6 ms·

At this point, I have no desire to participate in or help stackoverflow. The attitudes there are such hostile, elitist garbage, where someone is incapable of as

At this point, I have no desire to participate in or help stackoverflow. The attitudes there are such hostile, elitist garbage, where someone is incapable of asking a question, because it will instantly be closed by the mods. God forbid they are a newbie to the site. Responses essentially amount to go RTFM. This sums it up well. https://hackernoon.com/the-decline-of-stack-overflow-7cb69faa575d#.oyn9b1aoz https://hackernoon.com/the-decline-of-stack-overflow-7cb69fa...

maaaats 10y ago
Wow, what a hostile post. What would you think people would think of HN reading your stuff?
- overcast 10y ago
  This isn't my stuff. Though myself, and others share the same sentiment. Read the comments below the article.
sosborn 10y ago
> Responses essentially amount to go RTFM. Let's be honest, reading the docs should be everyone's first step before posting a question. So many questions follow the template of "I want to know how to do this but I don't want to put in any effort." The volume of those kinds of questions are what drove me away - not the moderation.
- EpicEng 10y ago
  And, on the flip side; people who do RTFM will only ask relatively esoteric questions looking for help on a difficult problem. Good luck getting any answers to that. It happens, but it's pretty rare. Everyone jumps on the latest "why is my hash map implementation crashing?" (It's a bad pointer) in the race for rep. I am still pretty highly ranked on SO (top 1%), but I haven't been active for nearly two years now.
  - bostik 10y ago
    > Everyone jumps on the latest [bulk question] in the race for rep. You have just nailed the problem with their gamification. It takes effort - and thus time - to write a good answer. Since everyone is trying to score the easy wins, you get a flood of mediocre boilerplate answers. In the time it takes you to write a quality answer, the question has been answered multiple times. Likely one of these boilerplates has even been accepted by OP. For a company that obviously considers the long game over immediate and cheap gains, they haven't managed to impart these values to their userbase. Incidentally that was also my gripe about SO job ads two years ago. (Iow. when I considered posting something.) At the time their candidate search only allowed to search by answer scores. I had pretty simple needs: What if I'm not looking for developers who can recite trivia? What if I want to seek out the thoughtful ones who actually know how to ask good questions? Their answer at the time: sorry, we don't have that. It shouldn't even be that hard: eliminate the insane outliers and jackpots, find the people with matching skill sets who consistently ask decently scored questions.
- collyw 10y ago
  That works with well written docs. Python standard docs are not great, trying to remember how to use capturing groups on regexes for example (which I use maybe once or twice a year), it takes wading through three or four screens worth of text to get what I want. The Stack Overflow answer is likely to be far more concise, and will give me the example I am needing near the top of the page.
- abraae 10y ago
  Bring an alternative to reading the docs is the very essence of SO. Why read the docs when you can google for the exact single question you have and be looking at the answer a second later? Especially on technologies you are diving into just to quickly do something, and that you don't have time to learn in any depth.
wool_gather 10y ago
That post contains quite a few inaccuracies and misunderstandings about SO functionality. It has been discussed on HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12576124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12576124
- overcast 10y ago
  Looks like that discussion talks about the same issue. joekrie 51 days ago [-] I find it to be a great resource if someone has already answered your question, especially if I find it via Google. As for asking questions, it's a bit off-putting to be immediately downvoted without explanation, and to not get a single answer. Point is, it's good resource to free-ride but not actively participate. city41 51 days ago [-] That's basically the point of the site. I think SO's owners are ok with this trade off. FWIW it wasn't always like this. I have a lot of points on SO mostly acquired about 5 years ago. Back then SO was a much friendlier, and much more interesting place to participate in. I haven't actively participated in about 3 years or so. CaptSpify 51 days ago [-] I've always thought this described it best: SO is a great place to find answers to your questions, but SO is a terrible place to ask questions.
JamesBarney 10y ago
Are there any Stack-Overflow style Q&A site with communities that feel more like Hacker News(high levels of politeness)?
- erikbye 10y ago
  Quora?
Zergy 10y ago
I used to be very active on SO and I stopped because dealing with new people to the site is a waste of everyones time. SO has the goal of being a Q to A catalog. You're not contributing unless you are asking a new, answerable question or providing and answer to a new or existing question. There are tons of people asking questions that are already answered, tons of people asking questions that would take a book to answer, and tons of people asking questions that are subjective and time sensitive. All of this needs to be closed and removed. The fact of the matter is that tons of questions have already been asked and answered. In fact unless its for a newer technology there are probably not that many left to ask. Because of this about 95% of all new content ought to be removed. In fact you will find a vastly different culture if you stick around the GO tag vs the Java tag. But the issue is there is a never ending trickle of people who don't realize the above. They sign up and start asking answered or impossible to answer questions, trying to start discussions, or trying to make you debug their specific issue. You either ignore them or try and help them understand the site by telling them to RTFM.
- collyw 10y ago
  A more recent problem with Stack Overflow now that its a few years old. The tech gets updated, and previously good answers are now out of date, as libraries and frameworks have changed.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    We have an edit button though! And edits are community validated before being merged. I use it regularly to update other people's answers. If the update breaks backwards compatibility, I'll just add a separate section "For Python 3.x, use .items() instead of .iteritems()" etc.
    - Zergy 10y ago
      Very true but I think SE does a poor job incentivizing upkeep. Its very little Karma compared to new contributions. Honestly the only thing I with they would change.
tedmiston 10y ago
As someone who regularly advises new users to read the minimum complete verifiable example (MCVE) doc [1], both with review flags and in comments, I really think you should! Unlike most manuals, it's a fairly short and incredibly well written document. Anyone who reads and follows most of it will be a very valuable user to the community. In fact, following it's process might lead you to figuring out your own questions before you submit sometimes, at least that's how it's worked for me. Sure, it requires effort, but it makes for a better experience all around. [Many questions that I see get downvoted are authors that make no attempt to follow the guidelines, or have asked a question easily answerable in the standards docs for that language or library. Still, I often answer these personally to provide a bit of hand-holding because what's obvious to someone who's been working with a language for 5 years might not be to someone who's been with it for 1. It's hard to draw a line around obviousness. In any case, if you follow the guidelines you're likely to receive help.] [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve

