5 ms·

I asked a question for the first time mid last year. It was a question about "default" sizes in HTML layout calculations, with lots of research and links to rel

by rendaw 9mo ago

I asked a question for the first time mid last year. It was a question about "default" sizes in HTML layout calculations, with lots of research and links to relevant parts of the spec. It was immediately closed as off topic, and there were a bunch of extremely vitriolic comments offended that I'd ask such a question on SO. It was briefly reopened weeks (?) later and then I guess closed again and now is deleted, so you can't even view the question any more. I'd long heard of abusive moderation but... experiencing it first hand is something else. Anecdote of one, but I know I'm never going to ask there again. In case anyone's wondering, I ended up asking on the WhatWG or W3C or something github project (via an issue?). The TLDR was rather eye opening, that basically the spec only codifies points of contention for browsers and old behaviors are generally undocumented. With some pointers I figured out the default size behavior through code diving, and it was complex (as in, hard to use) and very unintuitive.

brabel 9mo ago
Questions are never really deleted , post a link so people with enough reputation may have a look and maybe resurrect it if the question is really good.
- fabianholzer 9mo ago
  Why would anyone with an ounce of self-respect try to beg an stranger with enough internet point to look if their question is worthy of being asked? Do you not realize how the proposal must sound to someone who is not already in the SO in-group?
  - brabel 9mo ago
    Hm… as the person was new to SO it’s very possible they don’t understand what a good question looks like and I thought it may be helpful to give feedback on what may have gone wrong… but if you see that as “begging” and you don’t think you need any feedback, you have it all sorted out after all, then yeah it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
    - closewith 9mo ago
      This comment sums up everything wrong with Stack Overflow. I strongly suggest you re-read your comments here and self-reflect.
      - wpietri 9mo ago
        Right? It's a perfect example of the problem. In college, I worked tech support. My approach was to treat users as people. To see all questions as legitimate, and any knowledge differential on my part as a) the whole point of tech support, and b) an opportunity to help. But there were some people who used any differential in knowledge or power as an opportunity to feel superior. And often, to act that way. To think of users as a problem and an interruption, even though they were the only reason we were getting paid. I've been refusing to contribute to SO for so long that I can't even remember the details. But I still recall the feeling I got from their dismissive jackassery. Having their content ripped off by LLMs is the final blow, but they have richly earned their fate.
        pasc1878 9mo ago
        The point here is you worked tech support so you were paid to answer user questions. However the answerers on So are not paid. Why should tyhy waste their time on a user who has not shown they have put any effort in and asks a question that they have already answered several times before?
        wpietri 9mo ago
        Nobody, least of all me, is saying people should work for free. But not being paid to do something you don't want to do is a reason to go do something else, not hang around and be a hostile, superior dick about it, alienating the users.
        pasc1878 9mo ago
        The answerers are just as much users as the questioners - possibly in fact more as they are the ones spending time whilst the askers often (especially the poor ones) just ask a question and then go away. Unfortunately the SO management want money and so want the fly away askers more than the answerers who provide the benefit of the site.
  - matsemann 9mo ago
