8 ms·

What I hate the most about StackOveflow is people continuously questioning the poster's motive instead of answering the question. That often means that if the

What I hate the most about StackOveflow is people continuously questioning the poster's motive instead of answering the question. That often means that if the answer doesn't involve glittering golden code seeping perfection, people won't bother and will just answer: "Don't do that."

olavk 8y ago
Can you link to an example of that? (Not disputing your experience, just want to learn.)
- Pimpus 8y ago
  It took two seconds to find an example in my stackoverflow browser history: [0] > Question: Hide Show content-list with only CSS, no javascript used > Comment: Behavior is supposed to only exist in the realm of JavaScript. But my favorite example is the following, which I sacrificed a couple of minutes looking for because the exchange was so instructive: [1] > Question: How can I replace text with CSS? > Comment 1: To be honest it might be best to use javascript for this. > Comment 2: The question is how to do it with CSS. I am using a CMS that only allows me to change the CSS, which is why I arrived at this page while googling for the answer, and not a different one. That is why we answer the question that was asked instead of asking why the asker's situation isn't different. The thing people forget is that the question is not just about the person asking it, but about people coming across the question e.g. through Google who have to waste their time sifting through idiotic non-answers. For better or worse, SO tends to be ranked highly on Google for development-related queries and I've come to subconsciously ignore it because of its uselessness, in general. [0]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17731457/hide-show-content-list-with-only-css-no-javascript-used https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17731457/hide-show-conte... [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7896402/how-can-i-replace-text-with-css/14261898#14261898 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7896402/how-can-i-replac...
  - dspillett 8y ago
    > I am using a CMS that only allows me to change the CSS The problem there is not the person commenting/answering being self-righteous, but the original poster not providing sufficient context for the question. People on the other side of the Internet are no more clairvoyant than anyone else, so aren't likely to guess that such a restriction is in play and currently unavoidable. > That is why we answer the question that was asked instead of asking why the asker's situation isn't different. Speaking of self-righteousness: when I see that sort of tone from someone asking for help I tend to walk away and go find someone else to assist (or something else to do entirely).
  - BeetleB 8y ago
    After reading the exchange on SO, I agree: Questioning motives is the right thing to do. The problem isn't that people are questioning the motives. The problem is that we have to. The question is very reasonable within a certain context, and it is the responsibility of the person posing the question to point out that context. For me personally, it has happened a bunch of times that I Googled something, which led me to SO, where the answer was "Don't try to do it the way you're asking - the better way is X". I'm really glad I got those answers because I was educated about why what I was trying to do was bad and how to do it properly. The times where I really needed to do it the poor way are a small minority.
  - olavk 8y ago
    For the first question, there are 12 answers providing pure CSS solutions. One of them is marked as accepted by the OP, which indicates it solved their problem. Then there is a single comment (not an answer) which says "you are not supposed to do that", which have received a single upvote. You say "people won't bother", but in reality, 12 people have bothered and provided detailed solutions with code. What more could you want? I don't really see the major problem here. The second question has 23 answers, the top one having 186 upvotes. And then there is a single comment (not an answer), saying JS is more appropriate for this, and a reply from the OP explaining why it needs to be pure CSS. Comments are for asking questions, request clarifications and providing information which does not constitute a regular answer. This seems to work exactly as intended. Several answers make it clear that the CSS solution is more fragile and worse supported than a JS solution, so I think it is pretty relevant to ask the OP (absent any information either way) if they couldn't use JS instead. I really have a hard time seeing the problem here?
