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It isn't a matter of whether he genuinely doesn't know it or not. Joel Spolsky knows how to move the turtle in LOGO, but it is a valid question: http://stackove

by VMG 16y ago

It isn't a matter of whether he genuinely doesn't know it or not. Joel Spolsky knows how to move the turtle in LOGO, but it is a valid question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-the-turtle-in-logo http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1003841/how-do-i-move-the... The goal of Stackoverflow is to become a wiki for programming questions. If you look in the faq, it clearly states: > It's also perfectly fine to ask and answer your own question, as long as you pretend you're on Jeopardy: phrase it in the form of a question.

rada 16y ago
I get that you can "legally" ask your own questions, or edit other people's posts, etc but there has to be some common sense. I think it's disingenuous to post a question on how to increment a number (in Lisp, which is not something that total newbies fall into in the first place), have the question tagged as badge-bait, and then post a rather inflammatory headline "What's Wrong with Stack Overflow: Social Over Substance".
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  Well that was not my intent. Lisp, which happens to be one of the languages that total newbies don't fall into in the first place Wrong! They hear from their cool but slightly wacky friend that Lisp is the new old hot sh*t. Or, maybe they read Paul Graham, or Joel Spolsky. They go to try it ...
xenoterracide 16y ago
I've answered my own questions many times on SO site's... but I don't think that you should ask a question you know the answer to when you ask. I do not think SO is a wiki for programming question. I feel it's a place for people to go for help when they have a problem. Given I occasionally ask questions I could have looked up, so it helps other people, and occasionally I end up answering my own question (by looking it up), after I've given others a chance to provide an answer. It just feels like abusing the system by asking a question you know the answer to. That will stay unanswered for 2 days (since that's how long it takes before you can accept your own answer). At the very least he should have given other people a chance to answer, instead of rep whoring. (unix.stackexchange mod here)
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  See, this is why I chose the HN title. As soon as a site adds rep, there come the accusations of rep whoring. I don't care about my SO rep, as long as it's not libellous or something. I don't need a job, I don't want a job. I want (in this specific case) to teach. What if people don't know they have a problem? If SO becomes a standard destination (and it appears to be from watching the devs around me), then what is not on SO / accessible to Google might as well not exist. Re: the letting others answer. Let them edit my post instead, if they think there's a problem with it.
  - xenoterracide 16y ago
    Idk about you but my blogs return quite quickly on google if you search for something I wrote about. This seems like a more appropriate outlet for this kind of thing. Of course if the dev's around you have forgotten how to search... well I doubt they are worth what they're paid. You need enough rep to edit a post, but really the question isn't the problem. It's the fact that you didn't actually need an answer.
    - VMG 16y ago
      I'd much rather have a SO question as a search result than a blog post. Blogs are often littered with other information, have weird color schemes, don't always have proper code display, aren't editable by somebody who finds an error, sometimes have spam etc etc
      - xenoterracide 16y ago
        I'd much rather have excellent documentation, and less crappy defaults so I don't have to ask so many questions, or do as much search, or blog as many "how to's", but we can't all get our wishes.
- VMG 16y ago
  I think it is a wiki for programming questions, and Joel and Jeff repeatedly said so on the SO podcast. The fact that you think it is somehow "unfair" to get reputation that easy illustrates Jabavus point: SO has become less about being information source and more about being a game.

by VMG 16y ago

rada 16y ago

I get that you can "legally" ask your own questions, or edit other people's posts, etc but there has to be some common sense. I think it's disingenuous to post a question on how to increment a number (in Lisp, which is not something that total newbies fall into in the first place), have the question tagged as badge-bait, and then post a rather inflammatory headline "What's Wrong with Stack Overflow: Social Over Substance".

JabavuAdams 16y ago
Well that was not my intent. Lisp, which happens to be one of the languages that total newbies don't fall into in the first place Wrong! They hear from their cool but slightly wacky friend that Lisp is the new old hot sh*t. Or, maybe they read Paul Graham, or Joel Spolsky. They go to try it ...

xenoterracide 16y ago

I've answered my own questions many times on SO site's... but I don't think that you should ask a question you know the answer to when you ask. I do not think SO is a wiki for programming question. I feel it's a place for people to go for help when they have a problem. Given I occasionally ask questions I could have looked up, so it helps other people, and occasionally I end up answering my own question (by looking it up), after I've given others a chance to provide an answer. It just feels like abusing the system by asking a question you know the answer to. That will stay unanswered for 2 days (since that's how long it takes before you can accept your own answer). At the very least he should have given other people a chance to answer, instead of rep whoring. (unix.stackexchange mod here)

JabavuAdams 16y ago
See, this is why I chose the HN title. As soon as a site adds rep, there come the accusations of rep whoring. I don't care about my SO rep, as long as it's not libellous or something. I don't need a job, I don't want a job. I want (in this specific case) to teach. What if people don't know they have a problem? If SO becomes a standard destination (and it appears to be from watching the devs around me), then what is not on SO / accessible to Google might as well not exist. Re: the letting others answer. Let them edit my post instead, if they think there's a problem with it.
- xenoterracide 16y ago
  Idk about you but my blogs return quite quickly on google if you search for something I wrote about. This seems like a more appropriate outlet for this kind of thing. Of course if the dev's around you have forgotten how to search... well I doubt they are worth what they're paid. You need enough rep to edit a post, but really the question isn't the problem. It's the fact that you didn't actually need an answer.
  - VMG 16y ago
    I'd much rather have a SO question as a search result than a blog post. Blogs are often littered with other information, have weird color schemes, don't always have proper code display, aren't editable by somebody who finds an error, sometimes have spam etc etc
    - xenoterracide 16y ago
      I'd much rather have excellent documentation, and less crappy defaults so I don't have to ask so many questions, or do as much search, or blog as many "how to's", but we can't all get our wishes.
VMG 16y ago
I think it is a wiki for programming questions, and Joel and Jeff repeatedly said so on the SO podcast. The fact that you think it is somehow "unfair" to get reputation that easy illustrates Jabavus point: SO has become less about being information source and more about being a game.