maaaats 10y ago

Wow, what a hostile post. What would you think people would think of HN reading your stuff?

overcast 10y ago
This isn't my stuff. Though myself, and others share the same sentiment. Read the comments below the article.

sosborn 10y ago

> Responses essentially amount to go RTFM. Let's be honest, reading the docs should be everyone's first step before posting a question. So many questions follow the template of "I want to know how to do this but I don't want to put in any effort." The volume of those kinds of questions are what drove me away - not the moderation.

EpicEng 10y ago
And, on the flip side; people who do RTFM will only ask relatively esoteric questions looking for help on a difficult problem. Good luck getting any answers to that. It happens, but it's pretty rare. Everyone jumps on the latest "why is my hash map implementation crashing?" (It's a bad pointer) in the race for rep. I am still pretty highly ranked on SO (top 1%), but I haven't been active for nearly two years now.
- bostik 10y ago
  > Everyone jumps on the latest [bulk question] in the race for rep. You have just nailed the problem with their gamification. It takes effort - and thus time - to write a good answer. Since everyone is trying to score the easy wins, you get a flood of mediocre boilerplate answers. In the time it takes you to write a quality answer, the question has been answered multiple times. Likely one of these boilerplates has even been accepted by OP. For a company that obviously considers the long game over immediate and cheap gains, they haven't managed to impart these values to their userbase. Incidentally that was also my gripe about SO job ads two years ago. (Iow. when I considered posting something.) At the time their candidate search only allowed to search by answer scores. I had pretty simple needs: What if I'm not looking for developers who can recite trivia? What if I want to seek out the thoughtful ones who actually know how to ask good questions? Their answer at the time: sorry, we don't have that. It shouldn't even be that hard: eliminate the insane outliers and jackpots, find the people with matching skill sets who consistently ask decently scored questions.
collyw 10y ago
That works with well written docs. Python standard docs are not great, trying to remember how to use capturing groups on regexes for example (which I use maybe once or twice a year), it takes wading through three or four screens worth of text to get what I want. The Stack Overflow answer is likely to be far more concise, and will give me the example I am needing near the top of the page.
abraae 10y ago
Bring an alternative to reading the docs is the very essence of SO. Why read the docs when you can google for the exact single question you have and be looking at the answer a second later? Especially on technologies you are diving into just to quickly do something, and that you don't have time to learn in any depth.

