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> Instead, you head over to Reddit where the programming community is much nicer. Lol. I always feel the "toxicity" claimed of SO is way overblown. It's always

> Instead, you head over to Reddit where the programming community is much nicer. Lol. I always feel the "toxicity" claimed of SO is way overblown. It's always "closed as dupe but not really a dupe and I got downvoted for asking a legitimate question". But 99% of the times it was really a dupe, or a poorly worded question, or something strictly off topic. Getting told that isn't toxicity. It's what keeps the community somewhat sane. If you try to look through the review queues, you'll see all the low effort posting the community has to deal with. What I feel is killing SO isn't the community, but the leadership. They've ostracized their own moderators and reviewers for a long time. And with no stewards, it will become toxic. And a wasteland of low effort duplicate questions.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
josephcsible 3y ago
> It's always "closed as dupe but not really a dupe and I got downvoted for asking a legitimate question". But 99% of the times it was really a dupe, or a poorly worded question, or something strictly off topic. Exactly. Multiple times on HN, someone has said something along the lines of that myself. Whenever I've seen it, I've asked for a link to the question that it happened to so I can confirm it myself. Nobody has ever provided such a link.
xmprt 3y ago
> 99% of the times it was really a dupe I agree that sometimes it was really a dupe. Or even that most of the time it's a dupe. But when the answer was written in 2011 with the latest update in 2017, maybe it's worth reopening the question because there's probably a better answer in the last 6 years.
- josephcsible 3y ago
  > But when the answer was written in 2011 with the latest update in 2017, maybe it's worth reopening the question because there's probably a better answer in the last 6 years. Even in that case, you don't need a new question. You should instead just edit and/or post a new answer to the old question.
  - bjornasm 3y ago
    How can you post a new answer when you are asking the question?
  - sushid 3y ago
    Why? Why not just answer the damn question and link it in the old question if you're the mod? There's now countless ways to center a div in 2023. It's unreasonable to link to a 15 year old post. I guess SO will find out the hard way that people like updated answers on updated pages.
  - Ajedi32 3y ago
    That doesn't help if you're a person trying to get an answer rather than a person trying to provide one. Though SO has made some small progress on this problem recently by changing the default sorting algorithm to no longer prefer old, entrenched answers over new, better ones.
  - palata 3y ago
    Are you saying that in order to ask for a new answer (from someone else) to an old question, you should post a new answer yourself? Really if I want and answer, I usually ask a question... I'm confused.
  - ebiester 3y ago
    That doesn't satisfy the use case. How do you edit a question that isn't yours? If you are looking for an answer and don't have one, how do you trigger the question to be re-answered? How does the new answerer get the points?
  - kickopotomus 3y ago
    How would that work? If I just comment on some 8 year old question that the answer does not apply to $LATEST version of $FRAMEWORK, how would anyone with the know-how discover my question? This truly is a new question because what is really being asked is what was the breaking change that occurred in $FRAMEWORK between the original question was answered and this latest version.
  - stonemetal12 3y ago
zer8k 3y ago
Nah, SO is really toxic. There are plenty of examples and probably dozens of blog posts illustrating it. It took two seconds to find two of MANY meta posts [0][1]. In fact one answer to the posts here illustrates what looks like at least a dozen similar posts. ChatGPT is just hastening an already well deserved death. I have not heard a positive opinion about SO in my professional network in years. Everyone passively consumes SO but a community built on contribution can't live on passive consumption. If the community is so high huffing it's own farts it drives away the exact thing it needs there's no good end for it. [0] https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/342779/what-about-the-community-is-toxic-to-new-users https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/342779/what-about-t... [1] https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/262791/the-rudeness-on-stack-overflow-is-too-damn-high https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/262791/the-rudeness...
- matsemann 3y ago
  Did you read your own links? I feel they explain it well. Strict moderation isn't toxic. It can feel harsh, but it isn't toxic. The rudeness is people joining a forum, spending zero effort to understand the rules or etiquette, and then demanding others helping them for free without putting any effort in.
  - zer8k 3y ago
    The rudeness stems not from moderation but drive-by insults in comments and rapid dupe marking. That's covered in one of the several answers to the topics.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Rapid dupe marking is not rude.
      - chrisjj 3y ago
        Only if it is accurate. And the vast majority of SO dupe marking fails to accord with any meaning of the word duplicate found outside SO.
edgarvaldes 3y ago
