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I consider myself a fairly seasoned programmer. I have written countless lines of code, work on a few projects with friends, and automated most of my computer-r

I consider myself a fairly seasoned programmer. I have written countless lines of code, work on a few projects with friends, and automated most of my computer-related tasks. I've been doing this since I was 12, and I am 19 at the time of writing this. I can say with confidence, I have never been able to successfully ask a question on stack overflow. I think I have been banned at least once, or they deleted my account. I've asked questions ranging from implementation of 3D matrix manipulation to avoid gimbal lock to writing a python client-side application that needs to be able to edit a google docs file. Everything has been closed, locked, or down voted. Each time I followed standard procedures that we are all familiar with for reporting bugs. - Include output - Sample code - Explanation of what the current code does and what I want it to do - Pictures/Diagrams if helpful I have NEVER gotten a single useful response. Granted it's a great resource for programming information. I use it as a library: I can go there and look at all the books frozen in time, all with good information on a wide variety of topics. But I know, if I attempted to write one of these books or jot down my feelings on the side of a page I'd just get yelled at by the librarians. There are two things that I have noticed about stack overflow: it's one of a few sites that for some reason prides your identity over your work. Your 'karma' is displayed just as big as your name, and it seems to be implied that the bigger that number is, the more right you are. I have also noticed that most of the resources that are indeed helpful are either locked, closed for 'read only', or every reply is down voted even though the responses and questions are still valid. I jokingly tell people who are going into CS at my college that "you are not a programmer until you have gotten banned from stack overflow for asking perfectly reasonable questions". Whenever I say that, I can almost hear a sub-audible sigh of relief from everyone in the room including some professors from other departments attempting to learn CS. Stack overflow is presented as a site for the end user learning how to program. It is not.

Flimm 11y ago
I have had a couple of my questions closed for reasons that I disagree with, so I can sympathise there, but to me it sounds incredible that someone would be banned just for asking programming questions. You say you think you've been banned, could you check and let us know what actually happened? Did you really get banned?
- gravypod 11y ago
  Yea it looks like I was banned and it looks like I was banned more then once. I have an @gmail email address, and one at a custom domain I use professionally. I cant login to either. It also seems like I am not the only one: https://np.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/1wpbhv/i_embarrassed_myself_on_stack_overflow_and_i_need/cf461uj https://np.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/1wpbhv/i_e... That was linked in the article. I spent that entire week upset because I felt I did something wrong (this was back when I was like 14, 2 years into programming and still very much an emotional edgy teen). I'm very lucky that I eventually brought it up to a long time IRC friend and programming "mentor" of mine Steve who said that he was also banned. To me this was crazy as I could not understand how he could have been banned. He was, and still is, my last go-to resort for programming help; basically Mister Miyagi. Because of this, I have surmised that to be good at programming, you need to be banned from SOF for asking a perfectly reasonable question. Edit: I was banned when I asked for help with writing a 3D matrix camera with not problems from gimbal lock and another time for asking if there was a datatype for allowing two threads to mutate the same state. Back then, I did not know about locking, concurrency, and all of the cool jazz. I learned most of what I know myself. Thank god google indexes all of the closed SOF posts or I would have never been able to.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - fabian2k 11y ago
    If you had hit the automatic question block, you would still be able to log in. And if you were manually suspended by a moderator, you also would be able to login. Account deletion is only used for spammers, sock puppets used for vote fraud and for persistent trolls. You can get blocked on SO from asking questions if you ask too many heavily downvoted and/or closed questions without a lot of positive contributions, but accounts aren't deleted just because someone asks a few bad questions.
    - gravypod 11y ago
      >You can get blocked on SO from asking questions if you ask too many heavily downvoted and/or closed questions without a lot of positive contributions, but accounts aren't deleted just because someone asks a few bad questions Yes, that was it. I asked two questions, and was banned for it.

Flimm 11y ago

I have had a couple of my questions closed for reasons that I disagree with, so I can sympathise there, but to me it sounds incredible that someone would be banned just for asking programming questions. You say you think you've been banned, could you check and let us know what actually happened? Did you really get banned?

gravypod 11y ago
Yea it looks like I was banned and it looks like I was banned more then once. I have an @gmail email address, and one at a custom domain I use professionally. I cant login to either. It also seems like I am not the only one: https://np.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/1wpbhv/i_embarrassed_myself_on_stack_overflow_and_i_need/cf461uj https://np.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/1wpbhv/i_e... That was linked in the article. I spent that entire week upset because I felt I did something wrong (this was back when I was like 14, 2 years into programming and still very much an emotional edgy teen). I'm very lucky that I eventually brought it up to a long time IRC friend and programming "mentor" of mine Steve who said that he was also banned. To me this was crazy as I could not understand how he could have been banned. He was, and still is, my last go-to resort for programming help; basically Mister Miyagi. Because of this, I have surmised that to be good at programming, you need to be banned from SOF for asking a perfectly reasonable question. Edit: I was banned when I asked for help with writing a 3D matrix camera with not problems from gimbal lock and another time for asking if there was a datatype for allowing two threads to mutate the same state. Back then, I did not know about locking, concurrency, and all of the cool jazz. I learned most of what I know myself. Thank god google indexes all of the closed SOF posts or I would have never been able to.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- fabian2k 11y ago
  If you had hit the automatic question block, you would still be able to log in. And if you were manually suspended by a moderator, you also would be able to login. Account deletion is only used for spammers, sock puppets used for vote fraud and for persistent trolls. You can get blocked on SO from asking questions if you ask too many heavily downvoted and/or closed questions without a lot of positive contributions, but accounts aren't deleted just because someone asks a few bad questions.
  - gravypod 11y ago
    >You can get blocked on SO from asking questions if you ask too many heavily downvoted and/or closed questions without a lot of positive contributions, but accounts aren't deleted just because someone asks a few bad questions Yes, that was it. I asked two questions, and was banned for it.