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Tired of Stack Overflow

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Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#201

Post by galaxyLogic »

NateEag wrote: post #197
jnovek wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely learned a lot of my attitudes about software engineering from "Joel on Software". It's weird to think that those works are "ancient" now. I don't really have an answer to the problem, SO has some very smart people working for them who, I'm sure, think about this issue. For some reason technical discussions held by competent people on the internet seem to trend towards dumpster fire. I've also noticed thi…

I expect to burn a few karma points on this, and be ignored, but all evidence I have says that this is human nature at work, and that at scale it cannot be prevented. I've seen moderators of small communities hold off the effect by setting a good example, using a deft touch, and not letting the community get too big. My suspicion is that once the number of commenters gets much past Dunbar's number [1], the universal…

They could start by simply making it just a little more difficult to give negative feedback. For instance: Require that every down-vote is given a written reason for it.

And perhaps make it so that DOWNVOTES CAN BE DOWNVOTED (provided a written reason is given for that as well).

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#202

Post by reaperducer »

adventured wrote: post #179
outadoc wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I use this approach on a service of mine that is built around a community. It works, I recommend it. When you hit 0 and someone tries to downvote further, it informs you that that action is impossible (no user supplied content can be voted into negative territory). I regard negative point voting to be an unnecessary form of community punishment. If something is spam, abusive, or otherwise breaks the rules, then it ne…

When you hit 0 and someone tries to downvote further, it informs you that that action is impossible

If the system knows the item is rated zero, then why even give the option of downvoting at all? Conditionally remove the control and you remove the need to display an error message.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#203

Post by bachmeier »

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…

Make downvotes require a comment. Let other users vote on the reasoning. If it's a BS reason like "Duplicate! Duplicate!" that's wrong, let others erase that vandalism from the site. One of the stupidest things on the internet is when someone comments that it's a duplicate question and then posts something that makes it obvious they read neither the question nor the supposed duplicate. Most downvotes are never explained. After too much vandalism, suspend the user.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#204

Post by dang »

mceachen wrote: post #158
dang wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can see the appeal of the idea but I don't think it would be a source of good information in practice. Most people won't say "I don't agree" when they can say a comment is wrong or bad instead. My instinct is that it would just lead to even more bickering about downvoting, the exact opposite of what we want.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#205

Post by umvi »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #191
jasode wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

It would be much better if users added their down-votes in the comments because then they would feel some need to explain why they down-vote something. In fact I think IT SHOULD BE REQUIRED to give a reason for your down-vote (if down-votes are allowed in general) An SO down-vote is not simply an "opinion", it affects your karma-score, perhaps even your chances of getting hired.

FWIW, I've done this before ("I downvoted you because...") and the question asker, instead of trying to improve their question, got combative/defensive which is not necessarily desirable either.

It's lose/lose. Don't tell them why and they get frustrated, tell them why and they get defensive. It takes a rare user to take the feedback and use it to improve their question.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#206

Post by bachmeier »

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…

> high-karma SO users like John Skeet, etc use the downvote button as a feedback mechanism for bad questions

And it's very effective to provide "feedback" in the form of a drive-by downvote, isn't it?

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#207

Post by Faark »

enraged_camel wrote: post #175
wolrah wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the theory, but it's amazing how often I click on a search result leading to SO and find an accepted answer that's either wrong or doesn't even answer the question.

A lot of the times, "right" and "wrong" depends on context. An answer that works for me may be the wrong answer for you. But the "accepted answer" mechanic is useful as a way for the asker to communicate to the site as a whole that the question is no longer in pending status, and that others who are browsing around to see what needs to be answered can move on to other questions.

> question is no longer in pending status

But practically forcing users to select an answer as "good" should probably not be the only way to do this.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#208

Post by ricardo81 »

milch wrote: post #52
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.

I have a small number of answers, and the most successful / least criticized ones were always on niche languages or topics. C/C++/Java? No chance. I corrected a wrong answer on a question in C++ once, which was immediately reverted with “nope, your answer is too different from the original, make a new answer”. Great, so now there’s an answer that is fundamentally wrong with 26 upvotes that apparently can’t be correct…

That kind of behaviour is what's most annoying about their site, their conventions sometimes overrule common sense or intelligent queries/dialogue.

Last I contributed anything on there I was being told by a single poster that my question was 'wrong', and descending into an argument - and started throwing SO convention at me. I just deleted the question. There's a sociopathic nature about those looking for ratings and authority that's totally at odds with simple sharing of knowledge and learning.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#209

Post by umvi »

maest wrote: post #122
snazz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be something like 1% of your reputation. That’s significant enough to make even high-rank users have to think.

This also makes sense as high-rank users usually have a constant stream of rep coming from their answers/questions. So, not only do high-rank users have lots of rep, they also gain rep at an accelerated pace (on average).

"The rich keep getting richer." Same phenomenon happens everywhere.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#210

Post by weinzierl »

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 I remember correctly in early Stack Overflow down-voting did cost your own reputation points, so every down-vote reduced your own reputation. I liked this and I claim it socialized me in a way that I rarely down-vote even today and even on other platforms like HN. I like to imagine that every down-vote lowers my own reputation even if that isn't expressed in points and even if no one knows. Every down-vote is a trade-off where I feel the benefit of expressing my own negative opinion outweighs my own reputation loss.

Obviously the system didn't work for Stack Overflow, otherwise they wouldn't have abandoned it, I don't remember why.

EDIT:

Seems the system is still in place. Down-voting an answer costs one reputation point, down-voting a question is free.[1] For reasons for the asymmetry see [2].

[1] https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7237/how-does-reput...

[2] https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/251610/why-does-dow...

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