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Learning how to ask a good technical question is an extremely valuable skill in and of itself, and StackOverflow is one of the few ways you can learn to do it.

Learning how to ask a good technical question is an extremely valuable skill in and of itself, and StackOverflow is one of the few ways you can learn to do it. Just as you've said - if you ask a coworker (or a real person in general) they'll work with you to dig the question out, but they aren't really teaching you how to ask it more efficiently in the first place. They aren't giving you specific feedback on your question. StackOverflow on the other hand will often give you an actual critique of your question. That criticism can be really frustrating, but it's often good for you (it has been for me). Often the problem is a problem only because of how you perceive the problem space, or you're wrong about fundamentals. Other times you're not including important details because you didn't know they were important and just having that pointed out can help, or this problem is of a known form with a known solution - you just didn't know the "magic words." There's even something to be said for forcing people to learn a bit about the community before jumping into it. As annoying as that is and as much as it is an on boarding obstacle - it helps people work together. The on boarding process for a driver's license sucks and puts up tons of barriers, but with good reason. I don't disagree with anything you've said, or deny that super rude and unhelpful behavior occurs there, I just want to say that some of the "bugs" of StackOverflow are probably "features."

rat9988 7y ago
>StackOverflow is one of the few ways you can learn to do i >StackOverflow on the other hand will often give you an actual critique of your question. You really are giving too much credit to SO here. It hasn't been my experience with it at all.
- yulaow 7y ago
  Same here, most of the times I get a negative comment (And I mean 90% of the times) there is no critique at all just a "I think you comment with malice so you don't respect strange rule interpretation here so I am gonna close|modify|signal this question."
crispyambulance 7y ago
> StackOverflow is one of the few ways you can learn to [ask good technical questions] I partially agree. The fear of a withering dismissal does motivate many people to carefully formulate questions. In fact, I've answered my own questions more than a few times by just starting to write out my questions on stackoverflow. It still pains me, however, to witness the persnickety behavior, close-votes, down-votes, and cold commentary that people get when they ask an earnest question. No one deserves that, not novices, not pros. It's never OK to be mean to someone even if they aren't abiding by the very long list of arbitrary and inconsistently enforced rules for asking a question. I am not hopeful that stackoverflow will change any time soon. There are factions which actually relish the gamification of the site and their own personal insanely rigid interpretation of the rules. Some even rage-quit a while back when the first steps were announced towards addressing inclusivity and rampant meanness.

rat9988 7y ago

>StackOverflow is one of the few ways you can learn to do i >StackOverflow on the other hand will often give you an actual critique of your question. You really are giving too much credit to SO here. It hasn't been my experience with it at all.

yulaow 7y ago
Same here, most of the times I get a negative comment (And I mean 90% of the times) there is no critique at all just a "I think you comment with malice so you don't respect strange rule interpretation here so I am gonna close|modify|signal this question."

crispyambulance 7y ago

> StackOverflow is one of the few ways you can learn to [ask good technical questions] I partially agree. The fear of a withering dismissal does motivate many people to carefully formulate questions. In fact, I've answered my own questions more than a few times by just starting to write out my questions on stackoverflow. It still pains me, however, to witness the persnickety behavior, close-votes, down-votes, and cold commentary that people get when they ask an earnest question. No one deserves that, not novices, not pros. It's never OK to be mean to someone even if they aren't abiding by the very long list of arbitrary and inconsistently enforced rules for asking a question. I am not hopeful that stackoverflow will change any time soon. There are factions which actually relish the gamification of the site and their own personal insanely rigid interpretation of the rules. Some even rage-quit a while back when the first steps were announced towards addressing inclusivity and rampant meanness.