I think this shows that people need a place to talk about the same topics even when there is an answer somehere on the site. SO is not that place, but we need it. Like the old IRC days (in some channels, at least).
1123581321 3y ago
I don't think it's in dispute that SO has to deal with a lot of identical low effort questions. What people don't like is that the moderators and power users are entrenched against duplicates in particular in a way that makes the site hostile by default to questions that are not outstandingly original, but are nevertheless legitimately different. Subreddits deal with the same issue (tons of identical basic questions) but have better processes to divert them and educate the user while still letting legitimate mid-level questions live by default. There are bad subreddits where moderators make it hard to get help, but since redditors can move to better communities on the same topic (and duplicate all the content!) users don't feel stuck with the current moderation in the same way they do on SO, which doesn't let competing Q&A communities exist for the same topic. I understand that SO has done some work to address these issues in the last few years and want to credit that too. That work is another indicator that there is a problem. I also agree that leadership-moderation relations are a problem on SO.
- chrisjj 3y ago
  > I understand that SO has done some work to address these issues in the last few years Oh? What work?
JohnFen 3y ago
> I always feel the "toxicity" claimed of SO is way overblown. It's toxic enough that neither I nor any of the programmers that I personally know would ever dare to ask a question there. We see how other questioners get treated.
- TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
  I've been active on Stack Overflow since its founding, and have always found it delightful.
bjornasm 3y ago
If everyone feel it is toxic, while you don’t, you might want to consider the thought that it is actually toxic.
- matsemann 3y ago
  > If everyone feel it is toxic Citation needed. "Everyone", really?
  - bjornasm 3y ago
    Shame that you are focusing on a single detail rather than the point of my comment. No not everyone in the world, it should have been in quote marks. Glad to have cleared that up to you. Don't mind me, in every thread about SO in here there are lots of comments mentioning the same, and I agree. Your experience may not be the same and that is ok.
    - matsemann 3y ago
      If every thread also have someone claiming it not to be as toxic, shouldn't that also count the same? Aka you should then "consider the thought it is not toxic".
      - UIUC_06 3y ago
        So are you getting paid by SO or something? Are you one of these moderators everyone hates? Why are you so all over this? SO has built up a toxic reputation over many years. And yet somehow, according to you it's false? Why don't you just let this one die? You can collect your paycheck from SO now; you've done your bit.
        matsemann 3y ago
        I'm flagging this and ending it here. Ironic to complain about SO being toxic while you're posting unfounded attacks and accusations like this.
AlbertCory 3y ago
> I always feel the "toxicity" claimed of SO is way overblown "overblown" == "who ya going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" At Google I interviewed a refugee from Theranos, when they were still around. (It was just lunch, so I wasn't expected to ask him anything.) Still, I mentioned the bad press, and he said the news was "exaggerated." When people mention something again and again, it's usually not "overblown" -- it's real.
- matsemann 3y ago
  No, you can't know without knowing the ratio of good to bad. With more popularity comes more negative experiences as well. And as with everything in life those with an axe to grind keep harping on forever and everywhere, making it more visible than the silent enjoyers.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    "silent enjoyers" -- examples wanted? Some people never complain; they just leave. Others persevere because they're insensitive. If I look at Yelp reviews, one or two bad reviews are standard. But if there are 30-40, all different, then I suspect something's up. It doesn't matter about "the ratio of good to bad." If you're pissing off a lot of customers, you are bad. Period.
    - matsemann 3y ago
      You could probably find 40 negative reviews of Apple world wide. But they are obviously bad then. Period.
      - AlbertCory 3y ago
        You just don't give up, do you? Irrelevant. No one looks at Yelp to find out about Apple.
        matsemann 3y ago
thiht 3y ago
> But 99% of the times it was really a dupe Not in my experience. Almost 10 years ago, I asked a question about PHP. I wanted to know if `$_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"]` always contained a _valid_ IP address. I specifically wrote down in my question that I knew it wasn't always the IP of the client, that it could be spoofed, but I wanted to know if it contained a valid IP, even it's a fake IP. Without surprise I god closed as duped and redirected to the question asking if `$_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"]` was reliable to get the IP of the client, which is specifically what I didn't ask. And I wrote down that this wasn't what I asked, because I knew some rando would close it as dupe. This is just one example, from almost 10 years ago, but it's only gotten worse. I routinely search for a specific question in Google and find a "marked as dupe" StackOverflow answer, which is not a duped, and I'm left with no answer. I almost don't click on StackOverflow links anymore because of this, I consider them as clickbait

