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Discussion on: Do you think StackOverflow is toxic?

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Alexander Staroselsky • Edited

It’s important to ask what is the actual purpose of the platform. Is it to help resolve tricky issues? Is it a code writing service? Is it code review and suggestions? People aren’t usually hostile if the person asking the question made a legitimate effort to resolve it with code examples and detailed explanations. Yes people can be hostile when someone is asking to help do their computer science homework or obviously didn’t make any effort. Also how can a person asking for help on how to best structure their full stack application actually receive assistance in a mostly short form question/answer interface. You can’t explain end to end cloud native infrastructure best practices in a concise answer nor should you. I believe also deep down some of this driven by resentment and/or envy. If they see someone who in their bio is a lead/principal/staff engineer and can barely add two numbers together but somehow has that position, some may feel off because many have worked with those people. That being said depending on the language/stack, definitely can be much more hostility even with well formed questions.