3 ms·

Last time I asked a question, I put "Thank you for any help, it's much appreciated." A drive by moderator, who did nothing to help me improve the technical cont

Last time I asked a question, I put "Thank you for any help, it's much appreciated." A drive by moderator, who did nothing to help me improve the technical content or clarity of the question, edited and removed this. I asked him politely to not change my own words, as it's custom in my culture to thank people. Big in-charge moderator on a power trip's most important mission that day was to inform me that he's in charge, and denied the request. This is incredibly toxic and stupid, contributes nothing, and as such, it's not worth providing your expertise for free. The site years ago was an amazing resource of like minded people helping each other. The only cure would be to stop community moderation and do professional only, as well as guide the noobs to resources like chatgpt first for "how to I write a hello world", while sorting the quality questions onto the front page.

SoftTalker 2y ago
There's no need to guide the noobs to ChatGPT. That is where they go now. StackOverflow is too much work.
- watwut 2y ago
  Yeah and what it simultaneously do is that there is significantly less incentive to contribute, answer, write blogs and tutorials. Few except ChatGPT will read and use it. Which in turn means that input for ChatGPT and all of us in general. It was nice to be able to find answers on the internet while it lasted.
polishdude20 2y ago
It's almost as if the mods turned stack overflow into something that can be easily scraped without emotion or human-ness. The extreme would be to request a question in hson format and answer in strict json format. Super easy to scrape. I'm not surprised it was used to train AI
cornstalks 2y ago
StackOverflow has always been like that, though, and it's not just big-time moderators who will remove unnecessary language from questions or answers. Personally I like the removal of unnecessary verbiage, but I can understand how some people might feel differently. That said I haven't logged in to StackOverflow for years.
arwhatever 2y ago
Yeah I don’t seem to have as much trouble with LLMs getting angry with me for asking a question on their Q&A site.
fabian2k 2y ago
Removing greetings and thanks is commonly done on SO, this wasn't a single user deciding that. This custom is a bit weird if you first encounter it, the main idea is that the questions should be put into a format that is most useful to later visitors and to maximize the signal to noise. The comparison back then was to finding your problem in a forum via a search engine and then having to go through the entire thread to see if there are any answers. Editing other people's questions to remove parts that are not necessary can seem hostile, but that is not the intent behind this rule.
- jszymborski 2y ago
  > but that is not the intent behind this rule. It does speak to the culture of editing/moderation on SO, though. For many people, myself included, it simply does not work.
  - Tostino 2y ago
    I tried to help out on the DB side of SO for a little bit, but gave up due to the culture. Not worth my time.
Etheryte 2y ago
This isn't a mod on a power trip, this is you not being familiar with what SO is and isn't and how it's run. Removing irrelevant tidbits has been the rule since forever and once you put your question out there, it's no longer only yours. In short, when in Rome, but of course it's easier to get upset than to familiarize yourself with the local customs.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dpkirchner 2y ago
  It's both a mod in a power trip and application of a rule written to appeal to people who want to trip on power, IMO.
  - Moto7451 2y ago
    I upvoted you and will “Yes And” your post by saying that the hostility baked into the rules is why I don’t contribute there. Reddit has similar problems in some expertise subs and when it boils over a new one will be formed. You can’t do that with Stack sites. Stackexchange has had the advantage of content but when that is available through friendlier and more user friendly methods it’ll really hurt their numbers.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  The local customs suck and SO will die because of it
  - Etheryte 2y ago
    This may be true, but going to a site, not following the rules and then being upset you got moderated is fairly silly. If you don't like the rules, there's plenty of internet out there for everyone.
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      It’s fine for the resolution to be going elsewhere. But it’s also very reasonable to say “hey, you guys are dickbags” as you go. SO encourages dickbag behavior.
paxys 2y ago
Stack Overflow is a combination of a Q&A forum and a wiki. Both questions and answers are edited all the time for correctness and to keep up with community standards. And there's nothing wrong with that. As a user just searching for an answer to my technical question I don't want to see flame wars, cultural exchanges, needlessly verbose text, bad grammar, political discussions and anything else that makes it longer and more difficult to get from point A to B. Similar to how I don't go on Wikipedia to experience the article writer's language skills or culture. There are plenty of other forums (ahem Reddit) for all that.
stonesthrowaway 2y ago
> A drive by moderator If there is a disease of modern social media, it's that. > This is incredibly toxic and stupid, contributes nothing It's almost like the toxic people who whined about toxic social media became mods everywhere. The most toxic people tend to be the mods in my experience. > The site years ago was an amazing resource of like minded people helping each other. Then a few years ago, SO along with many/all social media sites became trash. Almost in tandem. Wonder why and how.
IshKebab 2y ago
I agree. Mods think it's an FAQ wiki, which is not at all what most users think it is. Definitely rubs me the wrong way when people "clarify" my perfectly fine questions by just messing with grammar. E.g. they'll do things like change "How can I do X in Rust?" to "How to X". And that's before we even get to the hair-trigger question closing and downvoting. It's always the early votes that are negative too - from the weirdo power users that trawl new questions. They don't understand the question (it's not for them) so they downvote. Then later you get people who have the same question coming from Google who understand it upvoting.
happytoexplain 2y ago
I sympathize, especially if the mod was brusque, but in this case I agree with the mod. That rule is helpful to keep information pure and readable. HN has similar rules - thanking somebody is fine, since this is discourse, not Q&A, but e.g. posts like "lol" and "I agree" are discouraged.

