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> 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 follo

by 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.

by sosborn 10y ago

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.