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There's a reason the frat house isn't in the middle of the classroom on most college campuses. Because it'd interfere with learning. Frat row is, y'know, over

There's a reason the frat house isn't in the middle of the classroom on most college campuses. Because it'd interfere with learning. Frat row is, y'know, over there. Slightly off campus.

tbeseda 14y ago
Not sure your analogy holds up as "frat row" is often right on the main green of many notable campuses.
- codinghorror 14y ago
  Yes, but is it in the middle of the classroom? Anyway, frat row was pretty far off main campus (sorry, "the lawn") where I went to college, at UVa.
LeafStorm 14y ago
If Stack Overflow is the classroom, frat row would be more like My Little Pony discussions. Questions like "What programming terms have you coined?" would be more for the breakroom or the cafeteria...you don't want them to get mixed in with the proper instructional material, but at the same time you don't put them all the way across a major thoroughfare.
majormajor 14y ago
I don't have a particularly strong opinion on this one way or another, but I lean towards the side of less strict moderation, and I think that very metaphor fits my reason why: For me, one of the biggest advantages of the college classroom over the high school one was that digressions, side topics, and open-ended discussion occured far more frequently in my college classrooms than in my high school classrooms. Think of it as the difference between being taught to a test and just learning things. There still needs to be some moderation so that things stay focused overall, but often those side trails spark some really interesting, useful discussions. Education doesn't have to be narrow.
- RegEx 14y ago
  I think your analogy perfectly fits why I like strict moderation in SO. I hate hearing my CS classmates demonstrate their "intelligence" in the form of questions they already know the answer to, and I hate when the class gets sidetracked by hypothetical situations that will never pertain to me. I want to learn things and move on to the next class. Same with SO: I want my answer so I can get back to the project at hand.
  - majormajor 14y ago
    Part of the beauty of SO compared to an actual classroom is that the more open-ended discussion going on in a different question wouldn't keep your question from getting its straightforward answer. It would be read just by the people who found it interesting, instead of taking up shared class time. I don't think the jargon question example from the article here is well suited for even a looser SO, as it's more entertainment than education, but there are lots of productive questions that don't have black and white answers that I've still enjoyed seeing SO discuss.
  - bigiain 14y ago
    "Same with SO: I want my answer so I can get back to the project at hand." The problem there is, where does the motivation for people to provide you with "your answer" come from? Do you really think there's pool of people out there who think "Maybe RegEx has a problem at work today, I'll just go check StackOverflow to see if I can answer todays question for him."? Or do you think it's more likely there are a bunch of people interested in various coding topics, who enjoy discussing problems and solutions? How long do you supposed that second group of people will hang around if "strict moderation" starts deleting any "interesting discussion", because questioners are complaining "I just want my damned answer!"? Sure, StackOverflow reputation points are one source of motivation, but if I had the choice between getting my questions answered by people wishing to maximise their StackOverflow reputation, and getting my questions discussed by people who're interested and engaged experts in the field - I'd join the second discussion every time.
    - RegEx 14y ago
billforsternz 14y ago
Oh boy Jeff, I love your work, but you are so way off beam with this one. The over zealous moderation of StackOverflow is insane and it's killing the site. Seriously. If the community votes up questions and/or the answers to those questions, then that is all the indication you need that the material has real value and should not be shut down. You've just proved it yourself. There's a ton of educational value in the material you've reposted. The fact that there's comedic and entertainment value also is just a lovely bonus. And you think deleting this is the right thing to do ? Really ? Please rethink this before it's too late.
- codinghorror 14y ago
  I disagree. Seeing that someone uses "banana banana banana" as a comment placeholder, or that they refer to clueless programmers as "Jimmy"... is not illuminating my day to day work at all. Entertaining? Sure.
  - drumdance 14y ago
    I guess it depends on the use case. I never "hang out" on StackOverflow (though maybe I should). I find it through Google, so I never see the non-sequitur posts. I had no idea that content like that even existed there. Knowing that you guys have posts like that is so great for the brand.
  - gizmo686 14y ago
    No, but seeing that they take the time to say, 'what would someone not fammilar with this do?' is very useful. The question of new jargon could be viewed as what novel things do you do that are so common for you, but uncommon for most people, that you had to create your own word.
  - ZoFreX 14y ago
    I'm with you on this one, please keep at it. How many times have you seen a (for want of a better phrase) Reddit-esque comment on HN that contributed nothing, had plenty of upvotes, and was then followed up with "This isn't how we do things on HN" comments? There is nothing wrong at all with wanting to keep your site on-topic and /focused/.
notatoad 14y ago
Over where? Seriously, I can't find the frat house. Is there a sanctioned place for people to post this sort of meta-programmer stuff? You find little scraps of it from time to time, is there a stack exchange site that can be used for fun stuff?
- Achshar 14y ago
  http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ http://programmers.stackexchange.com/?
  - damian2000 14y ago
    Who hate being labelled a dumping ground for offtopic or moderated SO questions.
    - Achshar 14y ago
      yeikes.. i was not sure.
simonw 14y ago
But these kinds of posts don't interfere with learning. I actually learnt a bunch from those jargon examples - I'll certainly start using some of them at work. Jargon exists to make communication more efficient - I just learned a bunch of new ways to communicate about my craft.
mattchew 14y ago
What we are complaining about is the killing of discussion that promotes learning. You have to ignore your users sometimes, and maybe this is one of those times. But if you are getting a consistent message from your users that they're unhappy, I hope you're at least listening. Characterizing the people who want more reasonable^H^H^H^H^H lenient moderation on SO as wanting a frat house atmosphere makes me think you're not really listening.