    - bmm6o 8y ago
      It's worth emphasizing that for the first example, the answer was provided free of charge within an hour. I don't think I agree with any assessment in which this is not an unqualified success.
      - Pimpus 8y ago
        > It's worth emphasizing that for the first example, the answer was provided free of charge within an hour. It shows -- the quality of the answer is quite poor. > I don't think I agree with any assessment in which this is not an unqualified success. This made me laugh. I guess the only assessment you considered is your own, which simplistically assumed time to answer is the most important factor. And yet, not a single soul finding this question on Google cares if the answer took an hour or two days. Apart from you, I guess.
        bmm6o 8y ago
        > It shows -- the quality of the answer is quite poor. Are we talking about the same question? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17731457/hide-show-content-list-with-only-css-no-javascript-used https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17731457/hide-show-conte... I'll admit that it's not always easy to judge if an answer is useful to someone else, but it looks to me like it answers the question, the user "accepted" it, and it has 23 points. What makes you say it's "poor"? > I guess the only assessment you considered is your own The only strike against it you cite is some push-back in a comment... What else do you have against it? > which simplistically assumed time to answer is the most important factor. On top of the user accepting it, it having 23 points, it answering the question, etc. I mean, I think I would be pleased with the outcome if I were the OP. I think I would be pleased to find that answer if I came from a Google search. If you honestly think that this is an example of "people continuously questioning the poster's motive" and exemplifies what you don't like about SO, then yeah, I don't agree with your assessment. It's not an attack on you, chill out.
egjerlow 8y ago
To me, this is a feature, not a bug. In my experience, usually the questioning of motive is well-founded and the poster is really doing something that in a perfect programming world shouldn't be done. Then, if the poster is able to explain why they are forced to take this particular route, people will usually accept it and answer.
- alien_at_work 8y ago
  No, this is unacceptable. Ideally you should first answer the question, then explain why it shouldn't be done. If you don't have enough time, then drop the second part. And the reason is not about the OP, the OP is irrelevant in such a site. SO is a collection of programming knowledge. So the problem is that an experienced software engineer comes along years later, forced into doing something they already know is bad but have no choice for some reason (normally some silly job constrained that they simply cannot change), google search to see if anyone has done it and guess what comes up? The exact question on SO but with these useless answers. And since it has been "answered" no one else bothers any more. And I can't come in an clarify why I need it, it's not my question. If I ask again, my question will probably flagged as a duplicate. If I could change only one thing on SO, it would be that anyone who answers "don't do that", in any form, without answering the question is banned from the site and their response removed.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - recursive 8y ago
    The majority of people arriving via that search years later probably don't already know, and are less equipped than the experienced engineer to tell the difference.
- psyc 8y ago
  This is horrible, and reminds me of the programmer mentality in general. I come as a human asking a question, and instead of answering like a normal person, they grill me until I've proven something to them.
stinos 8y ago
