[Arnt]

I answer questions for a few tags, know the styles of the other people who answer on those tags, and I do consider my fellow answerers as kind. All of them.

That doesn't mean that you will think we're kind to you personally. We're there to build a searchable Q&A knowledge base and spread knowledge. Some people who ask questions misunderstand and think we're there to help them, personally. To work for free for that single person, and we're not there for that. We write answers for the tens, hundreds, thousands of people who will search for it.

Askers who misunderstand will come across as overly entitled.

In terms of practical effects: People who misunderstand don't tag their questions, or tag them incorrectly. They post screenshots full of text. They don't look for similar older questions in the existing knowledge base, or they insist that even slightly different questions are significantly different. All rather offputting, and often puzzling. How can you ask for a subject expert's help and simultaneously insist that you know better than the expert whether your question is a duplicate of another?

[stormblooperz]

Reading between the lines, this is extremely telling. Of course, nobody is a villain in their own story. Members of online communities who drive others away are often just simply blind to the impact they are having - an existential impact in the case of Stack Overflow sadly.

[Arnt]

Bah. I volunteer to do x and if you try to read some duty to also volunteer for y between the lines, you can do y yourself. If you expect kindness to someone I don't care to help, go on, show that kindness by doing y yourself.

Nobody pays us answerers to do what we do. The key prerogative of a volunteer is that the volunteer alone chooses what to volunteer for.

[kulahan]

Probably right, definitely justifiable, super annoying and actively driving away users.

[Arnt]

Most users don't ask. They search.

The users who ask questions that nobody cares to answer aren't particularly attractive.

[stormblooperz]

This. This is exactly it.

[zahlman]

When someone new comes to Stack Overflow, and tries to get something from it that it's explicitly not there to provide, and I politely say "hey here are some documents about what the site is and what we expect from questions, I'm sorry but we can't allow people to answer this without addressing these problems, because the purpose of questions here isn't actually to work with you one-on-one and get your code to work", and then that person swears at me and is never heard from again...

... No, I am not at all "blind" to the fact that I'm "driving" people like that away, or to the "impact" I'm having. I've read many of their off-site rants, too. It's a popular art form, even. So popular that sometimes people bring links to it back to the meta site. So popular that the company staff occasionally try to lecture us about it. After all, it's bad for the bottom line when people don't stick around and watch ads (and to hell with whatever else they do on the site).

But those documents objectively exist; the standards are established and thoroughly documented; the questions objectively are there to build a reference (this is even described right up front in https://stackoverflow.com/tour , although the wording is still lacking and we aren't empowered to fix it); as an objective matter we don't provide a help desk, debugging service or support forum; and swearing at me is a code of conduct violation.

[stormblooperz]

I'm sorry you've been swore at, that's obviously not on.

I guess I would say: look at the big picture, Stack Overflow is almost dead. It's a bit like driving a car off a cliff because there's a post-it note on the wheel that describes that purpose of the car as to go inexorably in this one cardinal direction. At least the standards are established and thoroughly documented! The document objectively exists!

Also: I know several kind and smart people who have sworn off Stack Overflow forever, not because they misunderstand the purpose of the site, but because of the unkindness and nonsensical nature of the moderation. You are aware of the "popular art form" reporting these experiences - those with empathy pay attention to it.

[zahlman]

> not because they misunderstand the purpose of the site, but because of the unkindness and nonsensical nature of the moderation.

I have read countless examples of this sort of thing, with people attesting to me that the people who wrote it do in fact understand the purpose of the site.

I have yet to see a single example where I was convinced they actually did.

They very frequently write in terms that imply complete ignorance of fundamentals (such as what a "moderator" is, and who has what privileges and responsibilities on the site).

> You are aware of the "popular art form" reporting these experiences - those with empathy pay attention to it.

I have paid attention. I have done close reading. I have been empathetic. I have spent many hours of my life on this.

> It's a bit like driving a car off a cliff because there's a post-it note on the wheel that describes that purpose of the car as to go inexorably in this one cardinal direction.