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

josephcsible 3y ago

> It's always "closed as dupe but not really a dupe and I got downvoted for asking a legitimate question". But 99% of the times it was really a dupe, or a poorly worded question, or something strictly off topic. Exactly. Multiple times on HN, someone has said something along the lines of that myself. Whenever I've seen it, I've asked for a link to the question that it happened to so I can confirm it myself. Nobody has ever provided such a link.

xmprt 3y ago

> 99% of the times it was really a dupe I agree that sometimes it was really a dupe. Or even that most of the time it's a dupe. But when the answer was written in 2011 with the latest update in 2017, maybe it's worth reopening the question because there's probably a better answer in the last 6 years.

josephcsible 3y ago
> But when the answer was written in 2011 with the latest update in 2017, maybe it's worth reopening the question because there's probably a better answer in the last 6 years. Even in that case, you don't need a new question. You should instead just edit and/or post a new answer to the old question.
- bjornasm 3y ago
  How can you post a new answer when you are asking the question?
- sushid 3y ago
  Why? Why not just answer the damn question and link it in the old question if you're the mod? There's now countless ways to center a div in 2023. It's unreasonable to link to a 15 year old post. I guess SO will find out the hard way that people like updated answers on updated pages.
- Ajedi32 3y ago
  That doesn't help if you're a person trying to get an answer rather than a person trying to provide one. Though SO has made some small progress on this problem recently by changing the default sorting algorithm to no longer prefer old, entrenched answers over new, better ones.
- palata 3y ago
  Are you saying that in order to ask for a new answer (from someone else) to an old question, you should post a new answer yourself? Really if I want and answer, I usually ask a question... I'm confused.
- ebiester 3y ago
  That doesn't satisfy the use case. How do you edit a question that isn't yours? If you are looking for an answer and don't have one, how do you trigger the question to be re-answered? How does the new answerer get the points?
- kickopotomus 3y ago
  How would that work? If I just comment on some 8 year old question that the answer does not apply to $LATEST version of $FRAMEWORK, how would anyone with the know-how discover my question? This truly is a new question because what is really being asked is what was the breaking change that occurred in $FRAMEWORK between the original question was answered and this latest version.
- stonemetal12 3y ago

zer8k 3y ago

Nah, SO is really toxic. There are plenty of examples and probably dozens of blog posts illustrating it. It took two seconds to find two of MANY meta posts [0][1]. In fact one answer to the posts here illustrates what looks like at least a dozen similar posts. ChatGPT is just hastening an already well deserved death. I have not heard a positive opinion about SO in my professional network in years. Everyone passively consumes SO but a community built on contribution can't live on passive consumption. If the community is so high huffing it's own farts it drives away the exact thing it needs there's no good end for it. [0] https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/342779/what-about-the-community-is-toxic-to-new-users https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/342779/what-about-t... [1] https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/262791/the-rudeness-on-stack-overflow-is-too-damn-high https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/262791/the-rudeness...

matsemann 3y ago
Did you read your own links? I feel they explain it well. Strict moderation isn't toxic. It can feel harsh, but it isn't toxic. The rudeness is people joining a forum, spending zero effort to understand the rules or etiquette, and then demanding others helping them for free without putting any effort in.
- zer8k 3y ago
  The rudeness stems not from moderation but drive-by insults in comments and rapid dupe marking. That's covered in one of the several answers to the topics.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Rapid dupe marking is not rude.
    - chrisjj 3y ago
      Only if it is accurate. And the vast majority of SO dupe marking fails to accord with any meaning of the word duplicate found outside SO.

edgarvaldes 3y ago

I think this shows that people need a place to talk about the same topics even when there is an answer somehere on the site. SO is not that place, but we need it. Like the old IRC days (in some channels, at least).