In all honesty, quite often the people are right. I've seen so many questions where the poster comes in and already 'solved' part of the problem by making false assumptions (note: this can be by accident, it's normal for novices and even more advanced programmers to have a lack of diagnostic insight) and then asks 'I want to do this, how do I do this?' which is at that point simply the wrong question. Practical analogy to one particular style of questions: I have a lamp and a switch, and I don't see any light when I toggle the switch and I go to SO to ask how to replace the lamp. SO people could of course come up with a perfectly valid and acceptable answer and leave it as-is. But SO people might know better and realize such answer might not fix the actual problem, which could be a myriad of other things (no power, no wires, switch broken, I'm blind, ....).
- alien_at_work 8y ago
  It's highly presumptious to assume you know better than the person asking. You might, but you might not. The fact that SO serves as a collection of programming knowledge, you do not know better than everyone who will ever search for that question even if you do actually know better than the OP who actually asked the first time. It would be fine to help with all these other possibilites but part of your answer should... actually answer the question that was asked, as it was asked and not doing so should result in a servere punishement.
  - stinos 8y ago
    It's highly presumptious to assume you know better than the person asking For me, questioning someone's question, asking more info, pointing out he/she might be doing the wrong thing, ... does not in any way involve me assuming knowing things better than the questioner or anyone. (e.g. for all I know, the asker is way more intelligent and wise and knowing than I am, but just temporarily confused - happens to me sometimes so can happen to others) Those two are orthogonal for me, it's just my nature to always question stuff. Including myself. And this certainly helps in finding solutions. And doesn't lead to me thinking I'm better. Perhaps different sometimes, yes. your answer should... actually answer the question that was asked, as it was asked and not doing so should result in a servere punishement. To stick with the enalogy: while the answer 'buy lamp, take ladder, unscrew old, screw in new' might perfectly answer the question, it is in my view completely useless if it doesn't solve the problem. So I'd leave a comment asking for more info. And if someone else would already have given that answer I'll probably leave a comment saying it's rather incomplete. Because it's imo the only way to actually help the OP. Why on earth should one get punished for that? Isn't it the right thing to do?
dspillett 8y ago
(I don't post answers on SO at all, but I do on some of the sibling sites (DBA.SE, SF, SU), so my experience might not be exactly the same, but...) > questioning the poster's motive The motive can be important. Where there are multiple explanations and/or solutions this can filter out some that are not going to be relevant or practical for their current situation. Also where what they are asking seems impossible/impractical/misguided/other it can help in providing a better solution (i.e. trying to give them what they ultimately want even if it isn't what they are specifically asking for) or give context that might quieten your gut "don't do that" reaction. The poster's motive is one of the most important bits of information: Where were you? What did you do? Why? What were you intending to happen? What happened instead? > "Don't do that." Sometimes "don't do that" or "you can't do that" is the only suitable answer though (such as where what they are trying to do is impossible, or just wildly impractical, or will open up a security nightmare, or there is a built-in method so they'd be reinventing a wheel, or one of many other reasons) with the important caveat that you don't answer with just "don't do that". Better is "don't do that because <good explanation>" or "you can't do that because <good explanation>". Even better still, if what is being asked it actually possible even if it is strongly recommended against: "You shouldn't do that because <explanation> but if you chose to ignore this recommendation you could try <method>".
fuzzy2 8y ago
This may seem off-putting at times, but I believe it is absolutely necessary. When colleagues come to me with questions (which they do a lot), I always ask about the background. And sometimes, I arrive at different conclusions that solve the actual problem with ease. If you expect a quality answer that actually solves the problem, explain everything. Provide clarification when asked to do so. Also, don't assume hostility and be friendly yourself.

