[volokoumphetico]

Stackoverflow has been immensely useful for someone who is curious or stuck on coding related topics. I have asked close to 500 questions over the course of 3 years having checked it almost daily with some months of hiatus.

The amount of knowledge gained from questions alone is immense. I have answered about 20 questions but I found it a lot less attractive as I'd rather learn new things than recite from memory solutions.

The questions are growingly become more and more strict in terms of moderation and for new comers it's frustrating experience to have your questions closed because existing members like to taunt newbies. I don't see SO taking off anymore, rather finding on news.ycombinator means it has peaked. The very people that flock to SO are shunned for asking questions that are not clear. Rather than aid them, questions are closed. This leaves a very bad taste in a newbies mouth. The massive traffic is from the previous accumulation of users but again the overly zealous moderators have ruined the welcoming community image.

Long ago someone asked about intended meaning vs literal meaning in questions. This received massive amount of downvotes (existing gurus) but I saw this is something critical that SO founders have completely missed.

Remember in Pakistan, during the 1971 war with India. The civilians that have put Bhutto in power have become so alienated from socialist policies of the leader, failing to see that it's the people that put an individual in power. He was ousted by the CIA but it wouldn't have been possible without the general animosity and betrayal from the public.

[smsm42]

>>> have your questions closed because existing members like to taunt newbies

I don't think anybody likes to taunt newbies. However, people that donate their time to SO want their time to be used efficiently, and usually fixing badly written question is not the most efficient use of one's expert knowledge and time. People want common investment - you invest in good question, they invest in good answer, everybody wins. Of course, newbies may not know what "good question" is, and experts may have seen so many bad questions over their tenure that their temper has been worn thin, thus sometimes misunderstandings happen. But I think approaching it with understanding that it is a common investment, and asker has to invest first to get their investment back with sizeable profit of a good answer may be helpful here.

[bluedino]

>> for new comers it's frustrating experience to have your questions closed because existing members like to taunt newbies.

Isn't that the entire internet?

[volokoumphetico]

what is the entire internet? it's a collection of servers talking to each other an agreed upon and standardized protocols that browsers running on operating systems can understand. I would SO close this question right now (pun intended) ;)

[bluedino]

Newbies were traditionally ignored or flamed on USENET, and fucked with to the highest level on IRC.

"Asks dumb question"

Winnuked.

[burgerz]

>the overly zealous moderators have ruined the welcoming community image.

I'm glad someone said it. Before they would at least leave a comment, or ask the user to elaborate or rephrase the question, now they just close. I see so many questions closed INSTANTLY, with no explanation, and most of the time it's not even rightly so.

Of course the vague rule about rules defined by the community allow them to do anything. Once again, moderation has ruined another website.

[volokoumphetico]

Not to mention that it's not noobies that are affected. I've had many questions closed and only to be reopened once I made my case. I've had comments where people THANKED me for asking it because they had the exact same question and that I had reopened it. I got sick and tired of doing this so I pretty much unmotivated to post any new questions (or maybe 500 questions is enough)