5 ms·

I think they should employ a "no stupid questions" policy, like the /r/nostupidquestions subreddit, where the point is to share knowledge without discriminating

I think they should employ a "no stupid questions" policy, like the /r/nostupidquestions subreddit, where the point is to share knowledge without discriminating against anyone. What happens if the same question gets asked 10,000 times? Absolutely nothing. Search engines will filter them for us. 5 more megabytes of text in SO's database. Pointless gatekeeping.

setr 7y ago
For people answering questions, they’d see the same question 10,000 times, and likely miss the questions that are actually worth answering. And in a Q&A site, the answerers are far more important than the questioners — if the questions will be answered, the questioners will flock there out of need, regardless of want. Answerers are however not so constrained. People complain about SO because, I think, it does the correct thing (unlike most Q&A sites) — it tries to optimize usage and rules for those who answer questions. Most people, however, only ask questions, or search for answers.
- benologist 7y ago
  If a question is really easy many other people can answer it which in itself is also more inclusive. If a question is really hard few other people can answer it, so no matter what there is a level exclusively for very smart people. Nobody needs to take offense a question was asked or be hurt their question was removed. It's totally superfluous. There are no such problems on /r/nostupidquestions.
- wruza 7y ago
  >For people answering questions, they’d see the same question 10,000 times, and likely miss the questions that are actually worth answering. Me included. I was a regular answerer for interesting tags in which I have at least sort of moderate knowledge, but after just a few months I lost interest in it, since it is just a never-ending stream of the same basic low quality beggings. It is like '00s inbox with one precious email in fifteen pages of spam junk. I don’t really have too much time for that. With that in mind, it’s still unclear if my contribution was really unique and helpful, because out of many pages of answers only few see one upvote a year^. I helped mostly specific people, not the common knowledge. Statistics-wise it’s not worth it. It is no doubt that SO may be toxic or pushing ego. But being on constructive side is a burden. ‘They’ always outweigh you even with draconian regulation. Relax a little and you’ll drown at the same instant. I suggest every complaining guy to answer a couple of questions a day first, for some time. Not just random two, but find two really worth their time to see real costs. SO is social, and in a society every participant should play nice and take their part on a problem. We help each other, but no one has spare change for hordes. ^ not an upvote junkie, I’m mostly indifferent to community scores
  - indecisive_user 7y ago
    > out of many pages of answers only few see one upvote a year^. I helped mostly specific people, not the common knowledge. I regularly come across helpful answers on SO with 0 or 1 upvotes, so I wouldn't judge your contributions' impact solely on that. You've likely helped many people with your answers, even if there's no proof of it.
    - wruza 7y ago
      My answers usually did have some upvotes, and I’m only speaking of up-per-year here (passive accumulation after “hot” period, which kind of must show the real usefulness against initial “hey okay cool +5” phase), i.e. not 0->1->2 transitions. But I see what you mean. Maybe I’m self-biased since I’m usually logged in and do upvote low-voted answers when they obviously help me. Majority may simply not do that for old answers and/or others questions. Still, lack of feedback makes things foggy.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    But doesn't that just mean the closure of duplicates is irrelevant? You're already getting a never-ending stream of the same basic low quality beggings. So the two possibilities are - filter them or go away.
    - setr 7y ago
      Thats what closing is, isn’t it? One answerer recognizes it as closable, so no future answerer has to deal with it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
AmericanChopper 7y ago
Such a site already exists, it’s called Yahoo Answers. You can judge for yourself the quality of content it attracts.
- Rapzid 7y ago
  I'm not necessarily agreeing with your "ergo", but I wouldn't be surprised if Yahoo answers told you to throw water on a grease fire(as the selected answer).
jasode 7y ago
>What happens if the same question gets asked 10,000 times? Absolutely nothing. This is incorrect and a misunderstanding (and underestimation) of the unpaid volunteer answerers who scan the queue of questions to look for interesting things to answer. The valuable high-rep SO users do not like wading through bad and duplicate questions. It's a waste of their time.[1][2] >Search engines will filter them for us. The volunteer answerers don't interface with the list of new SO questions queue via de-duped Google search results. An analogy with this site (HN) is applicable: Yes Google searches will return some old archived HN threads and filter out some dupes but we (the HN participants) don't look for new & interesting HN threads to add our comments via Google. Instead, we interact directly on this website and rely on moderators (dang/sctb) to mark posts as [dupe] and filter them out. (When I started typing this comment, the sibling comment by setr was grayed out. That downvote was unwarranted because he was correct about unpaid volunteer answerers being more valuable to a Q&A site than questioners. I made a previous comment explaining this same concept: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318621) [1] https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/56817/can-we-prevent-some-of-the-low-quality-questions-from-entering-our-system https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/56817/can-we-preven... [2] https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/252756/are-high-reputation-users-answering-fewer-questions https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/252756/are-high-rep...
- chii 7y ago
  > correct about unpaid volunteer answerers being more valuable to a Q&A site than questioners. yep. The answerers are definitly more valuable, because it's hard to actually answer questions in the first place, and there's only the reward of intellectual stimulation for doing so. The questioner are not as valuable, because asking questions is easy. Asking a good question is hard, but the majority of questions aren't hard to ask. By making the site completely biased towards the answerer, stackoverflow gets good answers, at the cost of turning away some questioners. I believe the site maintainers have chosen correctly, because questioners are more desperate to ask their question than answerers are to answer.
  - Chris2048 7y ago

setr 7y ago

For people answering questions, they’d see the same question 10,000 times, and likely miss the questions that are actually worth answering. And in a Q&A site, the answerers are far more important than the questioners — if the questions will be answered, the questioners will flock there out of need, regardless of want. Answerers are however not so constrained. People complain about SO because, I think, it does the correct thing (unlike most Q&A sites) — it tries to optimize usage and rules for those who answer questions. Most people, however, only ask questions, or search for answers.