olavk 8y ago

Can you link to an example of that? (Not disputing your experience, just want to learn.)

Pimpus 8y ago
It took two seconds to find an example in my stackoverflow browser history: [0] > Question: Hide Show content-list with only CSS, no javascript used > Comment: Behavior is supposed to only exist in the realm of JavaScript. But my favorite example is the following, which I sacrificed a couple of minutes looking for because the exchange was so instructive: [1] > Question: How can I replace text with CSS? > Comment 1: To be honest it might be best to use javascript for this. > Comment 2: The question is how to do it with CSS. I am using a CMS that only allows me to change the CSS, which is why I arrived at this page while googling for the answer, and not a different one. That is why we answer the question that was asked instead of asking why the asker's situation isn't different. The thing people forget is that the question is not just about the person asking it, but about people coming across the question e.g. through Google who have to waste their time sifting through idiotic non-answers. For better or worse, SO tends to be ranked highly on Google for development-related queries and I've come to subconsciously ignore it because of its uselessness, in general. [0]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17731457/hide-show-content-list-with-only-css-no-javascript-used https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17731457/hide-show-conte... [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7896402/how-can-i-replace-text-with-css/14261898#14261898 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7896402/how-can-i-replac...
- dspillett 8y ago
  > I am using a CMS that only allows me to change the CSS The problem there is not the person commenting/answering being self-righteous, but the original poster not providing sufficient context for the question. People on the other side of the Internet are no more clairvoyant than anyone else, so aren't likely to guess that such a restriction is in play and currently unavoidable. > That is why we answer the question that was asked instead of asking why the asker's situation isn't different. Speaking of self-righteousness: when I see that sort of tone from someone asking for help I tend to walk away and go find someone else to assist (or something else to do entirely).
- BeetleB 8y ago
  After reading the exchange on SO, I agree: Questioning motives is the right thing to do. The problem isn't that people are questioning the motives. The problem is that we have to. The question is very reasonable within a certain context, and it is the responsibility of the person posing the question to point out that context. For me personally, it has happened a bunch of times that I Googled something, which led me to SO, where the answer was "Don't try to do it the way you're asking - the better way is X". I'm really glad I got those answers because I was educated about why what I was trying to do was bad and how to do it properly. The times where I really needed to do it the poor way are a small minority.
- olavk 8y ago
  For the first question, there are 12 answers providing pure CSS solutions. One of them is marked as accepted by the OP, which indicates it solved their problem. Then there is a single comment (not an answer) which says "you are not supposed to do that", which have received a single upvote. You say "people won't bother", but in reality, 12 people have bothered and provided detailed solutions with code. What more could you want? I don't really see the major problem here. The second question has 23 answers, the top one having 186 upvotes. And then there is a single comment (not an answer), saying JS is more appropriate for this, and a reply from the OP explaining why it needs to be pure CSS. Comments are for asking questions, request clarifications and providing information which does not constitute a regular answer. This seems to work exactly as intended. Several answers make it clear that the CSS solution is more fragile and worse supported than a JS solution, so I think it is pretty relevant to ask the OP (absent any information either way) if they couldn't use JS instead. I really have a hard time seeing the problem here?
  - bmm6o 8y ago
    It's worth emphasizing that for the first example, the answer was provided free of charge within an hour. I don't think I agree with any assessment in which this is not an unqualified success.
    - Pimpus 8y ago
      > It's worth emphasizing that for the first example, the answer was provided free of charge within an hour. It shows -- the quality of the answer is quite poor. > I don't think I agree with any assessment in which this is not an unqualified success. This made me laugh. I guess the only assessment you considered is your own, which simplistically assumed time to answer is the most important factor. And yet, not a single soul finding this question on Google cares if the answer took an hour or two days. Apart from you, I guess.
      - bmm6o 8y ago
        > It shows -- the quality of the answer is quite poor. Are we talking about the same question? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17731457/hide-show-content-list-with-only-css-no-javascript-used https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17731457/hide-show-conte... I'll admit that it's not always easy to judge if an answer is useful to someone else, but it looks to me like it answers the question, the user "accepted" it, and it has 23 points. What makes you say it's "poor"? > I guess the only assessment you considered is your own The only strike against it you cite is some push-back in a comment... What else do you have against it? > which simplistically assumed time to answer is the most important factor. On top of the user accepting it, it having 23 points, it answering the question, etc. I mean, I think I would be pleased with the outcome if I were the OP. I think I would be pleased to find that answer if I came from a Google search. If you honestly think that this is an example of "people continuously questioning the poster's motive" and exemplifies what you don't like about SO, then yeah, I don't agree with your assessment. It's not an attack on you, chill out.

egjerlow 8y ago

To me, this is a feature, not a bug. In my experience, usually the questioning of motive is well-founded and the poster is really doing something that in a perfect programming world shouldn't be done. Then, if the poster is able to explain why they are forced to take this particular route, people will usually accept it and answer.

alien_at_work 8y ago
No, this is unacceptable. Ideally you should first answer the question, then explain why it shouldn't be done. If you don't have enough time, then drop the second part. And the reason is not about the OP, the OP is irrelevant in such a site. SO is a collection of programming knowledge. So the problem is that an experienced software engineer comes along years later, forced into doing something they already know is bad but have no choice for some reason (normally some silly job constrained that they simply cannot change), google search to see if anyone has done it and guess what comes up? The exact question on SO but with these useless answers. And since it has been "answered" no one else bothers any more. And I can't come in an clarify why I need it, it's not my question. If I ask again, my question will probably flagged as a duplicate. If I could change only one thing on SO, it would be that anyone who answers "don't do that", in any form, without answering the question is banned from the site and their response removed.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- recursive 8y ago
  The majority of people arriving via that search years later probably don't already know, and are less equipped than the experienced engineer to tell the difference.
psyc 8y ago
This is horrible, and reminds me of the programmer mentality in general. I come as a human asking a question, and instead of answering like a normal person, they grill me until I've proven something to them.

