7 ms·

Stackexchange's karma policy has effectively kept this 39-year veteran of computing from contributing so much as a word. I'm okay jumping through a hoop or two

Stackexchange's karma policy has effectively kept this 39-year veteran of computing from contributing so much as a word. I'm okay jumping through a hoop or two to prove I'm not a bot, but I never figured out how to earn enough points to comment without being able to comment. This is how useful sites die.

duskwuff 3y ago
> I never figured out how to earn enough points to comment By posting questions or answers, especially ones which get upvoted. Comments are, intentionally, treated as lower value by the site. They're intended for discussing and correcting issues which may exist with a question or answer, not for revealing new information.
- cellularmitosis 3y ago
  I'll echo OP's frustration / lament. I have domain expertise in a specific platform, and it is pretty common that I'll see an answer which could use some clarification or additional detail about edge cases to consider. However, 1) I never ask questions on SO, and 2) I don't have time to wade through unanswered questions. As a result, though I would like to give them free labor by adding useful comments, I will never be able to. The point is that SO is missing out here.
  - o11c 3y ago
    If you feel you can improve an answer, you can always just add your own answer. That should quickly give you enough to comment.
    - apaprocki 3y ago
      It feels wrong and an anti-pattern to copy-paste a 98% subjectively correct answer as your own, just to sprinkle the 2% (again, subjectively) that it was missing to be the Answer. Why can’t we highlight specific content and create a discussion thread hinged off the highlighted part? Creating a properly written, end-to-end answer for a complex question is an heroic task if all you wanted to point out was that there was a demonstrably better way to do Item 15(a)(5)(iii) and the author missed it. It’s funny that we, collectively as programmers, use git all day long to solve this problem for modifying discrete blocks of programming language text with discussion and more, but can’t seem to ever apply the same tools and fascination to written English. Even more interesting now that we use the best answers to train models. You’d think there would be more discipline involved in making the best answer even bestier. (Like, say, Wikipedia)
      - DANmode 3y ago
        The unique offering of their platform, for better and for worse, is not having to "go through" the discussion of why the best answer is the best - you just get right to the best, complete answer.
        lewispollard 3y ago
        That would be great if it worked like that, but for the same reasons that the parent comments lamented about, it rarely does. Often the answer marked "correct" isn't as correct as something in a comment or another answer.
    - duskwuff 3y ago
      IIRC, you can also propose edits to existing answers, and having those edits accepted will give you a bit of reputation too.
      - o11c 3y ago
        Suggested edits still require a bit of karma. Questions and answers are the only things new users can do. ... though note also that once you get karma on one site you get some base karma on all sites.
        duskwuff 3y ago
        > Suggested edits still require a bit of karma. You only need reputation to have your edits applied immediately, without review. You can suggest edits at any rep level (even while logged out).
  - dspillett 3y ago
    If you can improve an answer, you could always give a new answer? > The point is that SO is missing out here. Unfortunately, if comments were open to all initially the site would quickly fill with “me too” comments and other things that would fill the page with low quality content that would be effort to moderate. This already happens to an extent with answers. My point being that the potential gain from automatically open comments may be less than the potential hassle from less useful users. Balancing these matters is difficult, many places get it even more wrong than SO and related sites do, and there is probably no perfect answer that doesn't put off some useful contributions.
- o11c 3y ago
  Other things about comments: You don't need karma to comment on your own questions/answers (i.e. in reply to someone else's comment on what you posted). Basically anyone can flag comments obsolete and this can make them be deleted without review. My last comment was "this code breaks for obscure input X" but I can no longer locate it. The real main problem with StackOverflow is that all the easy questions have already been asked and answered, and all the hard questions get little attention, so it's hard to get karma honestly. Many people have luck operating in obscure language tags.
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
The Internet is shit now, swarmed by bots (even ones some people argue are sentient). Useful sites are less possible than before. You are too late.

duskwuff 3y ago

> I never figured out how to earn enough points to comment By posting questions or answers, especially ones which get upvoted. Comments are, intentionally, treated as lower value by the site. They're intended for discussing and correcting issues which may exist with a question or answer, not for revealing new information.

cellularmitosis 3y ago
I'll echo OP's frustration / lament. I have domain expertise in a specific platform, and it is pretty common that I'll see an answer which could use some clarification or additional detail about edge cases to consider. However, 1) I never ask questions on SO, and 2) I don't have time to wade through unanswered questions. As a result, though I would like to give them free labor by adding useful comments, I will never be able to. The point is that SO is missing out here.
- o11c 3y ago
  If you feel you can improve an answer, you can always just add your own answer. That should quickly give you enough to comment.
  - apaprocki 3y ago
    It feels wrong and an anti-pattern to copy-paste a 98% subjectively correct answer as your own, just to sprinkle the 2% (again, subjectively) that it was missing to be the Answer. Why can’t we highlight specific content and create a discussion thread hinged off the highlighted part? Creating a properly written, end-to-end answer for a complex question is an heroic task if all you wanted to point out was that there was a demonstrably better way to do Item 15(a)(5)(iii) and the author missed it. It’s funny that we, collectively as programmers, use git all day long to solve this problem for modifying discrete blocks of programming language text with discussion and more, but can’t seem to ever apply the same tools and fascination to written English. Even more interesting now that we use the best answers to train models. You’d think there would be more discipline involved in making the best answer even bestier. (Like, say, Wikipedia)
    - DANmode 3y ago
      The unique offering of their platform, for better and for worse, is not having to "go through" the discussion of why the best answer is the best - you just get right to the best, complete answer.
      - lewispollard 3y ago
        That would be great if it worked like that, but for the same reasons that the parent comments lamented about, it rarely does. Often the answer marked "correct" isn't as correct as something in a comment or another answer.
  - duskwuff 3y ago
    IIRC, you can also propose edits to existing answers, and having those edits accepted will give you a bit of reputation too.
    - o11c 3y ago
      Suggested edits still require a bit of karma. Questions and answers are the only things new users can do. ... though note also that once you get karma on one site you get some base karma on all sites.
      - duskwuff 3y ago
        > Suggested edits still require a bit of karma. You only need reputation to have your edits applied immediately, without review. You can suggest edits at any rep level (even while logged out).
- dspillett 3y ago
  If you can improve an answer, you could always give a new answer? > The point is that SO is missing out here. Unfortunately, if comments were open to all initially the site would quickly fill with “me too” comments and other things that would fill the page with low quality content that would be effort to moderate. This already happens to an extent with answers. My point being that the potential gain from automatically open comments may be less than the potential hassle from less useful users. Balancing these matters is difficult, many places get it even more wrong than SO and related sites do, and there is probably no perfect answer that doesn't put off some useful contributions.
o11c 3y ago
Other things about comments: You don't need karma to comment on your own questions/answers (i.e. in reply to someone else's comment on what you posted). Basically anyone can flag comments obsolete and this can make them be deleted without review. My last comment was "this code breaks for obscure input X" but I can no longer locate it. The real main problem with StackOverflow is that all the easy questions have already been asked and answered, and all the hard questions get little attention, so it's hard to get karma honestly. Many people have luck operating in obscure language tags.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago

The Internet is shit now, swarmed by bots (even ones some people argue are sentient). Useful sites are less possible than before. You are too late.