[zwieback]

It's interesting to see all the negative comments about the SO culture here. I just hadn't really noticed it but maybe it is a problem for beginners. I generally find what I'm looking for and when I post a question I try to research first to avoid spam. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

[Someone1234]

I cannot help but read "beginners" in a derogatory tone. Or at the very least a way to hand-wave away the unhealthy atmosphere that has formed at SO.

It is definitely a problem for people with low SO Reputation since others can come along and edit their posts completely changing the context and meaning, and seem more brave to bully low rep users (e.g. delete/dup their posts).

I have fairly high SO Rep from way-back-when, and all I seem to use that for is undoing others abusive mod actions (like de-dupping something that points to a completely different programming language or framework). But it isn't a community I care to take part in much these days, too toxic.

Back in my day SO existed exactly to help beginners. Now they want to be "the Wikipedia of programming questions." So be it, but none of us have to stick around to help form their little out of date empire of desert.

[Ajedi32]

> the Wikipedia of programming questions

That's a pretty good way of putting it. But... wasn't that what it was always about? The original article says:

> So we decided to optimize everything to be useful for the thousands, not the individual. We literally have 1000 visitors for every person who asks a question. That’s why we sort the answers by votes. It’s also why we optimize for questions and answers that will be helpful to other people, later.

StackOverflow isn't optimized for the people asking questions, it's optimized for the thousands of people arriving at the question later from Google.

[klenwell]

For my last two jobs, I've created a new SO account for that job. I'm a pretty experienced user with decent reputation on my main account. I think I'm a pretty good question writer. I do my research beforehand, pay attention to niceties like formatting and grammar, and try to provide the right amount of context.

My first couple questions almost immediately get downvoted without explanation. Comparable questions from my main account rarely if ever face this prejudice. If I sign in on my main account and reverse the mystery downvotes, I'm usually good from that point on.

I feel a little dirty doing it. Other the hand, WTF is wrong with some of these SO users?

I work with few young developers and students who have reported similar issues. On my teams, I often encourage devs to share their questions once their posted just so we can counter this kind of crap and, if they're new, they can actually scrounge enough reputation to do basic stuff like upvote questions and answers.

That said, I'm a huge fan of the site and all the thought that has gone into the interface. And it looks like admins are doing they're best to deal with this issue. It seems like one of those eternal struggles against human nature.

[shagie]

> If I sign in on my main account and reverse the mystery downvotes, I'm usually good from that point on.

That’s the type of thing that will get that account deleted for vote fraud and sock puppetry. At that point, all of the votes it cast will be invalidated and all of the people you’ve tried to help by casting upvotes on their questions in the effort to be nice will lose those votes and that rep.

That will leave a sour taste for many developers and will probably turn many of them away.

[zwieback]

Great experiment, that helps further the discussion and I hope Joel and Jeff see this. What you're finding is a real concern and of course we see it in discussion forums in general but I was hoping the SO community would be better.

[unwind]

So uh would you mind quantifying what "decent" rep means to you? This feels like something that is quite subjective. 5k, 10k, 50k?

[zwieback]

Beginner was not meant derogatory, I just meant that as the phase of starting to learn something. The types of questions are different at that stage. Also, after learning a few different languages or libraries it's probably easier to ask questions that don't get moderated out even if someone is a beginner in that new language. I don't know much Java but a lot of C# and C++ so I can probably ask a Java question that doesn't displease attention of overzealous moderators.

Your point about how SO has changed is good, the early days definitely felt different but making the huge amount of questions usable does call for a slightly different approach.

Glad to hear some high-rep users are trying to balance out the modding behavior, thanks for that.

[potta_coffee]

I spent about 3 days contributing answers to SO before encountering some real pricks who live on that site and are on the offensive to get every reputation point they can. Snide comments and downvotes from these assholes has caused me to avoid contributing to the site even though I sometimes end up there occasionally for answers.

Also I've found that as I've become a better programmer, I spend way less time on sites like SO and more time reading actual documentation.

[krapp]

The problem is, helping beginners can be dangerous to an online community. New users are the main vector for spreading the Eternal September effect, while they're necessary to the life of a community, they also inevitably hasten its intellectual and cultural demise. At some point, if a community wants to maintain a high standard of quality, it has to start being hostile to newcomers. Sometimes you have to tell them to GTFO and RTFM.

[teh_klev]

> when I post a question I try to research first to avoid spam. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

That's exactly how it's supposed to work. Demonstrating some effort to solve your problem goes a heck of a long way.

[cptaj]

It absolutely is. I've always had positive experiences research and asking questions in SO. You just need to put a little bit of effort into the question and it will be fine

[sosborn]

If everyone did that then some of these problems wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately ...