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>help vampires What is that?

by vram22 10y ago

smarks 10y ago
Essentially, someone who asks continual questions and who seems unwilling to do any work, research, or to put any effort into learning on their own. Overview is here: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19665/the-help-vampire-problem http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19665/the-help-vampi... A common variation is someone who asks a reasonable question, gets an answer, then repeatedly modifies/extends the original question, or who asks a long series of follow up questions n comments. This variation is described here: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/258279/1441122 http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/258279/1441122
mekoka 10y ago
People who cannot be bothered to cover the simplest basics of a topic on their own. It's usually hard to explain anything to them because anywhere you try to start from they will need you to explain that topic first, and on, and on. If you ask them "what do you understand" in an attempt to join them in some common frame of comprehension, they look at you with a blank stare and reply "what do you mean". That's how they drain you of your life energy. Help vampires.
- wruza 10y ago
  SO is also full of opposites: answer vampires. You put efforts into formulating your very specific question, correcting for english language rules, provide working examples only to see bunch of "we never did it like that, you do not need that" answers from old-boys that think they know everything. Ofc, if someone solved that issue the same way, he will show up and put his saving comment, but those beards form the community, force newcomers to think The Right Way. SO is great to search for snippets and tl;drs, though. Reference manuals fail to contain tl;drs way too often, and that was fixed, thanks SO.
  - wyclif 10y ago
    And just to add another layer to your observation: the effect you describe is accelerated depending on the technology or programming language if those things are specific to the question. So, for instance, if it's a Perl-related question (we never did it this way, there's 3,827 other ways to do it and your answer is not one of them so I'm voting to close) the Soup Nazi-ism is gonna be worse than, say, a TCP/IP question.
Latty 10y ago
Help vampires are people who suck the life out of those who answer questions. They ask questions without bothering to think about it themselves, often without enough information to actually answer the question well. These types of questions are frustrating to answer, and lead to people assuming the worst of new users who ask bad questions unintentionally. It's a sliding scale. Most people just don't know how to ask a good question initially, but some just don't care. In general, I'd say the 'help vampire' problem is where the asker is looking for the answerer's time, not their help. They want someone to do free work for them, without putting in effort themselves. I believe this is the origin: http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/ http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/

>help vampires What is that?

by vram22 10y ago

>help vampires What is that?

Essentially, someone who asks continual questions and who seems unwilling to do any work, research, or to put any effort into learning on their own. Overview is here: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19665/the-help-vampire-problem http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19665/the-help-vampi... A common variation is someone who asks a reasonable question, gets an answer, then repeatedly modifies/extends the original question, or who asks a long series of follow up questions n comments. This variation is described here: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/258279/1441122 http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/258279/1441122

mekoka 10y ago

People who cannot be bothered to cover the simplest basics of a topic on their own. It's usually hard to explain anything to them because anywhere you try to start from they will need you to explain that topic first, and on, and on. If you ask them "what do you understand" in an attempt to join them in some common frame of comprehension, they look at you with a blank stare and reply "what do you mean". That's how they drain you of your life energy. Help vampires.

wruza 10y ago
SO is also full of opposites: answer vampires. You put efforts into formulating your very specific question, correcting for english language rules, provide working examples only to see bunch of "we never did it like that, you do not need that" answers from old-boys that think they know everything. Ofc, if someone solved that issue the same way, he will show up and put his saving comment, but those beards form the community, force newcomers to think The Right Way. SO is great to search for snippets and tl;drs, though. Reference manuals fail to contain tl;drs way too often, and that was fixed, thanks SO.
- wyclif 10y ago
  And just to add another layer to your observation: the effect you describe is accelerated depending on the technology or programming language if those things are specific to the question. So, for instance, if it's a Perl-related question (we never did it this way, there's 3,827 other ways to do it and your answer is not one of them so I'm voting to close) the Soup Nazi-ism is gonna be worse than, say, a TCP/IP question.

Latty 10y ago

Help vampires are people who suck the life out of those who answer questions. They ask questions without bothering to think about it themselves, often without enough information to actually answer the question well. These types of questions are frustrating to answer, and lead to people assuming the worst of new users who ask bad questions unintentionally. It's a sliding scale. Most people just don't know how to ask a good question initially, but some just don't care. In general, I'd say the 'help vampire' problem is where the asker is looking for the answerer's time, not their help. They want someone to do free work for them, without putting in effort themselves. I believe this is the origin: http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/ http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/