1123581321 3y ago

I don't think it's in dispute that SO has to deal with a lot of identical low effort questions. What people don't like is that the moderators and power users are entrenched against duplicates in particular in a way that makes the site hostile by default to questions that are not outstandingly original, but are nevertheless legitimately different. Subreddits deal with the same issue (tons of identical basic questions) but have better processes to divert them and educate the user while still letting legitimate mid-level questions live by default. There are bad subreddits where moderators make it hard to get help, but since redditors can move to better communities on the same topic (and duplicate all the content!) users don't feel stuck with the current moderation in the same way they do on SO, which doesn't let competing Q&A communities exist for the same topic. I understand that SO has done some work to address these issues in the last few years and want to credit that too. That work is another indicator that there is a problem. I also agree that leadership-moderation relations are a problem on SO.

chrisjj 3y ago
> I understand that SO has done some work to address these issues in the last few years Oh? What work?

JohnFen 3y ago

> I always feel the "toxicity" claimed of SO is way overblown. It's toxic enough that neither I nor any of the programmers that I personally know would ever dare to ask a question there. We see how other questioners get treated.

TRiG_Ireland 3y ago
I've been active on Stack Overflow since its founding, and have always found it delightful.

bjornasm 3y ago

If everyone feel it is toxic, while you don’t, you might want to consider the thought that it is actually toxic.

matsemann 3y ago
> If everyone feel it is toxic Citation needed. "Everyone", really?
- bjornasm 3y ago
  Shame that you are focusing on a single detail rather than the point of my comment. No not everyone in the world, it should have been in quote marks. Glad to have cleared that up to you. Don't mind me, in every thread about SO in here there are lots of comments mentioning the same, and I agree. Your experience may not be the same and that is ok.
  - matsemann 3y ago
    If every thread also have someone claiming it not to be as toxic, shouldn't that also count the same? Aka you should then "consider the thought it is not toxic".
    - UIUC_06 3y ago
      So are you getting paid by SO or something? Are you one of these moderators everyone hates? Why are you so all over this? SO has built up a toxic reputation over many years. And yet somehow, according to you it's false? Why don't you just let this one die? You can collect your paycheck from SO now; you've done your bit.
      - matsemann 3y ago
        I'm flagging this and ending it here. Ironic to complain about SO being toxic while you're posting unfounded attacks and accusations like this.

AlbertCory 3y ago

> I always feel the "toxicity" claimed of SO is way overblown "overblown" == "who ya going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" At Google I interviewed a refugee from Theranos, when they were still around. (It was just lunch, so I wasn't expected to ask him anything.) Still, I mentioned the bad press, and he said the news was "exaggerated." When people mention something again and again, it's usually not "overblown" -- it's real.

matsemann 3y ago
No, you can't know without knowing the ratio of good to bad. With more popularity comes more negative experiences as well. And as with everything in life those with an axe to grind keep harping on forever and everywhere, making it more visible than the silent enjoyers.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  "silent enjoyers" -- examples wanted? Some people never complain; they just leave. Others persevere because they're insensitive. If I look at Yelp reviews, one or two bad reviews are standard. But if there are 30-40, all different, then I suspect something's up. It doesn't matter about "the ratio of good to bad." If you're pissing off a lot of customers, you are bad. Period.
  - matsemann 3y ago
    You could probably find 40 negative reviews of Apple world wide. But they are obviously bad then. Period.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      You just don't give up, do you? Irrelevant. No one looks at Yelp to find out about Apple.
      - matsemann 3y ago

thiht 3y ago

> But 99% of the times it was really a dupe Not in my experience. Almost 10 years ago, I asked a question about PHP. I wanted to know if `$_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"]` always contained a _valid_ IP address. I specifically wrote down in my question that I knew it wasn't always the IP of the client, that it could be spoofed, but I wanted to know if it contained a valid IP, even it's a fake IP. Without surprise I god closed as duped and redirected to the question asking if `$_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"]` was reliable to get the IP of the client, which is specifically what I didn't ask. And I wrote down that this wasn't what I asked, because I knew some rando would close it as dupe. This is just one example, from almost 10 years ago, but it's only gotten worse. I routinely search for a specific question in Google and find a "marked as dupe" StackOverflow answer, which is not a duped, and I'm left with no answer. I almost don't click on StackOverflow links anymore because of this, I consider them as clickbait