[Latty]

I looked back at version one to see what people would have downvoted/closed for:

'I have tried to do that (by overloading operator[], operator=) but it doesn't seem like I'm going somewhere. Can anyone suggest me a way to achieve this behavior?'

You said you have tried, but you didn't post what you tried, or how it didn't work. This makes your question hard to answer, and essentially means anyone answering is going to have to write your code for you.

You then finished it up with a passive-aggressive FAQ section which was entirely unnecessary, and included 'I want to do it this way, even if there is a better way' - which is just a terrible way to go in asking a question.

StackOverflow gets incredible numbers of questions every day, and the reality is people are not willing to help people who actively make their questions harder to answer. That's not people being assholes, it's people getting burnt out trying to help the 20,000th help vampire (http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/).

Everyone who complains about StackOverflow, in my experience, tends to be someone who wants others to do work for them. Yes, SO doesn't do that. That's by design.

[_almosnow]

>You said you have tried, but you didn't post what you tried, or how it didn't work. >by overloading operator[], operator=

It's literally there...

>You then finished it up with a passive-aggressive FAQ section which was entirely unnecessary ... 'I want to do it this way, even if there is a better way'

What's wrong with that? I wanted to achieve a very specific thing. Can you please tell me what is wrong with that?

That FAQ is meant to avoid getting answers that I don't need. Have you ever used SO? When you do you'll see that these questions usually get a lot of responses like:

"Just drop C and go for Python, Python does everything for you XD"

"Just throw Boost in there and you're done [and turn your 1s compile time into 10 minutes] XDDD"

[peeters]

> That FAQ is meant to avoid getting answers that I don't need.

1) Answers on questions aren't just meant to serve you, they're meant to serve people that find the question later. It's incredibly important to note when there's a better way altogether to approach a problem.

2) Askers on SO often exhibit the XY problem. Saying you're not interested in other approaches is not simply dickish; it's ignoring (often) good advice that other people are donating their time to give you.

Honestly, your entire interaction on that question is a prime example of why so many moderators go to the other extreme and become trigger happy. Because anybody would get burnt out dealing day in, day out with people having the same sense of entitlement that you have.

[danielweber]

I don't support the abusive behavior that has since been edited out, but I totally get that FAQ. Lots of people who only work in the web framework world don't get that not everyone can just upgrade to the latest whiz-bang thing. If he's on a large team that has standardized on X for their shipping software, he can't fix the problem just by upgrading to a new compiler version.

[_almosnow]

It seems that you got SO wrong. Please have some time to read this: http://stackoverflow.com/tour

I understand that it is a really nice side-effect that your questions stay there and can be read later by other people with your same problem, however, be aware that it is a side-effect. Let me quote the first few sentences on their own site:

"With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about programming."

Yup, every question, not just "the ones you think are popular", every one, including mine. Actually, the more specific and detailed your question is, the better it aligns with the SO philosophy.

>Saying you're not interested in other approaches is not simply dickish; [...]

It is not dickish, I'm just not interested, how is that wrong? It is not; if you actually understood what is good for SO questions, you would see that focused questions are much better than fuzzy ones.

Also you called me a dick for no reason, I don't care because I grew out of those things long ago but apparently you (and some other guys here) haven't, so please leave out the vulgar language; you guys should, at least, live by your own standards.

Yeah of course you will downvote, because you can; what you can't do is to actually add to the conversation by posting a reasonable counter-argument to the things I stated. Have a nice day dude.

[davelnewton]

You grew out of "dick" but not "cunt"? (And you were called "dickish", not a dick, as long as we're being pedantic. Anyway; side debate, and uninteresting.)

One reason people point posters towards more conventional, extensible, canonical solutions is so that following readers/askers understand that what's being asked is on the fringes of what should be done.

Personally, I also believe SO doesn't always make the right call on what content should stay or go, and some of my meta questions attempt to address this. The bottom line is that people that don't work for them are only participants, and we're not the ones making the rules.

[MaulingMonkey]

> "Just throw Boost in there and you're done [and turn your 1s compile time into 10 minutes] XDDD"

You know this to be hyperbolic.

My unfortunate experience has been that on a larger scale project, people will eventually desire every feature from a boost container, re-implement it in a buggy fashion, leading to a slower, buggier, poorly designed clone of something boost had.

I eventually started fixing container bugs by rewriting them in terms of boost containers...

[Latty]

Yes, I have used SO, and those responses are rare. If they do happen, they'll get deleted or countered quickly. The 'FAQ' was unnecessary and condescending.

You gave a shorthand description of what you did. You didn't post the code, you didn't explain why it didn't work.

If you can't be bothered to ask a question people can answer, why should anyone bother to answer? You claim SO is a bad community because you get rejected - I counter that you get rejected because you are toxic, and you not being on the site makes everyone else's experience better.

You not being there is a feature, not a bug.