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Crazy how much I used SO for so long and yet how happily i switched to Reddit and LLMs 100% and haven’t once look back. Over the years it became a place to fear

Crazy how much I used SO for so long and yet how happily i switched to Reddit and LLMs 100% and haven’t once look back. Over the years it became a place to fear posting since their no matter how much you researched before posting you’d be met by an army of people noting it’s posted in the wrong place and off topic and closed and then years later you see it incredibly voted up for being so helpful. Changing the brand seems like rearranging chairs on the titanic or worse, on the bottom of the ocean.

linker3000 1y ago
Yep, I was learning C++ and could not understand an example in one of Stroustrup's books, so I posted a query asking for help, giving my thoughts and confusion. I was roundly berated for not reading carefully enough, until one lonely soul piped up and said that actually there was a typo in the book's example code. I'm only a hobby programmer and the experience wasn't encouraging.
- NunoSempere 1y ago
  Anecdote mostly checks out, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42876061/c-single-quotes-syntax https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42876061/c-single-quotes...
  - gardenhedge 1y ago
    The question was answered in 1 hour. There are a few useless comments but it's not too bad.
- moomin 1y ago
  I’ve had people complain that, and I kid you not, my answer was obviously answered by combining the content of two specific pages in different reference books. Which, honest to God, made me wonder what _was_ a valid question.
- mbwgh 1y ago
  > I'm only a hobby programmer and the experience wasn't encouraging. I have come across elitist communities like on SO, also regarding C++. I was downvoted and told to intentionally be spreading misinformation by using the word 'struct', because as you should know, in C++ there are only classes... I haven't encountered that kind of vitriol when I asked beginner questions about how loops work, on 4chan out of all places. But there were also times where I spent hours with people chatting on IRC while learning, where people were forgiving and encouraging. In both places however, it seemed to be unfathomable for people that someone was trying to learn to program, not because they had to because of school or uni.
znpy 1y ago
I had a similar bad experience not with posting but with answering questions. Some overly-zealous mod came and edited (!!!) what i wrote because they didn’t like the wording. No swear or any kind of trouble involved, they just didn’t like the words i used. Picking the specific words, besides merely answering questions, is quite literally what makes me me and what makes someone else someone else, in a text-only community. I never replied any other thread since then and never posted again. Whatever I write can be edited according to what random person somewhere thinks is better. Going to extreme: if some mod decides to edit my comments to include racial slurs, that’s entirely within the realm of possibility. I do not play that game. No wonder they’re getting crushed by ChatGPT and other LLMs.
- BrandoElFollito 1y ago
  I often used to edit to format text (code formatting and text walls + typos). I would never touch the wording though.
  - znpy 1y ago
    Yeah, i understand that you act in good faith, but having the possibility to be framed by some random mod putting words in my mouth is a risk not worth taking. I don’t post or reply on stackoverflow.
    - BrandoElFollito 1y ago
      There is a full history of changes. Of course if you do not trust SO itself to not delete this history (mods cannot do it) then yes, that's a problem.
ethbr1 1y ago
The volunteer paradox. Don't build a business model around labor that is: - Competent - Selfless - Free At best, you get 2 out of 3.
BrandoElFollito 1y ago
Same here. I used SO for a good 15 years but almost none today. The people are so toxic that it does not make any sense. If you go to meta you can witness a zoo of psychopaths. This is in high contrast with many of the Stack Exchange sites where people are lovely and very helpful.
- BrandoElFollito 1y ago
  I am downvoted but I do not know why. The usual argument about SO hard core approach is that there is so much crap in questions that people who want to answer are fed up with this. This is a fair comment, but if someone made the effort to get 100+k of rep by asking and answering questions, it would be worthwhile to pay a second of attention to what they wrote. Otherwise it would be better to just say that only elitist questions are allowed, at least if would be clear. And as for Meta - well you need to go there and dare to ask a question and you will see. The most infuriating downvotres and comments are "people are making about that twice a week for years" → wouldn't it be time to step down from the ivory tower and realize that sione people are constantly asking for something (toe be there on not be there) it may mean that there is an issue? Downvoting the ones who ask is certainly not going to help. The funny thing is that I am, and the moderators are, volunteers. We ask and answer questions. But it seems like we owe something to SO and we should not dare to raise comments. This is how a company dies.
OutOfHere 1y ago
After having used all three (SO, Reddit, LLMs), they each have their place. SO is the base layer for LLM training, providing a highly dense continuing training corpus for LLMs. There are individual questions on SO that have been explored over ten years. In contrast, Reddit archives threads rather quickly, killing the discussion. SO should remain a tightly-organized place for the elite, whereas Reddit is more suited for diverse and less-organized expression.

linker3000 1y ago

Yep, I was learning C++ and could not understand an example in one of Stroustrup's books, so I posted a query asking for help, giving my thoughts and confusion. I was roundly berated for not reading carefully enough, until one lonely soul piped up and said that actually there was a typo in the book's example code. I'm only a hobby programmer and the experience wasn't encouraging.