Your implication is that the purpose I describe for Stack Overflow is somehow invalid.

I disagree in the strongest possible terms, and find this implication actually offensive.

But even if it weren't valid, that doesn't entitle other people to come in and try to change it. It didn't entitle them in 2008, either, even though the vision wasn't fully fleshed out and communicated yet. (It probably started to become clear around 2012, but still not in a way that allowed curators to coordinate and describe clear policy.)

[stormblooperz]

So you have paid attention and read countless examples of people's experiences with Stack Overflow, but have concluded that, in fact, they are all in the wrong?

Frankly, it just doesn't matter at this point. The time to have done something about it was several years ago, it's a lost cause at this point. Whether you reflect and recognise your part in that, and learn and grow from it, is up to you.

[bdangubic]

How can you ask for a subject expert's help and simultaneously insist that you know better than the expert whether your question is a duplicate of another?

this is easy part, I read the answer of that “duplicate” and it was not applicable to my problem :)

[zahlman]

> I read the answer of that “duplicate” and it was not applicable to my problem

You are supposed to have a question in the first place, not just a problem. (In fact, you are not required to have had anything go wrong with your code, nor to need to know how to do something, in order to ask a question. You only need to ask a question that meets standards.)

If something was wrong with your code, and using Stack Overflow didn't enable you to fix the code, that is not Stack Overflow's concern, by design.

If you expect that your interaction with a website will enable you to fix broken code that you have, and the only standard by which you judge the website is "did I end up fixing my broken code", then Stack Overflow is not the site you want. And that's fine. There are millions of other websites out there that will also not help you fix your broken code. Why should Stack Overflow be required to do so? Just because it's about programming and accepts user-generated content? (Did you know about https://wiki.python.org/moin/ , by the way?)

If you analyzed some non-working code, and found a specific part that did something different from what you expected, and produced a MCVE (although we say https://stackoverflow.com/help/minimal-reproducible-example), then you have an acceptable question. Or if you figured out that you need to do something specific, and came up with a clear, precise specification for it, and there isn't a clear way to break the task down further into logical steps.

And when that question gets closed as a duplicate, you can bet that the accuracy rate is pretty high. You should try the answer, adapting it back to your own MCVE / specification, and then back to the original context.

[bdangubic]

The question is the problem, if I did not have a problem I wouldn’t be reaching out to a site named StackOverflow (one of the many problems I encountered over the years…). The problem is not just broken code, the problem is many different things like “how do I …?” or “I am trying to figure out how to …?” which is not about the broken code.

[Arnt]

Stack Overflow has its own notion of what a question is. In short, a question has to be suitable as part of a searchable knowledge base.

If you want to post something that isn't SO's idea of a question, then you're really just posting off-topic. And if you then insist that people should help you with your off-topic posting, you're being overly presumptious.

[bdangubic]

I don’t disagree… However, that leads you to your eventual demise. They coasted for a long time being as toxic as they have been because there was virtually no alternatives. Now that we have alternatives it is no wonder the website is as dead as it gets. Make the bed, lie in it…

[zahlman]

What about any of this is "toxic", and why?

What does this word mean, in context?

[zahlman]

> The problem is not just broken code, the problem is many different things like “how do I …?” or “I am trying to figure out how to …?” which is not about the broken code.

> > Or if you figured out that you need to do something specific, and came up with a clear, precise specification for it, and there isn't a clear way to break the task down further into logical steps.

[daedrdev]

And this is why stack overflow now has as many questions asked as it did in 2009

[zahlman]

>And this is why stack overflow now has as many questions asked as it did in 2009

So now there is a manageable volume of new questions that allows for enough people to review them properly and apply question standards properly, instead of letting most things seep through and set bad examples for the next batch. And more time to sift through the existing questions to polish up the best.

Existing questions, by the way, that outnumber Wikipedia articles by more than 3:1. Even though they're only supposed to be specifically about programming rather than about literally anything notable.