There's a reason the frat house isn't in the middle of the classroom on most college campuses. Because it'd interfere with learning. Frat row is, y'know, over there. Slightly off campus.

tbeseda 14y ago

Not sure your analogy holds up as "frat row" is often right on the main green of many notable campuses.

codinghorror 14y ago
Yes, but is it in the middle of the classroom? Anyway, frat row was pretty far off main campus (sorry, "the lawn") where I went to college, at UVa.

LeafStorm 14y ago

If Stack Overflow is the classroom, frat row would be more like My Little Pony discussions. Questions like "What programming terms have you coined?" would be more for the breakroom or the cafeteria...you don't want them to get mixed in with the proper instructional material, but at the same time you don't put them all the way across a major thoroughfare.

majormajor 14y ago

I don't have a particularly strong opinion on this one way or another, but I lean towards the side of less strict moderation, and I think that very metaphor fits my reason why: For me, one of the biggest advantages of the college classroom over the high school one was that digressions, side topics, and open-ended discussion occured far more frequently in my college classrooms than in my high school classrooms. Think of it as the difference between being taught to a test and just learning things. There still needs to be some moderation so that things stay focused overall, but often those side trails spark some really interesting, useful discussions. Education doesn't have to be narrow.

RegEx 14y ago
I think your analogy perfectly fits why I like strict moderation in SO. I hate hearing my CS classmates demonstrate their "intelligence" in the form of questions they already know the answer to, and I hate when the class gets sidetracked by hypothetical situations that will never pertain to me. I want to learn things and move on to the next class. Same with SO: I want my answer so I can get back to the project at hand.
- majormajor 14y ago
  Part of the beauty of SO compared to an actual classroom is that the more open-ended discussion going on in a different question wouldn't keep your question from getting its straightforward answer. It would be read just by the people who found it interesting, instead of taking up shared class time. I don't think the jargon question example from the article here is well suited for even a looser SO, as it's more entertainment than education, but there are lots of productive questions that don't have black and white answers that I've still enjoyed seeing SO discuss.
- bigiain 14y ago
  "Same with SO: I want my answer so I can get back to the project at hand." The problem there is, where does the motivation for people to provide you with "your answer" come from? Do you really think there's pool of people out there who think "Maybe RegEx has a problem at work today, I'll just go check StackOverflow to see if I can answer todays question for him."? Or do you think it's more likely there are a bunch of people interested in various coding topics, who enjoy discussing problems and solutions? How long do you supposed that second group of people will hang around if "strict moderation" starts deleting any "interesting discussion", because questioners are complaining "I just want my damned answer!"? Sure, StackOverflow reputation points are one source of motivation, but if I had the choice between getting my questions answered by people wishing to maximise their StackOverflow reputation, and getting my questions discussed by people who're interested and engaged experts in the field - I'd join the second discussion every time.
  - RegEx 14y ago

billforsternz 14y ago

Oh boy Jeff, I love your work, but you are so way off beam with this one. The over zealous moderation of StackOverflow is insane and it's killing the site. Seriously. If the community votes up questions and/or the answers to those questions, then that is all the indication you need that the material has real value and should not be shut down. You've just proved it yourself. There's a ton of educational value in the material you've reposted. The fact that there's comedic and entertainment value also is just a lovely bonus. And you think deleting this is the right thing to do ? Really ? Please rethink this before it's too late.

codinghorror 14y ago
I disagree. Seeing that someone uses "banana banana banana" as a comment placeholder, or that they refer to clueless programmers as "Jimmy"... is not illuminating my day to day work at all. Entertaining? Sure.
- drumdance 14y ago
  I guess it depends on the use case. I never "hang out" on StackOverflow (though maybe I should). I find it through Google, so I never see the non-sequitur posts. I had no idea that content like that even existed there. Knowing that you guys have posts like that is so great for the brand.
- gizmo686 14y ago
  No, but seeing that they take the time to say, 'what would someone not fammilar with this do?' is very useful. The question of new jargon could be viewed as what novel things do you do that are so common for you, but uncommon for most people, that you had to create your own word.
- ZoFreX 14y ago
  I'm with you on this one, please keep at it. How many times have you seen a (for want of a better phrase) Reddit-esque comment on HN that contributed nothing, had plenty of upvotes, and was then followed up with "This isn't how we do things on HN" comments? There is nothing wrong at all with wanting to keep your site on-topic and /focused/.

notatoad 14y ago

Over where? Seriously, I can't find the frat house. Is there a sanctioned place for people to post this sort of meta-programmer stuff? You find little scraps of it from time to time, is there a stack exchange site that can be used for fun stuff?

Achshar 14y ago
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ http://programmers.stackexchange.com/?
- damian2000 14y ago
  Who hate being labelled a dumping ground for offtopic or moderated SO questions.
  - Achshar 14y ago
    yeikes.. i was not sure.

simonw 14y ago

But these kinds of posts don't interfere with learning. I actually learnt a bunch from those jargon examples - I'll certainly start using some of them at work. Jargon exists to make communication more efficient - I just learned a bunch of new ways to communicate about my craft.

mattchew 14y ago

What we are complaining about is the killing of discussion that promotes learning. You have to ignore your users sometimes, and maybe this is one of those times. But if you are getting a consistent message from your users that they're unhappy, I hope you're at least listening. Characterizing the people who want more reasonable^H^H^H^H^H lenient moderation on SO as wanting a frat house atmosphere makes me think you're not really listening.