SoftTalker 2y ago

There's no need to guide the noobs to ChatGPT. That is where they go now. StackOverflow is too much work.

watwut 2y ago
Yeah and what it simultaneously do is that there is significantly less incentive to contribute, answer, write blogs and tutorials. Few except ChatGPT will read and use it. Which in turn means that input for ChatGPT and all of us in general. It was nice to be able to find answers on the internet while it lasted.

polishdude20 2y ago

It's almost as if the mods turned stack overflow into something that can be easily scraped without emotion or human-ness. The extreme would be to request a question in hson format and answer in strict json format. Super easy to scrape. I'm not surprised it was used to train AI

cornstalks 2y ago

StackOverflow has always been like that, though, and it's not just big-time moderators who will remove unnecessary language from questions or answers. Personally I like the removal of unnecessary verbiage, but I can understand how some people might feel differently. That said I haven't logged in to StackOverflow for years.

arwhatever 2y ago

Yeah I don’t seem to have as much trouble with LLMs getting angry with me for asking a question on their Q&A site.

fabian2k 2y ago

Removing greetings and thanks is commonly done on SO, this wasn't a single user deciding that. This custom is a bit weird if you first encounter it, the main idea is that the questions should be put into a format that is most useful to later visitors and to maximize the signal to noise. The comparison back then was to finding your problem in a forum via a search engine and then having to go through the entire thread to see if there are any answers. Editing other people's questions to remove parts that are not necessary can seem hostile, but that is not the intent behind this rule.

jszymborski 2y ago
> but that is not the intent behind this rule. It does speak to the culture of editing/moderation on SO, though. For many people, myself included, it simply does not work.
- Tostino 2y ago
  I tried to help out on the DB side of SO for a little bit, but gave up due to the culture. Not worth my time.

Etheryte 2y ago

This isn't a mod on a power trip, this is you not being familiar with what SO is and isn't and how it's run. Removing irrelevant tidbits has been the rule since forever and once you put your question out there, it's no longer only yours. In short, when in Rome, but of course it's easier to get upset than to familiarize yourself with the local customs.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dpkirchner 2y ago
It's both a mod in a power trip and application of a rule written to appeal to people who want to trip on power, IMO.
- Moto7451 2y ago
  I upvoted you and will “Yes And” your post by saying that the hostility baked into the rules is why I don’t contribute there. Reddit has similar problems in some expertise subs and when it boils over a new one will be formed. You can’t do that with Stack sites. Stackexchange has had the advantage of content but when that is available through friendlier and more user friendly methods it’ll really hurt their numbers.
jncfhnb 2y ago
The local customs suck and SO will die because of it
- Etheryte 2y ago
  This may be true, but going to a site, not following the rules and then being upset you got moderated is fairly silly. If you don't like the rules, there's plenty of internet out there for everyone.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    It’s fine for the resolution to be going elsewhere. But it’s also very reasonable to say “hey, you guys are dickbags” as you go. SO encourages dickbag behavior.

paxys 2y ago

Stack Overflow is a combination of a Q&A forum and a wiki. Both questions and answers are edited all the time for correctness and to keep up with community standards. And there's nothing wrong with that. As a user just searching for an answer to my technical question I don't want to see flame wars, cultural exchanges, needlessly verbose text, bad grammar, political discussions and anything else that makes it longer and more difficult to get from point A to B. Similar to how I don't go on Wikipedia to experience the article writer's language skills or culture. There are plenty of other forums (ahem Reddit) for all that.

stonesthrowaway 2y ago

> A drive by moderator If there is a disease of modern social media, it's that. > This is incredibly toxic and stupid, contributes nothing It's almost like the toxic people who whined about toxic social media became mods everywhere. The most toxic people tend to be the mods in my experience. > The site years ago was an amazing resource of like minded people helping each other. Then a few years ago, SO along with many/all social media sites became trash. Almost in tandem. Wonder why and how.

IshKebab 2y ago

I agree. Mods think it's an FAQ wiki, which is not at all what most users think it is. Definitely rubs me the wrong way when people "clarify" my perfectly fine questions by just messing with grammar. E.g. they'll do things like change "How can I do X in Rust?" to "How to X". And that's before we even get to the hair-trigger question closing and downvoting. It's always the early votes that are negative too - from the weirdo power users that trawl new questions. They don't understand the question (it's not for them) so they downvote. Then later you get people who have the same question coming from Google who understand it upvoting.

happytoexplain 2y ago

I sympathize, especially if the mod was brusque, but in this case I agree with the mod. That rule is helpful to keep information pure and readable. HN has similar rules - thanking somebody is fine, since this is discourse, not Q&A, but e.g. posts like "lol" and "I agree" are discouraged.