The Stack Overflow Age

I never understood it, either. By that reasoning, almost any technical question is an "opinion" question asking for a "recommendation".

For example, pretty much any question about C string handling has many possible answers, e.g., [1] admits that comparing two strings is "rather broad" and the various answers there recommend looping over each index and comparing chars with ==, sscanf, strncmp, regexes, and PEGs. Opinions galore!

But if you want to know the difference between AWS EC2 and EB [2], even though there's one pretty clear answer, somehow the admins unanimously find the question to be "primarily opinion-based".

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16013031 [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25956193

My hunch is that due to the desire for longevity of content, there's a large unspoken bias in favor of questions about simple programs, and against questions about remote services (which are more likely to disappear or change, even though that's not likely to happen with major AWS services), and that the question closure explanations like "primarily opinion-based" are just a smokescreen.

A few months ago I wanted to learn jq really well but unfortunately I didn't really know where to start and couldn't find much of what I would call well written documentation so I decided to train myself by contributing an answer to every reasonable jq question on StackOverflow.

I found many of the newbie restrictions off-putting and if I wasn't there with the specific goal in mind to improve my own skills by helping others with their real problems I probably would have just left immediately like I'm sure many others have. Getting involved in the pettiness of the self-appointed there isn't worth the time.

I stopped contributing when my free time evaporated after changing jobs. I might go back to StackOverflow when things settle down but I feel like I know jq well enough now, my experiment has run its course and for me to learn more I'm going to have to spend some time working on the jq internals and going into deeper questions then SO can handle.

I am in this same frame of mind. When I started out in development I quickly found how unwelcome my questions were. The thing these mods and many other higher rep users are forgetting about is that to the new person these not a dumb duplicate questions. If a clearly new dev(and if you are not new yourself you can tell a new dev from a mid or senior level) asks a question that is truly a duplicate in every way, a little good faith that they do not know what they do not know to the level that they did not realize I think is not to much to ask. Apparently for some of these higher rep people it is.

Further if it is actually a duplicate what harm is there to leaving it open with a link to another question that has an answer? How many times have you looked at multiple SO questions and answers to piece together something that fits your very specific use case? For me it happens that way more often then not.

This is covered by multiple answers to the same question and being able to ask for clarification.

Duplicates actually make it harder to find answers, now I have to go to 10 pages to find the different answers instead of the different answers to the same question all being on one page.

If the questions are significantly different enough they'll end up having their own page. SO isn't meant to be used like other forums, and if you need more help to figure out what you don't know you can jump in the Stack Overflow chat or go to another site like Quora or other forums.

For my last two jobs, I've created a new SO account for that job. I'm a pretty experienced user with decent reputation on my main account. I think I'm a pretty good question writer. I do my research beforehand, pay attention to niceties like formatting and grammar, and try to provide the right amount of context.

My first couple questions almost immediately get downvoted without explanation. Comparable questions from my main account rarely if ever face this prejudice. If I sign in on my main account and reverse the mystery downvotes, I'm usually good from that point on.

I feel a little dirty doing it. Other the hand, WTF is wrong with some of these SO users?

I work with few young developers and students who have reported similar issues. On my teams, I often encourage devs to share their questions once their posted just so we can counter this kind of crap and, if they're new, they can actually scrounge enough reputation to do basic stuff like upvote questions and answers.

That said, I'm a huge fan of the site and all the thought that has gone into the interface. And it looks like admins are doing they're best to deal with this issue. It seems like one of those eternal struggles against human nature.