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When writing SO questions I tend to only press the submit button 5–10% of the time before realising my error (typically something mundane). The act of putting t
by wjdp 9y ago
When writing SO questions I tend to only press the submit button 5–10% of the time before realising my error (typically something mundane). The act of putting the problem into words, along with writing up a good background of the problem (as you should for a good question) often forces an objective viewpoint/reevaluation of the problem.
- chucksmash 9y agoVery much this. The flow for me goes: 1) I don't understand that. Let me ask StackOverflow. 2) I'm having trouble phrasing my question properly. What do you call $X? Googling ensues 3) Oh nevermind, I get it now <closes tab>
- piracyde25 9y agoDamn. I thought I was the only one who does this :'D On a serious note, this effect can be applied to our everyday problem as well. Such as when you are feeling lethargic, you'd want to write down all of your thoughts in a list to see the bigger picture and figure out how simple it can be to finish a task at hand.
- TeMPOraL 9y agos/lethargic/anxious/, and I do this all the time! Doing a quick mind dump usually clears out my anxiety, or at least reduces it to a manageable level, allowing me to continue doing things.
- reificator 9y agoYou should check out the book "Getting Things Done", which is based on taking what you described and using it to stay organized and adaptable. If you've got anxiety it would probably help at least a little bit.
- JasonSage 9y agoThis makes me wonder what the bounce rate for Stack Overflow questions is and what percent of visitors actually make it through the submission process.
- i336_ 9y agoThis would actually be an answerable question, because of SO's draft mechanism. Opens new tab Sound of typing https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/296990/what-are-the-various-se-site-bounce-rates-where-researching-and-phrasing-a-ques https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/296990/what-are-the... I've been thinking along the same lines for a very long time. Thanks for the inspiration to finally ask!
- tayo42 9y agoThey've responded to questions like that before. https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/5y9l9n/showerthought_ive_never_actually_seen/deokxj0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/5y9l9n/showerthou...
- i336_ 9y agoOoooh, nice one. Thanks for the link!
- taneq 9y agoThat's awesome! If they have a big enough database of half-typed-then-abandoned questions, do you think it would be possible to train an RNN (or something) to read a post in progress and predict at what point the answer should be obvious to you?
- wingerlang 9y agoNot the same, but while writing the title it suggest other posts.
- taneq 9y ago
- anc84 9y agoConsider posting and answering yourself. I found myself searching for the same problem months later and once I found my own answer.
- reitanqild 9y agoHehe, has happened to me as well. Also when I kept updating my blog posts about stupid problems that gooogle didn't answer seemed to attract some audience.
- gregmac 9y agoMore than once I've had a problem, found the solution on stackoverflow, clicked up-vote and then got "you cannot vote on your own answer."
- bryanrasmussen 9y agoOn the other hand in the past year especially my experience has been I am asking something for which the documentation is very bad, I don't know enough about the particular problem area I am trying to solve to make a concise description with code examples that nearly work but don't, and as a consequence I just drop it and say it's not worth asking here because nobody will help you understand the problem area unless you understand it really well. Too bad SO has replaced user groups in so many cases.