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Tired of Stack Overflow

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Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#281

Post by mark-r »

ilaksh wrote: post #156
human20190310 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I just ask a question, get an answer, and if I don't like the commentary, I just delete it. I post there under my real name, which means I either have to address or accept dumb/nit-picking criticism, which is a no-win situation. If the person who answers actually needs the points, I'll give that some consideration, but it seems like a lot of the time the solution is offered in the comments anyway. I don…

I have noticed answers in comments a lot too. It seems like some aspect of the gamification. One theory is that people don't want to put any straightforward answers in actual answers because they seem anything straightforward to be unworthy of an actual answer.

I have my own standards for what makes a proper answer, and if I'm too confused or rushed to meet those standards I'll just leave a comment instead.

I've been yelled at for doing that on Stack Exchange sites other than SO.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#282

Post by pbhjpbhj »

blt wrote: post #250

I think a big cause of SO's unpleasantness is the directive to eliminate duplicate questions. Judging whether two questions are duplicate has a lot of gray area, and most people seem too eager to hit the button. It's frustrating when someone marks your question as duplicate based on their own flawed understanding of what you asked. What is the harm in having multiple similar questions on the site? As the passive read…

The problem, as I see it, with duplicates is it leaves questions with poor answers when better answers already exist for the same question.

For example I've recently been looking at a problem with /boot on the AskUbuntu SO site. There are multiple answers for the question of what to do when one has a lot of old kernels filling up your /boot (not the actual problem I had); one question is relatively well handled and has several "answers" including good answers (IMO). But other questions that aren't linked up to this particular one have some of the poorer answers, or lack the breadth of the canonical question page and so might lead people to do things that aren't optimal or leave them unable to boot their system.

The problem with that is that often questions fall in to a looser grouping where the same answers apply, or very nearly to a group of questions but the questions aren't really identical.

SO's current system is maybe a least worst approach? I'm not sure one can tell with out trying alternatives.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#284

Post by eitland »

the_duke wrote: post #137
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…

Agreed on no downvotes for questions. For answers, I would also do away with the downvote button, and offer multiple options instead, like: "does not answer the question", "misleading information", "off topic", "outdated", "i don't like the solution", ... . That would still give SO the capability to sort answers based on some quality ranking algorithm and hopefully reduce the unwarranted downvoting. PS, this line fro…

> For answers, I would also do away with the downvote button, and offer multiple options instead, like: "does not answer the question", "misleading information", "off topic", "outdated", "i don't like the solution", ... .

lobste.rs does this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobsters_(website)#Downvote_...

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#285

Post by deepburner »

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.…

> 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. (And when I don't I'm probably completely out of luck.)

This is the false dichotomy the article is referring to. Having good answers is not necessarily the result of the users being hostile.

And in your last 2 paragraphs you're being condescending and dismissive in the exact same way the author is describing. You're making a lot of baseless assumptions about the person who asked the question even though they have adhered to the posting guidelines. Just because they don't fit your personal criteria of effort or importance doesn't mean that the question is invalid in some way.

If people dislike answering basic questions so much maybe they shouldn't hang out at a Q&A forum.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#286

Post by codexon »

Rapzid wrote: post #270
kstenerud wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The first example from the article sounds reasonable at first, but are they asking for a shell command or some Go code or what?" This kind of commentary exposes why SO becomes so hostile. The exact question was: "Is there a way to list all standard Go packages? I have a list of packages and I want to figure out if this is a standard package." From this, it's rather obvious what they're trying to do and why they want…

My favorite are the interrogations. Because surely the poster doesn't really want to list the standard packages; they must be needing something else and getting distracted by listing standard packages so if we press them hard enough they will spill the beans.. /s

That is certainly one of my pet peeves about that site. It is also a behavior frequently seen on IRC as well.

I got a good amount of points by answering the actual questions.

Since hitting moderator status based on the number of points many years ago I've stopped using it though. It gets tiring fighting against people like this who often have >50-100k points.

Occasionally I'll land on the website again after googling a question, but it seems like Quora is starting to weaken Stack Overflow's google rankings.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#287

Post by corobo »

codexon wrote: post #286
Rapzid wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite are the interrogations. Because surely the poster doesn't really want to list the standard packages; they must be needing something else and getting distracted by listing standard packages so if we press them hard enough they will spill the beans.. /s

That is certainly one of my pet peeves about that site. It is also a behavior frequently seen on IRC as well. I got a good amount of points by answering the actual questions. Since hitting moderator status based on the number of points many years ago I've stopped using it though. It gets tiring fighting against people like this who often have >50-100k points. Occasionally I'll land on the website again after googling…

Ever since someone posted an article on “The XY Problem” nerds on all mediums have been assuming it’s always an XY problem

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#288

Post by mcguire »

michaelmrose wrote: post #235
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.

Forums require lots of downvotes to keep out the riff raff making them that precious would be a mistake.

One wonders about the utility of a forum made of riff raff.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#289

Post by GordonS »

Rapzid wrote: post #270
kstenerud wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The first example from the article sounds reasonable at first, but are they asking for a shell command or some Go code or what?" This kind of commentary exposes why SO becomes so hostile. The exact question was: "Is there a way to list all standard Go packages? I have a list of packages and I want to figure out if this is a standard package." From this, it's rather obvious what they're trying to do and why they want…

My favorite are the interrogations. Because surely the poster doesn't really want to list the standard packages; they must be needing something else and getting distracted by listing standard packages so if we press them hard enough they will spill the beans.. /s

Arrghh, this one drives me absolutely nuts sometimes! It's like someone doesn't know the answer to your question, but does know the answer to some alternative (that is unlikely to work for your situation) and just wants SO points.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#290

Post by mark-r »

Avamander wrote: post #3

> Can people truly not comprehend how downvoting a post to -20 (or more) is perceived by the author of that post? No, Stack Overflow high-rank users certainly do not. (A current community moderator literally said "Voting is not a friendly or unfriendly activity.") I've too suggested that the UI should be changed to be less abrasive and that high-rank people should be more accountable for their actions and been downvo…

This high-rank user does comprehend the impact of downvotes, and I cringe when I see people advocating for their use. The lack of empathy is truly incomprehensible.
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