4 ms·

watched, was good. happen to agree that SO is a horror show, and is also useful. a bit worse than this site in terms of toxicity. probably. maybe.

luckylion 4y ago
But, to be honest, his question boiled down to "someone figure out what I want exactly and do it for me". Which is not what SO was made for. If you want zero effort and someone to do things for you, just pay them, don't exploit the generosity of strangers.
- readonthegoapp 4y ago
  i think your attitude is generally what most n00bs experience on SO at some point -- with an extra dose of nasty, to quote gregg popavich. and part of the problem with that attitude, with or without the nasty, is that, as a newbie, it's sometimes impossible to know the exact right question to ask in the exact right wording that will be sufficient to avoid the wrath of the highly-exacting SO lifers who specialize, at least sometimes, in cruelty. i think the better way to handle things for SO, if we're allowing ourselves to question their authoritah, is to just prevent all newbie questions, and make that part of the marketing of the site. that's at least one way. there are other possible solutions, like changing the culture of the site by actually employing people to do any number of things, like slap cruel comments on the wrist and/or delete them, and/or apologize to new users for any cruelty they experience, and/or get rid of that ridiculous constitution for posting, and/or... and the 'exploit the generosity of strangers' line is really weird, i think. just seems like a very misanthropic attitude. bunch of problems with that, but one is that it seems to imagine that there will be no reciprocity - that the people who ask questions there are just there to take. i've never actually met a person like that in my life, tho i did see one guy at a poisoned company i was at refuse to help someone. :-D still remember that -- but one reason i remember it is because it was so unusual -- as in, i don't remember ever seeing it before. maybe this is the way the at least occasionally cruel SO lifers think?
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Have you answered a lot of questions on SO? You can quickly tell the "I want someone to do this for me" questions from the "I'm lost and I don't know how to proceed" questions. SO's fixation on letting the low effort "I don't want to google my problem and read results to see if anything fits my problem" question live on really drove me from the platform. When that was the majority of the questions, I just stopped contributing because the majority of people asking questions feel so entitled as if they paid you to solve a problem. It's a tragedy of the commons. > there are other possible solutions, like changing the culture of the site by actually employing people to do any number of things, like slap cruel comments on the wrist and/or delete them, and/or apologize to new users for any cruelty they experience, and/or get rid of that ridiculous constitution for posting, and/or... It's funny that "helping newbies learn how to help themselves, or at least ask a better question" isn't even on your list. It's only about "slap the people doing all the work" or "apologize to the newbie that the people doing all the work aren't super happy that he shit on the floor and asked them to clean it up". > that the people who ask questions there are just there to take The overwhelming majority of people who post "I have this code. I want it to do X. Please make" don't contribute to the site and respond to questions. The pool of people contributing is tiny compared to the total population. > maybe this is the way the at least occasionally cruel SO lifers think? I don't think I'm cruel. I'm always happy to help people who need help. But I stop helping people when they're not trying to learn and solve a problem and are just trying to offload their work on me. And that's what a lot of the "newbie" (more like "don't care to learn, just solve this for me") questions on SO are.

luckylion 4y ago

But, to be honest, his question boiled down to "someone figure out what I want exactly and do it for me". Which is not what SO was made for. If you want zero effort and someone to do things for you, just pay them, don't exploit the generosity of strangers.

readonthegoapp 4y ago
i think your attitude is generally what most n00bs experience on SO at some point -- with an extra dose of nasty, to quote gregg popavich. and part of the problem with that attitude, with or without the nasty, is that, as a newbie, it's sometimes impossible to know the exact right question to ask in the exact right wording that will be sufficient to avoid the wrath of the highly-exacting SO lifers who specialize, at least sometimes, in cruelty. i think the better way to handle things for SO, if we're allowing ourselves to question their authoritah, is to just prevent all newbie questions, and make that part of the marketing of the site. that's at least one way. there are other possible solutions, like changing the culture of the site by actually employing people to do any number of things, like slap cruel comments on the wrist and/or delete them, and/or apologize to new users for any cruelty they experience, and/or get rid of that ridiculous constitution for posting, and/or... and the 'exploit the generosity of strangers' line is really weird, i think. just seems like a very misanthropic attitude. bunch of problems with that, but one is that it seems to imagine that there will be no reciprocity - that the people who ask questions there are just there to take. i've never actually met a person like that in my life, tho i did see one guy at a poisoned company i was at refuse to help someone. :-D still remember that -- but one reason i remember it is because it was so unusual -- as in, i don't remember ever seeing it before. maybe this is the way the at least occasionally cruel SO lifers think?
- luckylion 4y ago
  Have you answered a lot of questions on SO? You can quickly tell the "I want someone to do this for me" questions from the "I'm lost and I don't know how to proceed" questions. SO's fixation on letting the low effort "I don't want to google my problem and read results to see if anything fits my problem" question live on really drove me from the platform. When that was the majority of the questions, I just stopped contributing because the majority of people asking questions feel so entitled as if they paid you to solve a problem. It's a tragedy of the commons. > there are other possible solutions, like changing the culture of the site by actually employing people to do any number of things, like slap cruel comments on the wrist and/or delete them, and/or apologize to new users for any cruelty they experience, and/or get rid of that ridiculous constitution for posting, and/or... It's funny that "helping newbies learn how to help themselves, or at least ask a better question" isn't even on your list. It's only about "slap the people doing all the work" or "apologize to the newbie that the people doing all the work aren't super happy that he shit on the floor and asked them to clean it up". > that the people who ask questions there are just there to take The overwhelming majority of people who post "I have this code. I want it to do X. Please make" don't contribute to the site and respond to questions. The pool of people contributing is tiny compared to the total population. > maybe this is the way the at least occasionally cruel SO lifers think? I don't think I'm cruel. I'm always happy to help people who need help. But I stop helping people when they're not trying to learn and solve a problem and are just trying to offload their work on me. And that's what a lot of the "newbie" (more like "don't care to learn, just solve this for me") questions on SO are.