    It's not about if it's "worthy of being asked", but mainly that many of us doubt the stories presented here without evidence. Time and time again examples are asked for in HN discussions about SO, but they're never presented. One other thing often missed is that people answer these questions on their spare time to be nice. A closed question wouldn't necessarily have gotten any good answers anyways. And if you've ever taken part in moderating the review queue, you would've seen the insane amount of low-quality questions flowing in. I saw probably ten variants of "how to center my div" daily being closed as duplicates. The asker might be miffed about getting their question closed (but with a link to a solution..), but if you want to actually get answers to the high quality questions, the noise has to be filtered somehow. Of course, SO is a bad fit for helping beginners figure out their syntax errors or how to apply a general solution to their specific issue. And you may not like SO for it, but to not want to be a site for that is their prerogative.
    - tomrod 9mo ago
      > Of course, SO is a bad fit for helping beginners This is the takeaway for myself and so many who have contributed to SO over the years, both questions and answers. Self-reflection as to why a service has become both redundant and a joke is hard, and had SO started in 2019 maybe they'd have relevance. I'm not sure I see what value they bring now or moving forward.
      - matsemann 9mo ago
        Thinking they didn't keep up with the times or that they should've made changes is perfectly fine. It's the vitriol in some of the comments here I really can't stand. As for me, I also don't answer much anymore. But not sure if it's due to the community or frankly because most low hanging fruits are gone. Still sometimes visit, though. Even for thing's an LLM can answer, because finding it on SO takes me 2 seconds but waiting for the LLM to write a novella about the wrong thing often takes longer.
        tomrod 9mo ago
        I encourage you to recognize the statements you see as vitriol instead as brand markers as to how SO is known in the world. It's not a small set of folks who feel as if they were treated unfairly first.
  - gn4d 9mo ago
    >Do you not realize how the proposal must sound to someone who is not already in the SO in-group? The fact that you even have to point this out to them, and how they still don't understand the root of the problem, is precisely why SO is finished.
- IshKebab 9mo ago
  They clearly aren't asking for the question to be resurrected.
dent9 9mo ago
its not just you, I saw this happen to others' posts many times and it happened to me several times I gave up on Stack Overflow when my jobs started requiring me to use Terraform and suddenly every time I posted a well researched and well formed question about Terraform, it would immediately get flagged and closed with responses that "Terraform is not programming and thus questions about Terraform should not be posted on Stack Overflow", which was insane to me because Stack Overflow has a "terraform" tag and category. If you visit it, you will see tons of users trying to post valid questions only to have the mods shut them down angrily.
- fragmede 9mo ago
  Yeah. You're not a real programmer. It's just terraform. You're a stupids and we're smaht, and you should go off into your little corner and cry while we jerk each other off about how smart we are. Gee, I wonder why people don't want to use the site?
- man8alexd 9mo ago
  https://serverfault.com/questions/tagged/terraform https://serverfault.com/questions/tagged/terraform https://devops.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/terraform https://devops.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/terraform
gn4d 9mo ago
>I'd long heard of abusive moderation but... experiencing it first hand is something else. Anecdote of one, but I know I'm never going to ask there again. And it was a real gut punch when this would happen (or getting suspended/banned) to long-time users, as well. They largely precipitated their own demise, so I say good riddance.
nerdbert 9mo ago
Very similar to my experience. I never managed to either ask or answer a question on there. Everything I did was "bad" for reasons that were never explained to me in a constructive way that made me feel empowered to get a better outcome. I used it as a reference when someone had a similar question to mine, but over time the bad taste in my mouth caused me to avoid it in google search results. I fell into using an early — and I would say, far superior — form of ChatGPT, which consisted of carefully and clearly laying out my question, point-by-point, in a blank text file, and then usually having an insight as to what my particular stumbling block actually was and thereby being able to move forward.

