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Tired of Stack Overflow

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Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#381

Post by ASCII-only »

Carpetsmoker wrote: post #371
verisimilitudes wrote: post #231

Downvotes are useful for quality control, but there is no real difference between -3 and -4. This and many others comprise examples of precisely how downvotes aren't useful for much of anything. “How do I do X?”. Often, X is quite a simple thing, like “append to a list”, or “merge two dictionaries”. I find that the longer I program with all sorts of different languages, the more I struggle remembering all that sort o…

Yeah, I can't remember loads of simple things in Ruby which I use once every few months. Guess I'm not a real programmer

if it really is "simple" things, then... well... documentation exists. otherwise you might want to elaborate on that

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#382

Post by Rapzid »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #338
benologist wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they should employ a "no stupid questions" policy, like the /r/nostupidquestions subreddit, where the point is to share knowledge without discriminating against anyone. What happens if the same question gets asked 10,000 times? Absolutely nothing. Search engines will filter them for us. 5 more megabytes of text in SO's database. Pointless gatekeeping.

Such a site already exists, it’s called Yahoo Answers. You can judge for yourself the quality of content it attracts.

I'm not necessarily agreeing with your "ergo", but I wouldn't be surprised if Yahoo answers told you to throw water on a grease fire(as the selected answer).

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#383

Post by neves »

Children, SO is a blessing for humanity.

Their creators should be canonized. You don't remember the pre SO times. You couldn't find anything to fix your problems and must read the source code or pay zillions for some sh*tty support. In the pre-internet times, you just would hit a wall and have to quit. I really love Jeff and Joel.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#384

Post by galaxyLogic »

michaelmrose wrote: post #225
galaxyLogic wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why do you think that their obligation derives from how you imagine their downvote will effect your life instead of the rules of the site? Neither stack overflow nor your fellow users are obliged to you beyond the standards set by the site and general human decency. It takes 1 second to downvote a low value comment. It might take 5-20 minutes of conversing with a stranger who is likely to respond rudely to criticism.…

> It takes 1 second to downvote a low value comment.

Agreed, except I think that is the problem.

It takes ZERO seconds to not give points at all to a low-quality comment. And the site should take care readers see the comments with more points before those with fewer points.

> Don't like it use a different website.

I think you are saying nobody can or should criticize Stack Overflow and its cadre of super-super-users because nobody is forced to use it.

It's a bit like saying hey you asylum seeker we put you in a cell with standing-room only for weeks and separated you from your children and put your baby in a cage without anybody changing their diapers ever, but if you don't like that, seek asylum in a different country. You can't criticize us because it is you who came here.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#385

Post by cptaj »

neves wrote: post #383

Children, SO is a blessing for humanity. Their creators should be canonized. You don't remember the pre SO times. You couldn't find anything to fix your problems and must read the source code or pay zillions for some sh*tty support. In the pre-internet times, you just would hit a wall and have to quit. I really love Jeff and Joel.

Preach, my brother!

SO is on Wikipedia level of blessings to humanity. I wish every profession out there could have a resource like this.

People often share negative experiences asking question in SO but really, I can't fathom how that could happen. Just follow the composition rules, take a few minutes to write and research your question and you will be fine. Don't be so lazy.

If you have a question that hasn't already been asked, its worth it to take the time, follow the rules and do it properly. Don't think of it as YOUR question, its the community's question.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#386

Post by gregmac »

Const-me wrote: post #359
jasode wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What happens if the same question gets asked 10,000 times? Absolutely nothing. This is incorrect and a misunderstanding (and underestimation) of the unpaid volunteer answerers who scan the queue of questions to look for interesting things to answer. The valuable high-rep SO users do not like wading through bad and duplicate questions. It's a waste of their time.[1][2] >Search engines will filter them for us. The vol…

> The valuable high-rep SO users do not like wading through bad and duplicate questions. I disagree. I’m relatively high-rep. I don’t have any issues with stupid or duplicate questions, they don’t waste my time. Nobody forces me to answer every question asked on SO. You know what is a waste of my time? When I wrote a good answer to a question which I think is fine, which then goes to oblivion because some other peopl…

I've experienced the same thing before.

First of all, there's often a subtle difference in the questions despite being flagged as duplicate. And pretty much as soon as it's flagged, other people are all to eager to use their vote close power, taking a disproportionate amount of energy to try to convince them otherwise. Frankly, the few times I've tried it feels like trying to argue with someone that thinks the earth is flat or the moon landings were faked.

Secondly, sometimes I like answering questions. It's a form of teaching, which is really a form of learning, and writing a good answer gives me a chance to learn something in more depth in order to be able to explain it. I don't really care that a similar question has been answered before, I'm happy to focus on the subtle differences and specifics of this question and try to make a good answer.

However, too often your reward for this is a closed and then deleted question, which is kind of like a punch to the gut.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#387

Post by galaxyLogic »

isodude wrote: post #267
umvi wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's easier than you think. And I've thought that I was doing the right thing for a long time except I wasn't. Any time you explain something you first need to establish that you are on the same level as the submitter, then you can give advice. Like, "I see that you really tried with this question and you almost made it, if we rephrase it a bit it would improve even further!" It's true that most people have a problem…

> most people have a problem with listening on feedback

That is so true, even people giving negative feedback have trouble when they get negative feedback from someone else. Therefore I think the system, the site, should make it easier to give positive feedback, than negative.

To you know bring about a positive community feeling. The purpose of the site should be to help its users not to make oneself the over-arbiter of what is correct what is not.

Facebook has its share of problems but excessive unexplained down-votes is not one of them.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#389

Post by blisterpeanuts »

neves wrote: post #383

Children, SO is a blessing for humanity. Their creators should be canonized. You don't remember the pre SO times. You couldn't find anything to fix your problems and must read the source code or pay zillions for some sh*tty support. In the pre-internet times, you just would hit a wall and have to quit. I really love Jeff and Joel.

Actually, you could perfectly well find answers in the pre-Internet times; you just had to dig deeper, grub through more books, talk to more colleagues, and experiment more.

Re: Tired of Stack Overflow

#390

Post by garamirez »

neves wrote: post #383

Children, SO is a blessing for humanity. Their creators should be canonized. You don't remember the pre SO times. You couldn't find anything to fix your problems and must read the source code or pay zillions for some sh*tty support. In the pre-internet times, you just would hit a wall and have to quit. I really love Jeff and Joel.

You're absolutely right. Most software development will be impossible today without resources like SO.
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