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by ProAm 3579 days ago
> If you don't understand the answer, leave a comment asking for clarification.

In SO this will get shot down and clarifications will get edited away. It's brutal there and not helpful. I firmly believe the benefit (since it is a QA site, or is it a lets re-write the manual site?) outweighs the detriment.

> Having people ask you the same questions over and over again who don't care at all about wasting your time drives away the people most able to answer questions.

Honestly a lot of the people that answer and moderate questions there are unfriendly, the snark is high, it might be good to get a new batch of answerers in there and have the old move on. Obviously my opinion.
1 comments
JimDabell 3579 days ago
> In SO this will get shot down and clarifications will get edited away.

I don't think I've seen that. Can you give an example?

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ProAm 3579 days ago
No, I've pretty much given up on SO, it's been years so there is evidence but I cant find it now easily. I believe you can the sentiment is true based on the number of other people with similar experiences on the site.
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JimDabell 3579 days ago
I don't think I've seen anybody say that comments asking for clarification on an answer get shot down, and I don't think I've seen anybody say that edits to clarify an answer get reverted either. That's why I asked.
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ProAm 3579 days ago
It's all good. My main point was that people learn in different manners. Sometimes people asking the question don't realize they are asking one that has already been asked. Sometimes they don't know what they don't know. So for them it might help seeing the two similar questions be answered similarly but not exactly the same.

The question begs who is SO trying to help? People who answer questions, people who ask questions, or SO so they can rewrite technical manuals?

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