by rendaw 9mo ago

brabel 9mo ago

Questions are never really deleted , post a link so people with enough reputation may have a look and maybe resurrect it if the question is really good.

fabianholzer 9mo ago
Why would anyone with an ounce of self-respect try to beg an stranger with enough internet point to look if their question is worthy of being asked? Do you not realize how the proposal must sound to someone who is not already in the SO in-group?
- brabel 9mo ago
  Hm… as the person was new to SO it’s very possible they don’t understand what a good question looks like and I thought it may be helpful to give feedback on what may have gone wrong… but if you see that as “begging” and you don’t think you need any feedback, you have it all sorted out after all, then yeah it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
  - closewith 9mo ago
    This comment sums up everything wrong with Stack Overflow. I strongly suggest you re-read your comments here and self-reflect.
    - wpietri 9mo ago
      Right? It's a perfect example of the problem. In college, I worked tech support. My approach was to treat users as people. To see all questions as legitimate, and any knowledge differential on my part as a) the whole point of tech support, and b) an opportunity to help. But there were some people who used any differential in knowledge or power as an opportunity to feel superior. And often, to act that way. To think of users as a problem and an interruption, even though they were the only reason we were getting paid. I've been refusing to contribute to SO for so long that I can't even remember the details. But I still recall the feeling I got from their dismissive jackassery. Having their content ripped off by LLMs is the final blow, but they have richly earned their fate.
      - pasc1878 9mo ago
        The point here is you worked tech support so you were paid to answer user questions. However the answerers on So are not paid. Why should tyhy waste their time on a user who has not shown they have put any effort in and asks a question that they have already answered several times before?
        wpietri 9mo ago
        Nobody, least of all me, is saying people should work for free. But not being paid to do something you don't want to do is a reason to go do something else, not hang around and be a hostile, superior dick about it, alienating the users.
        pasc1878 9mo ago
        The answerers are just as much users as the questioners - possibly in fact more as they are the ones spending time whilst the askers often (especially the poor ones) just ask a question and then go away. Unfortunately the SO management want money and so want the fly away askers more than the answerers who provide the benefit of the site.
- matsemann 9mo ago
  It's not about if it's "worthy of being asked", but mainly that many of us doubt the stories presented here without evidence. Time and time again examples are asked for in HN discussions about SO, but they're never presented. One other thing often missed is that people answer these questions on their spare time to be nice. A closed question wouldn't necessarily have gotten any good answers anyways. And if you've ever taken part in moderating the review queue, you would've seen the insane amount of low-quality questions flowing in. I saw probably ten variants of "how to center my div" daily being closed as duplicates. The asker might be miffed about getting their question closed (but with a link to a solution..), but if you want to actually get answers to the high quality questions, the noise has to be filtered somehow. Of course, SO is a bad fit for helping beginners figure out their syntax errors or how to apply a general solution to their specific issue. And you may not like SO for it, but to not want to be a site for that is their prerogative.
  - tomrod 9mo ago
    > Of course, SO is a bad fit for helping beginners This is the takeaway for myself and so many who have contributed to SO over the years, both questions and answers. Self-reflection as to why a service has become both redundant and a joke is hard, and had SO started in 2019 maybe they'd have relevance. I'm not sure I see what value they bring now or moving forward.
    - matsemann 9mo ago
      Thinking they didn't keep up with the times or that they should've made changes is perfectly fine. It's the vitriol in some of the comments here I really can't stand. As for me, I also don't answer much anymore. But not sure if it's due to the community or frankly because most low hanging fruits are gone. Still sometimes visit, though. Even for thing's an LLM can answer, because finding it on SO takes me 2 seconds but waiting for the LLM to write a novella about the wrong thing often takes longer.
      - tomrod 9mo ago
        I encourage you to recognize the statements you see as vitriol instead as brand markers as to how SO is known in the world. It's not a small set of folks who feel as if they were treated unfairly first.
- gn4d 9mo ago
  >Do you not realize how the proposal must sound to someone who is not already in the SO in-group? The fact that you even have to point this out to them, and how they still don't understand the root of the problem, is precisely why SO is finished.
IshKebab 9mo ago
They clearly aren't asking for the question to be resurrected.

dent9 9mo ago

its not just you, I saw this happen to others' posts many times and it happened to me several times I gave up on Stack Overflow when my jobs started requiring me to use Terraform and suddenly every time I posted a well researched and well formed question about Terraform, it would immediately get flagged and closed with responses that "Terraform is not programming and thus questions about Terraform should not be posted on Stack Overflow", which was insane to me because Stack Overflow has a "terraform" tag and category. If you visit it, you will see tons of users trying to post valid questions only to have the mods shut them down angrily.

fragmede 9mo ago
Yeah. You're not a real programmer. It's just terraform. You're a stupids and we're smaht, and you should go off into your little corner and cry while we jerk each other off about how smart we are. Gee, I wonder why people don't want to use the site?
man8alexd 9mo ago
https://serverfault.com/questions/tagged/terraform https://serverfault.com/questions/tagged/terraform https://devops.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/terraform https://devops.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/terraform

gn4d 9mo ago

>I'd long heard of abusive moderation but... experiencing it first hand is something else. Anecdote of one, but I know I'm never going to ask there again. And it was a real gut punch when this would happen (or getting suspended/banned) to long-time users, as well. They largely precipitated their own demise, so I say good riddance.

nerdbert 9mo ago

Very similar to my experience. I never managed to either ask or answer a question on there. Everything I did was "bad" for reasons that were never explained to me in a constructive way that made me feel empowered to get a better outcome. I used it as a reference when someone had a similar question to mine, but over time the bad taste in my mouth caused me to avoid it in google search results. I fell into using an early — and I would say, far superior — form of ChatGPT, which consisted of carefully and clearly laying out my question, point-by-point, in a blank text file, and then usually having an insight as to what my particular stumbling block actually was and thereby being able to move forward.