wool_gather 10y ago

That post contains quite a few inaccuracies and misunderstandings about SO functionality. It has been discussed on HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12576124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12576124

overcast 10y ago
Looks like that discussion talks about the same issue. joekrie 51 days ago [-] I find it to be a great resource if someone has already answered your question, especially if I find it via Google. As for asking questions, it's a bit off-putting to be immediately downvoted without explanation, and to not get a single answer. Point is, it's good resource to free-ride but not actively participate. city41 51 days ago [-] That's basically the point of the site. I think SO's owners are ok with this trade off. FWIW it wasn't always like this. I have a lot of points on SO mostly acquired about 5 years ago. Back then SO was a much friendlier, and much more interesting place to participate in. I haven't actively participated in about 3 years or so. CaptSpify 51 days ago [-] I've always thought this described it best: SO is a great place to find answers to your questions, but SO is a terrible place to ask questions.

JamesBarney 10y ago

Are there any Stack-Overflow style Q&A site with communities that feel more like Hacker News(high levels of politeness)?

erikbye 10y ago
Quora?

Zergy 10y ago

I used to be very active on SO and I stopped because dealing with new people to the site is a waste of everyones time. SO has the goal of being a Q to A catalog. You're not contributing unless you are asking a new, answerable question or providing and answer to a new or existing question. There are tons of people asking questions that are already answered, tons of people asking questions that would take a book to answer, and tons of people asking questions that are subjective and time sensitive. All of this needs to be closed and removed. The fact of the matter is that tons of questions have already been asked and answered. In fact unless its for a newer technology there are probably not that many left to ask. Because of this about 95% of all new content ought to be removed. In fact you will find a vastly different culture if you stick around the GO tag vs the Java tag. But the issue is there is a never ending trickle of people who don't realize the above. They sign up and start asking answered or impossible to answer questions, trying to start discussions, or trying to make you debug their specific issue. You either ignore them or try and help them understand the site by telling them to RTFM.

collyw 10y ago
A more recent problem with Stack Overflow now that its a few years old. The tech gets updated, and previously good answers are now out of date, as libraries and frameworks have changed.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  We have an edit button though! And edits are community validated before being merged. I use it regularly to update other people's answers. If the update breaks backwards compatibility, I'll just add a separate section "For Python 3.x, use .items() instead of .iteritems()" etc.
  - Zergy 10y ago
    Very true but I think SE does a poor job incentivizing upkeep. Its very little Karma compared to new contributions. Honestly the only thing I with they would change.

tedmiston 10y ago

As someone who regularly advises new users to read the minimum complete verifiable example (MCVE) doc [1], both with review flags and in comments, I really think you should! Unlike most manuals, it's a fairly short and incredibly well written document. Anyone who reads and follows most of it will be a very valuable user to the community. In fact, following it's process might lead you to figuring out your own questions before you submit sometimes, at least that's how it's worked for me. Sure, it requires effort, but it makes for a better experience all around. [Many questions that I see get downvoted are authors that make no attempt to follow the guidelines, or have asked a question easily answerable in the standards docs for that language or library. Still, I often answer these personally to provide a bit of hand-holding because what's obvious to someone who's been working with a language for 5 years might not be to someone who's been with it for 1. It's hard to draw a line around obviousness. In any case, if you follow the guidelines you're likely to receive help.] [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve