[rendall]

A Jon Skeet encounter made me quit Stack Overflow, never to look back. I asked a question, Jon Skeet came along with an answer that did not answer my question. But his non-answer got 200 upvotes.

I went to meta to talk about how the reputation system is broken if that could happen. Skeet came along and accused me of changing my question, and a bunch of SO fanboys mocked me and told me if I want more reputation I had to try harder.

That's when I knew SO had irreparably changed for the worse.

[ozim]

Oh I had some negative encounter with Jon Skeet as well. For a person that has so much notoriety seemed he was quite defensive about me pointing out his "non-answer" he gave to someone else.

My situation was that I noticed that person asking was on a very basic level and he gave answer that was not correct in context of experience or what was actually asked. Even though technically correct.

[DominikD]

This rings true for a lot of discussions online: technically correct, but irrelevant in context. :|

[asah]

42

/s

[PascLeRasc]

Every time I've asked a question on Stack Overflow, I include in the question what I've tried and hasn't worked, or that I'm specifically looking to do what I described and I'm not looking for a link to The XY Problem. It always gets edited out immediately so someone can post an unhelpful solution and get upvotes.

[codehawke]

It's a popularity contest. Heavily favored towards those who came along when it first started off.

[matsemann]

If his answer was wrong, just accept some other answer then.

Do you have a link to this encounter..?

[rendall]

Yeah, see that's frustrating. The point isn't his answer. The point is that his non-answer got him upvotes from his fans, and that when I tried to address this broken reputation system in meta, people aggressively missed the point exactly like you did.

[matsemann]

If no one understands what you mean, might the problem lie elsewhere?

[edgarvaldes]

But at least some people did understand his point. I did, for example.

[matsemann]

It's just weird how often a discussion on something on SO ends up with someone complaining about overzealous downvoting or closing of their perfectly reasonable question, but no one can ever actually post a link to it.

To me that says they're not telling the whole truth about their own behavior.

[rendall]

Given there could be any number of reasons that strangers on the internet do not supply to you that which you demand, especially given the down-votey tone you demand it; it is instructive that you narrow in on the least charitable.

I quit SO in 2014, and asked Stack Exchange to delete all data from my accounts across their properties. I doubt any link exists.

You are free to disbelieve. You are free.

[tonyedgecombe]

Or they don't want to reveal their identity on HN.