> Telling someone "we can't figure out what's wrong on line 49 if you don't show us what's on line 49" is not condescending You've edited the quote, leaving ou

> Telling someone "we can't figure out what's wrong on line 49 if you don't show us what's on line 49" is not condescending You've edited the quote, leaving out the bits that are condescending. Here it is again: > "If the error says line 49, it tells you exactly where the problem lies. If you post 7 lines of code here, we clearly cannot tell you what the problem is in line 49." The second sentence is where the snark starts to creep in. The tone is unnecessary, and the word "clearly" can easily make the asker feel bad. That's where the condescension comes from. It's totally not clear to the person asking, or they wouldn't be asking the question as they are. > If you think I did something wrong in my response to you, you can flag my response for moderator attention. I think more of this should be happening, and more tools available to manage unhelpful answerers. I don't know what these tools should look like, but I have some ideas. > I mentioned before, you can always go on Meta A lot of these users are new! They don't know about Meta. Their first interaction with the site boils down to "wow you're dumb, can't you read?", and then they're gone for good. Someone brings up on a HN post that SO is elitist and the original asker, who now has some experience under their belt, confirms "yep, it was a horrible toxic place". > Helping them learn how to most effectively find answers to their questions may help you save time and aggravation later on. I totally agree. Helping people diagnose their issues and teaching them how to write good questions is fantastic. It can be done with a better tone than what's currently happening.