, for the following reasons".

> Asking the poster about X, and offering a solution Y' which will solve X should at least be attempted.

No!

Goodness me, why is this so difficult?

It should not be attempted. That’s an arbitrary expression of your opinion on the poster.

If the question can’t be solved in the way it’s asked let it die gracefully with a “no you can’t do it that why” and suck up the down votes when someone comes along and proves yes you actually can.

I know it’s frustrating for you, but asking a question isn’t about you.

It’s a glib response to suggest that this is just done when Y is a terrible question for new users.

It’s also very common when Y is a very good just very difficult or obscure question.

I think it’s quite clear that a common sense approach isn’t working on this topic.

The solution really is, if you have nothing meaningful on topic to contribute, then don’t.

There really needs to be a way to make this behaviour on SO punitive somehow, giving people points for it results in the current situation.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#109

Post by fourthark »

apacheCamel wrote: post #84
cujo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing, I frequent a few of the SE sites, and the only ones that have this problem are the tech ones.

I feel like there is a lot to be said about this. It could be that a large portion of the tech sector is living up to the stereotypical "arrogant/egotistical/know-it-all" label that we get hit with quite often.

Also an illusion that technical problems are black-and-white, when of course there is a social component which must be balanced with technical accuracy.

Re: A large number of Stack Exchange mods resigning over new policies

#110

Post by iliketocomplain »

chrshawkes wrote: post #55

I personally decided to boycott the site for several reasons explained here. In short, the site allows dicks to run rampant and I find more answers on GitHub these days. http://bit.ly/2mfUvCs

Why the heck would you use a short link? On HN?
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