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Its basically become ModOverflow edit: Thought I was coining something here but it was actually coined in 2015 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9870816 h

Its basically become ModOverflow edit: Thought I was coining something here but it was actually coined in 2015 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9870816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9870816

cletus 8y ago
Oh I love the way you put this. I just checked and I've been a member for 10 years and 6 months. I used to answer questions. A lot. In the early days (at one point it was Jon Skeet, Marc Gravelli then me) and I'm kind of surprised how much karma I still get form those old answers. But I haven't really answered anything in 8+ years. Even one year in I commented on and started several threads on Meta about the "mod problem". And it's only gotten worse. To riff on a phrase, "those who can, answer, those who can't, mod", which is fine, but there is a particular kind of toxic personality that gets attracted to the authority of being a mod that then appoints itself the arbiter of content. You are fighting a constant battle to keep these toxic (but well-intentioned--mostly) souls out. I saw even then the trend of closing interesting questions as "subjective". My opinion then--and now--is you can ask a question like "what are the advantages of React.js vs Vue.js?" in an intelligent way without it being a flame war. The fact that it doesn't have an objective answer is (IMHO) irrelevant. You can divine useful information from the answers to that question that will help you go one way or the other. There is a lot of subjectivity in programming and a lot of not strictly better solutions. Giving people some points to consider as a starting point is incredibly valuable.
- geoka9 8y ago
  I noticed the "subjective" closing many times and always wondered why that criterion was even introduced on SO. I mean what's wrong with a comment/question being subjective as long as it contains useful information?
  - saywhatnow 8y ago
    I believe the thinking is that what's wrong with it is that over time it tends to attract flamewars and downvotes which are not useful to people searching for answers to their questions.
maze-le 8y ago
That is a similar issue Wikipedia has. Being a mod is fine, when your role-profile is clearly defined. But sometimes mods evolve into bureaucrats. And at a certain point, they take over a platform, mostly in a cultural/role-model sense. Then active contributors [also mods, but not obsessed with rules and enforcement] are being sidelined and start to quit. This is a hard-to-solve problem for any community. Having lax regulation leads to scammers gaming the system. Having strict rule enforcement leads to a culture of punishment and death-by-process. There is a place for people like this in organizations (controlling, lower management) -- here they actually can provide value being a process-oriented control-freak. In communities these roles can become toxic if they start to dominate the culture. SO is dead to me since the bureaucrats have taken over, Wikipedia too for that matter. ----- [0]: people who value 'processes' more than outcome.
- peeters 8y ago
  Yeah it's an observable phenomenon that I've seen on Stack Overflow et al, as well as every Wiki site I've been a part of. Content creators don't give a shit about process, so they don't participate in the moderation echo chamber, so moderators trick themselves into thinking that they are the ones creating value on the site. Stack Overflow's issue is fixable though IMO. I don't see the same level of aggressive moderation towards those who answer. So from a community attitude, it seems like answerers are recognized as the content creators who you shouldn't drive away. So the solution in my head is to do what you can to recognize the askers as content creators as well. Because they are a vital part of content creation!

cletus 8y ago

Oh I love the way you put this. I just checked and I've been a member for 10 years and 6 months. I used to answer questions. A lot. In the early days (at one point it was Jon Skeet, Marc Gravelli then me) and I'm kind of surprised how much karma I still get form those old answers. But I haven't really answered anything in 8+ years. Even one year in I commented on and started several threads on Meta about the "mod problem". And it's only gotten worse. To riff on a phrase, "those who can, answer, those who can't, mod", which is fine, but there is a particular kind of toxic personality that gets attracted to the authority of being a mod that then appoints itself the arbiter of content. You are fighting a constant battle to keep these toxic (but well-intentioned--mostly) souls out. I saw even then the trend of closing interesting questions as "subjective". My opinion then--and now--is you can ask a question like "what are the advantages of React.js vs Vue.js?" in an intelligent way without it being a flame war. The fact that it doesn't have an objective answer is (IMHO) irrelevant. You can divine useful information from the answers to that question that will help you go one way or the other. There is a lot of subjectivity in programming and a lot of not strictly better solutions. Giving people some points to consider as a starting point is incredibly valuable.

geoka9 8y ago
I noticed the "subjective" closing many times and always wondered why that criterion was even introduced on SO. I mean what's wrong with a comment/question being subjective as long as it contains useful information?
- saywhatnow 8y ago
  I believe the thinking is that what's wrong with it is that over time it tends to attract flamewars and downvotes which are not useful to people searching for answers to their questions.

maze-le 8y ago

That is a similar issue Wikipedia has. Being a mod is fine, when your role-profile is clearly defined. But sometimes mods evolve into bureaucrats. And at a certain point, they take over a platform, mostly in a cultural/role-model sense. Then active contributors [also mods, but not obsessed with rules and enforcement] are being sidelined and start to quit. This is a hard-to-solve problem for any community. Having lax regulation leads to scammers gaming the system. Having strict rule enforcement leads to a culture of punishment and death-by-process. There is a place for people like this in organizations (controlling, lower management) -- here they actually can provide value being a process-oriented control-freak. In communities these roles can become toxic if they start to dominate the culture. SO is dead to me since the bureaucrats have taken over, Wikipedia too for that matter. ----- [0]: people who value 'processes' more than outcome.

peeters 8y ago
Yeah it's an observable phenomenon that I've seen on Stack Overflow et al, as well as every Wiki site I've been a part of. Content creators don't give a shit about process, so they don't participate in the moderation echo chamber, so moderators trick themselves into thinking that they are the ones creating value on the site. Stack Overflow's issue is fixable though IMO. I don't see the same level of aggressive moderation towards those who answer. So from a community attitude, it seems like answerers are recognized as the content creators who you shouldn't drive away. So the solution in my head is to do what you can to recognize the askers as content creators as well. Because they are a vital part of content creation!