[yuzzi]

Seems to me like you're part of the problem. Of course it's not my problem anymore because I no longer contribute there.

[zahlman]

From GP:

> We're there to build a searchable Q&A knowledge base and spread knowledge. Some people who ask questions misunderstand and think we're there to help them, personally. To work for free for that single person, and we're not there for that. We write answers for the tens, hundreds, thousands of people who will search for it.

Why is any of this a "problem"? Why should we not create this knowledge base? Why should we help you, personally, for free? Why should we write answers for a single person who asks, instead of for arbitrarily many people who find it later?

[int_19h]

It's almost comical. SO is increasingly useless for new questions precisely because so many top contributors left (because they don't agree with this approach), while the ones that remain have convinced themselves that not only this new state of affairs is fine, it's actually preferable, and what they are doing is somehow beneficial.

[zahlman]

> while the ones that remain have convinced themselves that not only this new state of affairs is fine, it's actually preferable, and what they are doing is somehow beneficial.

None of you have done anything at all to explain why it somehow isn't, except perhaps to indicate that it isn't how you want the site to work. Or that the company is losing business. (As a reminder, the company has never paid any of us a red cent.)

Why is it "comical" for people you don't identify with to have a vision?

[int_19h]

It's comical because it has been explained to you specifically dozens of times by several different people already right here in HN comments, but every time you do the equivalent of "la la la can't hear you" in response.

It's sad because most of us remember how much more useful SO used to be.

[zahlman]

> It's comical because it has been explained to you specifically dozens of times by several different people already

The only thing that any of you have explained is that the site doesn't measure up to your standards.

You have given me no reason why I should evaluate the site by your standards.

[Arnt]

Citation needed.

I know why one top contributor left (cancer) and I heard the same about another. I haven't heard what you say about any, except in sweeping statements like yours.

[int_19h]

I still have 100k SO rep from the glory days of old - is that enough for you to count my vote as "you dun fucked it up" in that category?

[zahlman]

I can think of multiple users offhand with 500k+ rep that I think are more damaging to the site than any newcomer ever could be. (No, I will not name names.) And I previously showed you a link of someone with 60k+ rep (slightly more than me) who went 14 years without even trying to use the meta site for anything and demonstrated a complete failure to understand the basic standards for questions.

[Arnt]

If I'm part of the problem, then that's because of something I do, or else something I don't do.

The thing I do is build a knowledge base. If that's it, can you explain why it's a problem? The thing I don't is something you also don't. If that's it, can you explain why you're not part of the problem?

[solongso]

If that's you're goal, you're going about it the wrong way. Thank you for introducing yourself and your fellow answerers. Let me introduce myself and my fellow questioners. I have a deadline and a problem. I've already spent 5 hours researching why what should work - according the the documentation and the conventional advice - doesn't. I've searched many sources, including SO. I've seen some articles which might have answered my problem. Tried the suggestions, but no joy. So now I'm six hour in, and my deadline is looming. It's probably around 1:00am. Between 1 and 2 I type up my problem and submit it to SO. I'm hopeful that perhaps in the morning someone who has successfully worked through my problem will have contributed a solution.

9:00am, I check SO. My reputation has decreased by 8 points, a number of self-styled enforcers have left negative comments comparing my issue to other issues which bear a superficial similarity to my posting, and my posting has been closed.

I'm not the most powerful contributor but over several years I've achieved upwards of 1,000 points. So I am by no means a nudnick. I've posted some good ones and I've helped some of my peers along the way. But recently, my experience has devolved to the point where the experience I describe above is the rule, rather than the exception. And when I tried to have the discussion we are having now, on the stack overflow meta site, your fellow enforcers shut down the discussion and deleted the posting. So I left. And now we can have the conversation here.

You can have all the justifications in the world for your approach, and you don't need to keep the audience you don't want. But if those of us voicing our displeasure here, are not simply a few malcontents, but a significant chunk of your former user base, you might want to look inward, and at the same time ask with a certain measure of humility - what are we doing wrong and how can we improve?