stinos 8y ago

In all honesty, quite often the people are right. I've seen so many questions where the poster comes in and already 'solved' part of the problem by making false assumptions (note: this can be by accident, it's normal for novices and even more advanced programmers to have a lack of diagnostic insight) and then asks 'I want to do this, how do I do this?' which is at that point simply the wrong question. Practical analogy to one particular style of questions: I have a lamp and a switch, and I don't see any light when I toggle the switch and I go to SO to ask how to replace the lamp. SO people could of course come up with a perfectly valid and acceptable answer and leave it as-is. But SO people might know better and realize such answer might not fix the actual problem, which could be a myriad of other things (no power, no wires, switch broken, I'm blind, ....).

alien_at_work 8y ago
It's highly presumptious to assume you know better than the person asking. You might, but you might not. The fact that SO serves as a collection of programming knowledge, you do not know better than everyone who will ever search for that question even if you do actually know better than the OP who actually asked the first time. It would be fine to help with all these other possibilites but part of your answer should... actually answer the question that was asked, as it was asked and not doing so should result in a servere punishement.
- stinos 8y ago
  It's highly presumptious to assume you know better than the person asking For me, questioning someone's question, asking more info, pointing out he/she might be doing the wrong thing, ... does not in any way involve me assuming knowing things better than the questioner or anyone. (e.g. for all I know, the asker is way more intelligent and wise and knowing than I am, but just temporarily confused - happens to me sometimes so can happen to others) Those two are orthogonal for me, it's just my nature to always question stuff. Including myself. And this certainly helps in finding solutions. And doesn't lead to me thinking I'm better. Perhaps different sometimes, yes. your answer should... actually answer the question that was asked, as it was asked and not doing so should result in a servere punishement. To stick with the enalogy: while the answer 'buy lamp, take ladder, unscrew old, screw in new' might perfectly answer the question, it is in my view completely useless if it doesn't solve the problem. So I'd leave a comment asking for more info. And if someone else would already have given that answer I'll probably leave a comment saying it's rather incomplete. Because it's imo the only way to actually help the OP. Why on earth should one get punished for that? Isn't it the right thing to do?

dspillett 8y ago

(I don't post answers on SO at all, but I do on some of the sibling sites (DBA.SE, SF, SU), so my experience might not be exactly the same, but...) > questioning the poster's motive The motive can be important. Where there are multiple explanations and/or solutions this can filter out some that are not going to be relevant or practical for their current situation. Also where what they are asking seems impossible/impractical/misguided/other it can help in providing a better solution (i.e. trying to give them what they ultimately want even if it isn't what they are specifically asking for) or give context that might quieten your gut "don't do that" reaction. The poster's motive is one of the most important bits of information: Where were you? What did you do? Why? What were you intending to happen? What happened instead? > "Don't do that." Sometimes "don't do that" or "you can't do that" is the only suitable answer though (such as where what they are trying to do is impossible, or just wildly impractical, or will open up a security nightmare, or there is a built-in method so they'd be reinventing a wheel, or one of many other reasons) with the important caveat that you don't answer with just "don't do that". Better is "don't do that because <good explanation>" or "you can't do that because <good explanation>". Even better still, if what is being asked it actually possible even if it is strongly recommended against: "You shouldn't do that because <explanation> but if you chose to ignore this recommendation you could try <method>".

fuzzy2 8y ago

This may seem off-putting at times, but I believe it is absolutely necessary. When colleagues come to me with questions (which they do a lot), I always ask about the background. And sometimes, I arrive at different conclusions that solve the actual problem with ease. If you expect a quality answer that actually solves the problem, explain everything. Provide clarification when asked to do so. Also, don't assume hostility and be friendly yourself.