benologist 7y ago
If a question is really easy many other people can answer it which in itself is also more inclusive. If a question is really hard few other people can answer it, so no matter what there is a level exclusively for very smart people. Nobody needs to take offense a question was asked or be hurt their question was removed. It's totally superfluous. There are no such problems on /r/nostupidquestions.
wruza 7y ago
>For people answering questions, they’d see the same question 10,000 times, and likely miss the questions that are actually worth answering. Me included. I was a regular answerer for interesting tags in which I have at least sort of moderate knowledge, but after just a few months I lost interest in it, since it is just a never-ending stream of the same basic low quality beggings. It is like '00s inbox with one precious email in fifteen pages of spam junk. I don’t really have too much time for that. With that in mind, it’s still unclear if my contribution was really unique and helpful, because out of many pages of answers only few see one upvote a year^. I helped mostly specific people, not the common knowledge. Statistics-wise it’s not worth it. It is no doubt that SO may be toxic or pushing ego. But being on constructive side is a burden. ‘They’ always outweigh you even with draconian regulation. Relax a little and you’ll drown at the same instant. I suggest every complaining guy to answer a couple of questions a day first, for some time. Not just random two, but find two really worth their time to see real costs. SO is social, and in a society every participant should play nice and take their part on a problem. We help each other, but no one has spare change for hordes. ^ not an upvote junkie, I’m mostly indifferent to community scores
- indecisive_user 7y ago
  > out of many pages of answers only few see one upvote a year^. I helped mostly specific people, not the common knowledge. I regularly come across helpful answers on SO with 0 or 1 upvotes, so I wouldn't judge your contributions' impact solely on that. You've likely helped many people with your answers, even if there's no proof of it.
  - wruza 7y ago
    My answers usually did have some upvotes, and I’m only speaking of up-per-year here (passive accumulation after “hot” period, which kind of must show the real usefulness against initial “hey okay cool +5” phase), i.e. not 0->1->2 transitions. But I see what you mean. Maybe I’m self-biased since I’m usually logged in and do upvote low-voted answers when they obviously help me. Majority may simply not do that for old answers and/or others questions. Still, lack of feedback makes things foggy.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  But doesn't that just mean the closure of duplicates is irrelevant? You're already getting a never-ending stream of the same basic low quality beggings. So the two possibilities are - filter them or go away.
  - setr 7y ago
    Thats what closing is, isn’t it? One answerer recognizes it as closable, so no future answerer has to deal with it.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

AmericanChopper 7y ago

Such a site already exists, it’s called Yahoo Answers. You can judge for yourself the quality of content it attracts.

Rapzid 7y ago
I'm not necessarily agreeing with your "ergo", but I wouldn't be surprised if Yahoo answers told you to throw water on a grease fire(as the selected answer).

jasode 7y ago

>What happens if the same question gets asked 10,000 times? Absolutely nothing. This is incorrect and a misunderstanding (and underestimation) of the unpaid volunteer answerers who scan the queue of questions to look for interesting things to answer. The valuable high-rep SO users do not like wading through bad and duplicate questions. It's a waste of their time.[1][2] >Search engines will filter them for us. The volunteer answerers don't interface with the list of new SO questions queue via de-duped Google search results. An analogy with this site (HN) is applicable: Yes Google searches will return some old archived HN threads and filter out some dupes but we (the HN participants) don't look for new & interesting HN threads to add our comments via Google. Instead, we interact directly on this website and rely on moderators (dang/sctb) to mark posts as [dupe] and filter them out. (When I started typing this comment, the sibling comment by setr was grayed out. That downvote was unwarranted because he was correct about unpaid volunteer answerers being more valuable to a Q&A site than questioners. I made a previous comment explaining this same concept: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318621) [1] https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/56817/can-we-prevent-some-of-the-low-quality-questions-from-entering-our-system https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/56817/can-we-preven... [2] https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/252756/are-high-reputation-users-answering-fewer-questions https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/252756/are-high-rep...

chii 7y ago
> correct about unpaid volunteer answerers being more valuable to a Q&A site than questioners. yep. The answerers are definitly more valuable, because it's hard to actually answer questions in the first place, and there's only the reward of intellectual stimulation for doing so. The questioner are not as valuable, because asking questions is easy. Asking a good question is hard, but the majority of questions aren't hard to ask. By making the site completely biased towards the answerer, stackoverflow gets good answers, at the cost of turning away some questioners. I believe the site maintainers have chosen correctly, because questioners are more desperate to ask their question than answerers are to answer.
- Chris2048 7y ago