For starters, if you want a questioner to improve their posting or you have questions about why they posted, is it necessary to start off by immediately deducting from the poster's reputation? Ask your question, make your point, give the poster the opportunity to remediate or show you why you're the one who's off base (did you ever consider that possibility?) before decreasing someone's reputation.

Stop dehumanizing your knowledge base. Your resistance to AI is somewhat ironic, given all the effort you've devoted toward eliminating all courtesy and gratitude from your knowledge base. Do you want humans communicating on your platform? Let them. Perhaps after a question has been asked, answered, let the posting remain dormant for 30 days and then have some AI process go ahead and scrub the posting. Don't ding people for saying please and thank you and expect them to like you for it.

Just for starters. For now, I'm out of there. Change your game, maybe I'll be back one day.

[zahlman]

> I have a deadline and a problem.

Stack Overflow is by design not there to help you with this:

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/284236 https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/326569

If you come to Stack Overflow for this, you come to the wrong website.

If you expect Stack Overflow to help you with this, it is because you have failed to understand the purpose of Stack Overflow.

We do not provide technical support, a help desk, a debugging service, etc.

> I've already spent 5 hours researching why what should work - according the the documentation and the conventional advice - doesn't.

Instead of that: if you have code that doesn't work, you should debug the code and look for something specific that doesn't do what you expect it to. Then you should create a minimal, reproducible example of the issue - code that someone else can run directly, without adding or changing anything (i.e., hard-code any necessary input) to see the exact problem, right away (i.e., without interacting with the program any more than necessary; without waiting for other things to happen first unless they have to happen to reproduce the bug). And skip anything that comes after that.

The reason we expect this is because, pause for dramatic effect, answering your question is not about your deadline or the problem you are trying to solve. It's not about you.

It's about the site, and about having a question that everyone can find useful.

> And when I tried to have the discussion we are having now, on the stack overflow meta site, your fellow enforcers shut down the discussion and deleted the posting.

Feel free to share the link. I can see deleted posts there.

> but a significant chunk of your former user base, you might want to look inward, and at the same time ask with a certain measure of humility - what are we doing wrong and how can we improve?

We aren't doing anything wrong. The site is better off for the departure of people who have demonstrated a consistent refusal to use the site as intended. Because it is not about them.

> is it necessary to start off by immediately deducting from the poster's reputation?

It is necessary to mark the question as low quality, so that questions can be sorted by quality and people can prioritize their time, yes.

It is not about you.

> Stop dehumanizing your knowledge base.

A knowledge base inherently lacks humanity. When you look something up in the documentation, do you want the documentation to be written as if it were speaking to you directly? I think that's creepy. The documentation was written possibly years before I read it. It knows nothing about me. It didn't even know that I would use the software in the future.

> Do you want humans communicating on your platform?

No, in fact. It is not social media, either.

Perhaps you've noticed that the comments are not threaded, that you can't have another question post further down the page in between the answers, that all the answers are supposed address the question, and not the other answers. (And, crucially, they address the question, not the person who asked it.)

All of that is deliberate. 2008 wasn't that long ago. Many sites much older than Stack Overflow support all of those modes of interaction.

Stack Overflow does not. By design.

Not only that, but comments can be deleted at any time, because they are "no longer needed". They aren't supposed stick around unless they're explaining something that other people may need to see years later (and even then it may be better to edit into the answer).

By design.

> Don't ding people for saying please and thank you and expect them to like you for it.

You don't realistically get "dinged" for this. Whatever question of yours was downvoted to -4 (since your "reputation decreased by 8 points") certainly had other things wrong with it.

Sure, these things were edited out of your question; the post does not belong to you (in the terms of service, you license it to the community).

> Change your game, maybe I'll be back one day.

The site is what it is. Sites on the Internet are allowed to be what they want to be. You are not entitled to them changing to suit you.

[yuzzi]

Of course not. But I'm entitled to look elsewhere. Thanks for clarifying, better than I could myself, why I no longer use SO.