Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions • Hacker News Board

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#81

Post by olavk » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 5:01 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #55

lambda wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was a pretty good question No, this is not a good question for StackOverflow. You simply asked for someone to write code for you, which is not what StackOverflow is intended to be for. It is intended for help on a particular specific problem you are having with your own code.

And this exactly is the problem with SO. There is no good question for that site, the classification seems arbitrary and totally random. I don't participate in this site for a very simple reason - I have no idea how to ask a question that will be OK by SO rules. (the fact that you can't be in any way contributing to the site until you asked enough questions to bump up your karma is another blocker)

It is not that difficult. I have asked many question and never had anyone close them. If you follow common sense and state the question clearly and specifically, you should be fine.

I sometimes vote to close questions, but it is always due to pretty obvious laziness like not actually asking a specific question ("Here is my code... please help me") or overly broad questions ("I'm trying to write an e-commerce web site. Can anybody point me in the right direction?")

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#82

Post by Dylan16807 » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #61

TeMPOraL wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now is it? It also asks basically to teach how subtraction works, which is something you should know when leaving primary school.

Are you saying that you can't find a point of view where it would be a more specific question? Because that's what I meant when I said 'arguably'. Saying that you can find a point of view where it isn't more specific isn't really that interesting (to me) as a response to that. Hopefully the rest of my comment is enough to see that I was not particularly defending the SE status quo.

'arguably' still requires a reasonable position that declares it true, otherwise literally everything is arguable.

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#83

Post by sgress454 » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 5:35 PM UTC

vijayboyapati wrote: post #16

Sadly the Stackoverflow community seems to have become a lot more officious in the last few years and the number of petty bureaucrats has skyrocketed. I asked a genuine question which I didn't know the answer to and which I was hoping someone else may have come across. It was immediately downvoted for not having a proposed solution. Eventually it was upvoted and became positive because it was a genuinely useful quest…

> Eventually it was upvoted and became positive because it was a genuinely useful question

Getting down voted never feels good, but it sounds like the system worked exactly as it was supposed to in this case.

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#84

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 5:37 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #82

maxerickson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that you can't find a point of view where it would be a more specific question? Because that's what I meant when I said 'arguably'. Saying that you can find a point of view where it isn't more specific isn't really that interesting (to me) as a response to that. Hopefully the rest of my comment is enough to see that I was not particularly defending the SE status quo.

'arguably' still requires a reasonable position that declares it true, otherwise literally everything is arguable.

[deleted]

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#85

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #82

maxerickson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that you can't find a point of view where it would be a more specific question? Because that's what I meant when I said 'arguably'. Saying that you can find a point of view where it isn't more specific isn't really that interesting (to me) as a response to that. Hopefully the rest of my comment is enough to see that I was not particularly defending the SE status quo.

'arguably' still requires a reasonable position that declares it true, otherwise literally everything is arguable.

[deleted]

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#86

Post by maxerickson » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #82

maxerickson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that you can't find a point of view where it would be a more specific question? Because that's what I meant when I said 'arguably'. Saying that you can find a point of view where it isn't more specific isn't really that interesting (to me) as a response to that. Hopefully the rest of my comment is enough to see that I was not particularly defending the SE status quo.

'arguably' still requires a reasonable position that declares it true, otherwise literally everything is arguable.

I think reasonableness is implicit enough in "find a point of view", do you think I should recalibrate that expectation?

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#87

Post by olavk » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 6:01 PM UTC

jorjordandan wrote: post #76

For some reason some of these have tons of UPVOTES like the question about formatting Javascript dates. Something went wrong somewhere! Actually several of the questions have a bunch of upvotes. Certainly more than I've ever gotten on SO...

A question need visibility to get such a large amount of downvotes. They are controversial questions which gets a high number of both up and downvotes.

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#88

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 6:13 PM UTC

duncanawoods wrote: post #23

vijayboyapati wrote: post #16

Sadly the Stackoverflow community seems to have become a lot more officious in the last few years and the number of petty bureaucrats has skyrocketed. I asked a genuine question which I didn't know the answer to and which I was hoping someone else may have come across. It was immediately downvoted for not having a proposed solution. Eventually it was upvoted and became positive because it was a genuinely useful quest…

At least you were told why you were downvoted. I just had a similar experience - I posted an (IMHO) well written question that was immediately downvoted with no comment. It has no answers because I suspect few people are going to look at a This upset me more than it should because in a vulnerable moment of need, I was digitally slapped. SO used to feel like a special gem of altruism where devs helped each other out f…

I make an effort to upvote questions and comments/answers that have been unfairly downvoted. The same problem plagues HN for anyone who dares to defy the groupthink.

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#89

Post by z3t4 » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 6:13 PM UTC

sgress454 wrote: post #83

vijayboyapati wrote: post #16

Sadly the Stackoverflow community seems to have become a lot more officious in the last few years and the number of petty bureaucrats has skyrocketed. I asked a genuine question which I didn't know the answer to and which I was hoping someone else may have come across. It was immediately downvoted for not having a proposed solution. Eventually it was upvoted and became positive because it was a genuinely useful quest…

> Eventually it was upvoted and became positive because it was a genuinely useful question Getting down voted never feels good, but it sounds like the system worked exactly as it was supposed to in this case.

That must have been an exception to the rule though. If something is down-voted it has a significant higher chance of getting more down-votes and vice-versa.

You might think "doh". But if you get down-voted, try deleting the post and post the exact same content twenty minutes later. You will be surprised.

Re: Most Down-Voted Stack Overflow Questions

#90

Post by nisa » Sun, Mar 01, 2015, 6:17 PM UTC

vijayboyapati wrote: post #16

Sadly the Stackoverflow community seems to have become a lot more officious in the last few years and the number of petty bureaucrats has skyrocketed. I asked a genuine question which I didn't know the answer to and which I was hoping someone else may have come across. It was immediately downvoted for not having a proposed solution. Eventually it was upvoted and became positive because it was a genuinely useful quest…

serverfault.com is the worst community in that regard. Asking a technical interesting question for an uncommon usage scenario always provokes grumpy and short comments complemented by downvotes. I'll always include a detailed explanation yet nobody seems to care. Questions are closed as duplicate despite pointing out that this use-case is unique.. I don't bother using the site anymore.