6 ms·

Stackoverflow have pretty solid metrics that show large numbers of users find the site unwelcoming. Just because you aren't one of those people doesn't mean tha

Stackoverflow have pretty solid metrics that show large numbers of users find the site unwelcoming. Just because you aren't one of those people doesn't mean that other people can't benefit from changes like this.

haolez 6y ago
They had metrics for the "thank you" stuff as well.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
maire 6y ago
The expectation of feeling welcomed is part of the problem. Is stack overflow an information sharing community or a social community? Is it wikipedia for programmers or reddit? The fact that most people don't comment at all indicates that most people want it to be a wikipedia for programmers. Some people want it to be a social community.
- detaro 6y ago
  Wikipedia is a social community too, as soon as you do more than reading articles. And has well-documented issues in that regard, which limit its quality and who contributes to it. That's not the dichotomy you think it is.
- majewsky 6y ago
  Even if it is a Q&A site where most users are read-only, it's still very bad to be sending the signal to the lurkers that if you ever ask a question, there's a high chance you're gonna get shat upon.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  Wikipedia can be pretty hostile to new users as well (especially in languages with fewer speakers). Some people think they own articles and are very territorial about them. The result is that domain experts are scared away while the prolific editors are those who are good at arcane formatting rules, editing conventions etc.
wongarsu 6y ago
Sure, it's unwelcoming, like most support forums. But how does having more ways to upvote an answer address this at all? The problem with stackoverflow isn't lack of feedback.
- duncanawoods 6y ago
  It's kind of crazy for something claiming to be a "community" to crack down on basic human niceties and politeness. If you say "thank you", your comment will be deleted. At least on a standard forum, you can say "hello" and "thank you".
  - shagie 6y ago
    A forum is for discussion. The early adopters of Stack Overflow saw it as something closer to Wikipedia. A source of technical documentation. This still exists in the closest thing to a mission statement that one can find: https://stackoverflow.com/tour https://stackoverflow.com/tour > This site is all about getting answers. It's not a discussion forum. There's no chit-chat. One similarly doesn't see "hello" or "thank you" in encyclopedias or technical documentation. There are places for human interaction (chat in particular) - but in a question, answer, or comments it isn't useful. Consider that the summary part of a question that shows up shows the first line or so of the text. > Hello. I am a new user with Java but I know C#. I have searched everywhere but I cannot ... Compared to: > When using Java, I am trying to use a stream to select some data and write it out as a file ... For comments, this has been looked at in the past - https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/204402/hide-trivial-comments https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/204402/hide-trivial... and https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/210265/how-can-we-measure-the-cost-of-displaying-comments https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/210265/how-can-we-m... Having comments - especially trivial comments - means that voting doesn't happen as much and that then impacts the ability to get a signal to curate on.
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    You have to understand how Stack Overflow came to be. It grew out of the frustration with forums (phpBB, etc.): they were filled with chitchat, back and forth and the solution was hidden somewhere in page 5 of 8. You were coming from Google and didn't care about who posted the stuff, their avatar, their signature etc, you wanted a solution to an immediate problem. Hence the Q&A format was born with upvoting the best answer to the top and deemphasizing the back-and-forth into comments. It got popular exactly because it cut through all the niceties and fluff and allowed you to get to the point quick. Some people don't share the preference for this, they would like a social community site instead of the above description. Instead of building their own site with that in mind, they want to bend SO away from its original goal. Predictably, the original people will probably move to a new site. It's a cycle: power users create a place, it gets popular because it's high quality, then it gets run over by lazy people and rules get adjusted to be welcoming and inclusive, the original people are pushed out, the quality decreases. When the originals create a new site, they will now try to be even less inclusive than the first time to avoid the same "eternal September" effect.

haolez 6y ago

They had metrics for the "thank you" stuff as well.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

maire 6y ago

The expectation of feeling welcomed is part of the problem. Is stack overflow an information sharing community or a social community? Is it wikipedia for programmers or reddit? The fact that most people don't comment at all indicates that most people want it to be a wikipedia for programmers. Some people want it to be a social community.

detaro 6y ago
Wikipedia is a social community too, as soon as you do more than reading articles. And has well-documented issues in that regard, which limit its quality and who contributes to it. That's not the dichotomy you think it is.
majewsky 6y ago
Even if it is a Q&A site where most users are read-only, it's still very bad to be sending the signal to the lurkers that if you ever ask a question, there's a high chance you're gonna get shat upon.
bonoboTP 6y ago
Wikipedia can be pretty hostile to new users as well (especially in languages with fewer speakers). Some people think they own articles and are very territorial about them. The result is that domain experts are scared away while the prolific editors are those who are good at arcane formatting rules, editing conventions etc.

wongarsu 6y ago

Sure, it's unwelcoming, like most support forums. But how does having more ways to upvote an answer address this at all? The problem with stackoverflow isn't lack of feedback.

duncanawoods 6y ago
It's kind of crazy for something claiming to be a "community" to crack down on basic human niceties and politeness. If you say "thank you", your comment will be deleted. At least on a standard forum, you can say "hello" and "thank you".
- shagie 6y ago
  A forum is for discussion. The early adopters of Stack Overflow saw it as something closer to Wikipedia. A source of technical documentation. This still exists in the closest thing to a mission statement that one can find: https://stackoverflow.com/tour https://stackoverflow.com/tour > This site is all about getting answers. It's not a discussion forum. There's no chit-chat. One similarly doesn't see "hello" or "thank you" in encyclopedias or technical documentation. There are places for human interaction (chat in particular) - but in a question, answer, or comments it isn't useful. Consider that the summary part of a question that shows up shows the first line or so of the text. > Hello. I am a new user with Java but I know C#. I have searched everywhere but I cannot ... Compared to: > When using Java, I am trying to use a stream to select some data and write it out as a file ... For comments, this has been looked at in the past - https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/204402/hide-trivial-comments https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/204402/hide-trivial... and https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/210265/how-can-we-measure-the-cost-of-displaying-comments https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/210265/how-can-we-m... Having comments - especially trivial comments - means that voting doesn't happen as much and that then impacts the ability to get a signal to curate on.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  You have to understand how Stack Overflow came to be. It grew out of the frustration with forums (phpBB, etc.): they were filled with chitchat, back and forth and the solution was hidden somewhere in page 5 of 8. You were coming from Google and didn't care about who posted the stuff, their avatar, their signature etc, you wanted a solution to an immediate problem. Hence the Q&A format was born with upvoting the best answer to the top and deemphasizing the back-and-forth into comments. It got popular exactly because it cut through all the niceties and fluff and allowed you to get to the point quick. Some people don't share the preference for this, they would like a social community site instead of the above description. Instead of building their own site with that in mind, they want to bend SO away from its original goal. Predictably, the original people will probably move to a new site. It's a cycle: power users create a place, it gets popular because it's high quality, then it gets run over by lazy people and rules get adjusted to be welcoming and inclusive, the original people are pushed out, the quality decreases. When the originals create a new site, they will now try to be even less inclusive than the first time to avoid the same "eternal September" effect.