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I think that while stack overflow definitely has an attitude problem, its disingenuous to specifically call attention to this being a race- or gender-based issu
by sincerely 8y ago
I think that while stack overflow definitely has an attitude problem, its disingenuous to specifically call attention to this being a race- or gender-based issue as the author does. If racial minorities or women are not coming back to SE after their first experience, far more people that don't fit the category are having the same issue.
- dave_aiello 8y agoI agree with you. I think the observations in the Medium post are more apt about newcomers to the Stack Overflow platform than about minorities and women per se.
- blablabla123 8y agoI've observed this "attitude problem" also on other "nerdy" help platforms. For instance on a site (not on Stackexchange) for advanced Mathematics. What happens is, there are people which are really advanced, and got so far usually by quite some effort. Problem solving is painful for everyone, even more so when there are people that expect others to solve their cumbersome problem. This of course even happens outside of the Web forums. What people oftentimes mean when they expect "better questions" is: put some effort into the problem yourself. You cannot expect the problem solver spend more time on the problem than the asker. So compassion goes both ways and both issues need to be addressed.