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Am I the only one who finds that a tiny minority of SO answers are like that, and the vast majority are highly informative, reasonable, and respectful? I searc
by MontyCarloHall 4y ago
Am I the only one who finds that a tiny minority of SO answers are like that, and the vast majority are highly informative, reasonable, and respectful?
I searched my browser history for “stackoverflow” and randomly picked out a few SO answers I recently searched for:
"in C++, why do I need to use `this->` when a template derived class accesses members of its template base class?" [0] All of the answers to this question are extremely informative and to-the-point.
"in bash, how do I sleep infinitely?" [1] Again, super informative answers that both answer the question concisely, and then delve into the intricacies of why it's a more complex task than meets the eye.
"why are Python hashes different between sessions?" [2] Highly informative answer that highlights something not easily found in the docs
"apparmor is hanging mysql service on Ubuntu" [3] top answer gives a one-line solution to fix this problem, and explains why it arose in the first place.
Even fairly high-level questons ("what is a Python metaclass?") have great SO answers. In fact, I have that one bookmarked to share with people who ask me, since it's the best description I've ever seen. [4]
I wonder if my experience is due to the sort of question I usually search for: very specific and technical, leaving little room for pedantry, dogmatism, or evangelism. For instance, "how do I flush the Linux disk cache," has exactly one right answer: `echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches` [5]. One cannot be pedantic about this ("there are many definitions of disk cache, and it is meaningless to answer your question without clarifying further"), dogmatic ("the disk cache exists for a reason, and there is no reason to flush it"), or evangelistic ("why are you not running BSD?")
[0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1120833/derived-template-class-access-to-base-class-member-data https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1120833/derived-template...
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2935183/bash-infinite-sleep-infinite-blocking https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2935183/bash-infinite-sl...
[2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27522626/hash-function-in-python-3-3-returns-different-results-between-sessions https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27522626/hash-function-i...
[3] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40997257/mysql-service-fails-to-start-hangs-up-timeout-ubuntu-mariadb https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40997257/mysql-service-f...
[4] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/100003/what-are-metaclasses-in-python https://stackoverflow.com/questions/100003/what-are-metaclas...
[5] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9551838/how-to-purge-disk-i-o-caches-on-linux https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9551838/how-to-purge-dis...
- KptMarchewa 4y agoIt's because you're only looking at top 1% questions/answers. Once you get to the less popular ones, that aren't viewed by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people then you get what OP described.
- vbezhenar 4y agoHere are my three latest questions: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72366267/matching-ip-address-with-authorizehttprequests https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72366267/matching-ip-add... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/71374202/why-mov-instruction-is-replaced-by-add-instruction https://stackoverflow.com/questions/71374202/why-mov-instruc... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70738756/proper-way-to-use-multiple-transactions-in-a-single-class https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70738756/proper-way-to-u... I got what I'd call high-quality answers and I'm completely satisfied by that experience. Those questions are not top 1%.
- MontyCarloHall 4y agoOK, here are some more obscure questions straight from my browser history whose answers I also find to be very high quality: "how to change scope of np.seterr" https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53634965/change-np-seterr-behavior-inside-a-function-only https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53634965/change-np-seter... "bash set dummy exit code" https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/626723/is-there-a-simple-bash-command-which-just-sets-the-exit-code https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/626723/is-there-a-s... "Java lossy conversion from int to short" https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24173965/possible-lossy-conversion-from-int-to-short https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24173965/possible-lossy-...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hombre_fatal 4y agoYou are not alone. I have nothing but good interactions on SO. The only subpar interactions I come across in the wild on SO are when the person asking the question has put zero effort on the table. It would be helpful to see links to the interactions everyone is talking about.