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I'm close to being able to close Python duplicates in a single vote when I get my Python gold badge (9/10 of the way there.) http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/254

I'm close to being able to close Python duplicates in a single vote when I get my Python gold badge (9/10 of the way there.) http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/254590/541136 http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/254590/541136 - Also, considering the huge close vote queue, I can see why SO would want to close-close-close (or at least vote-vote-vote). What you really need are more voters voting. Not sure how you get there, though.

eitland 12y ago
Careful, this maybe isn't the correct place for telling everybody how easily you can crush them : ) > What you really need are more voters voting. Not sure how you get there, though. I guess a whole lot of the people who could have helped you left long ago because of your fellow moderators. A reasonable first step would be by adjusting the attitude. Maybe part of the problem is we just don't see all those "primarily opinion based" and "ugly discussions" questions that seems to be oh such a serious problem. We definitely see a whole lot of the most useful questions closed, often for technicalities. It doesn't exactly encourage participation, does it? HN somehow seems to be better at dealing with the problems without scaring good community members away. Of course HN has issues as well but so far the moderation team is doing a very good job of keeping politics and promotion away while leaving to the broader community to vote if something is interesting or not.
- aaronchall 12y ago
  Yes it's definitely difficult to get a foot-hold on the site, now isn't it. Maybe they need a real sort of wiki, or some sort of discussion community built around them. Seems like they started doing that, then killed it. The problem with discussion boards is that it is absolutely painful to dig through a post until you stumble on a solution, and even then, you're in no way sure it's a good solution. They need to harness that opinion/discussion/off-topic-subject energy in a way that doesn't work against their strategy. I think they are losing a lot of opportunity along the way.
  - acjohnson55 12y ago
    They need to harness that opinion/discussion/off-topic-subject energy in a way that doesn't work against their strategy. I think they are losing a lot of opportunity along the way. I totally agree. This manifests itself in the worst way at http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ http://programmers.stackexchange.com/. Or at least it did when I bothered with that site at all.
reitanqild 12y ago
> What you really need are more voters voting. Not sure how you get there, though. Or maybe, as I have already answered ircmaxell, Stack Overflow could raise the bar for asking questions ever so slightly from being the one thing you can do without rep? If torrents of new users asking stupid questions are the biggest problem on the site this seems like a first obvious step.
- speeder 12y ago
  I bet that most new users became new users to ask questions, including users that are not high rep veterans. I think that if you do what you propose, the site will just freeze in terms of user base.
  - mlitchard 12y ago
    Would it be reasonable to have an invitation from a person with x reputation bump someone up to the required rep to ask questions? One could spend time in meta, and the chat room where people could get to know them. For the well-intended but naive, this would encourage getting to know the site and expectations of the culture. For the people who are just a bad fit, they could be filtered with minimal effort. Would there be any undesirable consequences from this approach?
    - Larrikin 12y ago
      Who do you imagine would be the user that would bother going through this interview process? If you've used the site before you already know how strict the moderation is on questions keeping people from asking questions already, do you really want to add a process where the user has to kiss up to the moderators for a couple weeks before asking their question as well? It just would not be worth any new users time, especially given that when a user wants a question answered, it tends be slightly time sensitive.
    - aaronchall 12y ago
      I've given this some consideration, but they have put the barrier to entry to the chat feature above a minimal reputation ranking. One can easily overcome that with ten skillful edits, 2 upvotes (or 1 upvote and an accept) on an answer, or 4 upvotes on a question (20 rep is required for chat). It's fairly easy for an individual to get into the chat, if they want. That barrier does keep spammers from flooding the chat, though. And if you consider it an interview process, that's what the earning of reputation points accomplishes, and I'd argue it does so rather elegantly.

eitland 12y ago

Careful, this maybe isn't the correct place for telling everybody how easily you can crush them : ) > What you really need are more voters voting. Not sure how you get there, though. I guess a whole lot of the people who could have helped you left long ago because of your fellow moderators. A reasonable first step would be by adjusting the attitude. Maybe part of the problem is we just don't see all those "primarily opinion based" and "ugly discussions" questions that seems to be oh such a serious problem. We definitely see a whole lot of the most useful questions closed, often for technicalities. It doesn't exactly encourage participation, does it? HN somehow seems to be better at dealing with the problems without scaring good community members away. Of course HN has issues as well but so far the moderation team is doing a very good job of keeping politics and promotion away while leaving to the broader community to vote if something is interesting or not.

aaronchall 12y ago
Yes it's definitely difficult to get a foot-hold on the site, now isn't it. Maybe they need a real sort of wiki, or some sort of discussion community built around them. Seems like they started doing that, then killed it. The problem with discussion boards is that it is absolutely painful to dig through a post until you stumble on a solution, and even then, you're in no way sure it's a good solution. They need to harness that opinion/discussion/off-topic-subject energy in a way that doesn't work against their strategy. I think they are losing a lot of opportunity along the way.
- acjohnson55 12y ago
  They need to harness that opinion/discussion/off-topic-subject energy in a way that doesn't work against their strategy. I think they are losing a lot of opportunity along the way. I totally agree. This manifests itself in the worst way at http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ http://programmers.stackexchange.com/. Or at least it did when I bothered with that site at all.

reitanqild 12y ago

> What you really need are more voters voting. Not sure how you get there, though. Or maybe, as I have already answered ircmaxell, Stack Overflow could raise the bar for asking questions ever so slightly from being the one thing you can do without rep? If torrents of new users asking stupid questions are the biggest problem on the site this seems like a first obvious step.

speeder 12y ago
I bet that most new users became new users to ask questions, including users that are not high rep veterans. I think that if you do what you propose, the site will just freeze in terms of user base.
- mlitchard 12y ago
  Would it be reasonable to have an invitation from a person with x reputation bump someone up to the required rep to ask questions? One could spend time in meta, and the chat room where people could get to know them. For the well-intended but naive, this would encourage getting to know the site and expectations of the culture. For the people who are just a bad fit, they could be filtered with minimal effort. Would there be any undesirable consequences from this approach?
  - Larrikin 12y ago
    Who do you imagine would be the user that would bother going through this interview process? If you've used the site before you already know how strict the moderation is on questions keeping people from asking questions already, do you really want to add a process where the user has to kiss up to the moderators for a couple weeks before asking their question as well? It just would not be worth any new users time, especially given that when a user wants a question answered, it tends be slightly time sensitive.
  - aaronchall 12y ago
    I've given this some consideration, but they have put the barrier to entry to the chat feature above a minimal reputation ranking. One can easily overcome that with ten skillful edits, 2 upvotes (or 1 upvote and an accept) on an answer, or 4 upvotes on a question (20 rep is required for chat). It's fairly easy for an individual to get into the chat, if they want. That barrier does keep spammers from flooding the chat, though. And if you consider it an interview process, that's what the earning of reputation points accomplishes, and I'd argue it does so rather elegantly.