NunoSempere 1y ago
Anecdote mostly checks out, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42876061/c-single-quotes-syntax https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42876061/c-single-quotes...
- gardenhedge 1y ago
  The question was answered in 1 hour. There are a few useless comments but it's not too bad.
moomin 1y ago
I’ve had people complain that, and I kid you not, my answer was obviously answered by combining the content of two specific pages in different reference books. Which, honest to God, made me wonder what _was_ a valid question.
mbwgh 1y ago
> I'm only a hobby programmer and the experience wasn't encouraging. I have come across elitist communities like on SO, also regarding C++. I was downvoted and told to intentionally be spreading misinformation by using the word 'struct', because as you should know, in C++ there are only classes... I haven't encountered that kind of vitriol when I asked beginner questions about how loops work, on 4chan out of all places. But there were also times where I spent hours with people chatting on IRC while learning, where people were forgiving and encouraging. In both places however, it seemed to be unfathomable for people that someone was trying to learn to program, not because they had to because of school or uni.

znpy 1y ago

I had a similar bad experience not with posting but with answering questions. Some overly-zealous mod came and edited (!!!) what i wrote because they didn’t like the wording. No swear or any kind of trouble involved, they just didn’t like the words i used. Picking the specific words, besides merely answering questions, is quite literally what makes me me and what makes someone else someone else, in a text-only community. I never replied any other thread since then and never posted again. Whatever I write can be edited according to what random person somewhere thinks is better. Going to extreme: if some mod decides to edit my comments to include racial slurs, that’s entirely within the realm of possibility. I do not play that game. No wonder they’re getting crushed by ChatGPT and other LLMs.

BrandoElFollito 1y ago
I often used to edit to format text (code formatting and text walls + typos). I would never touch the wording though.
- znpy 1y ago
  Yeah, i understand that you act in good faith, but having the possibility to be framed by some random mod putting words in my mouth is a risk not worth taking. I don’t post or reply on stackoverflow.
  - BrandoElFollito 1y ago
    There is a full history of changes. Of course if you do not trust SO itself to not delete this history (mods cannot do it) then yes, that's a problem.

ethbr1 1y ago

The volunteer paradox. Don't build a business model around labor that is: - Competent - Selfless - Free At best, you get 2 out of 3.

BrandoElFollito 1y ago

Same here. I used SO for a good 15 years but almost none today. The people are so toxic that it does not make any sense. If you go to meta you can witness a zoo of psychopaths. This is in high contrast with many of the Stack Exchange sites where people are lovely and very helpful.

BrandoElFollito 1y ago
I am downvoted but I do not know why. The usual argument about SO hard core approach is that there is so much crap in questions that people who want to answer are fed up with this. This is a fair comment, but if someone made the effort to get 100+k of rep by asking and answering questions, it would be worthwhile to pay a second of attention to what they wrote. Otherwise it would be better to just say that only elitist questions are allowed, at least if would be clear. And as for Meta - well you need to go there and dare to ask a question and you will see. The most infuriating downvotres and comments are "people are making about that twice a week for years" → wouldn't it be time to step down from the ivory tower and realize that sione people are constantly asking for something (toe be there on not be there) it may mean that there is an issue? Downvoting the ones who ask is certainly not going to help. The funny thing is that I am, and the moderators are, volunteers. We ask and answer questions. But it seems like we owe something to SO and we should not dare to raise comments. This is how a company dies.

OutOfHere 1y ago

After having used all three (SO, Reddit, LLMs), they each have their place. SO is the base layer for LLM training, providing a highly dense continuing training corpus for LLMs. There are individual questions on SO that have been explored over ten years. In contrast, Reddit archives threads rather quickly, killing the discussion. SO should remain a tightly-organized place for the elite, whereas Reddit is more suited for diverse and less-organized expression.