Couldn't agree more. The elites at SO are trying to turn a forum into a wiki, which is why they are so quick with the dupe flags.
It drives me nuts to see so many people posting questions that are downvoted because they aren't perfect or unique enough, and there is often no explanation for the downvote. All the veterans just say, "Don't take it personal - a downvote isn't an attack," but then it's used like one, so these new people who just want some questions answered feel anonymously attacked. Every time I go back and try to help out, I end up feeling angry at the way everyone is treated.
I personally love helping newer developers and I have been attacked multiple times on SO for trying to do that. It's why I usually do that kind of thing on Experts Exchange. It isn't perfect, either (lower volume of questions and some confusing UI), but I feel like it's usually supportive of that kind of situation. I've answered many thousands of questions over the years and many have been similar but they're all different in some way and deserve a human touch in the response.
From humble beginnings at an MSP, I've adventured through life as a sysadmin, into an engineer, and finally landed as a developer focused on fixing problems with automation.
Okay but it's still not a wiki, no matter how much anyone wants it to be. SO and all the other StackEXCHANGE sites are presented as forums. Even the terminology (question and answers) reflects a Q&A forum, not a wiki. If you think about it, ALL of the knowledge that has been gathered so far is an answer in response to a question.
So saying, "I want this to be a wiki," while retaining all of the indications that it isn't... is it any wonder why people get frustrated?
To top it all off, the voting mechanism is blindly seen by a small handful as some quality control device but it's implemented in a way that encourages inertial voting rather than quality control.
If an answer is downvoted once, it has a very good chance of getting more downvotes. Similarly, answers with several upvotes will get a lot more of them just by virtue of being the top answer, even if it's a bad answer. One downvote by someone knowledgeable will quickly be overshadowed by four upvotes from people who just copy-and-pasted the top answer blindly and thought it worked.
So even though some people have big dreams about how they want the site to work, it's ignorant of how it truly IS working.
If an answer is downvoted once, it has a very good chance of getting more downvotes. Similarly, answers with several upvotes will get a lot more of them just by virtue of being the top answer, even if it's a bad answer.
Indeed, I too have seen this. Mob mentality at its worst.
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Couldn't agree more. The elites at SO are trying to turn a forum into a wiki, which is why they are so quick with the dupe flags.
It drives me nuts to see so many people posting questions that are downvoted because they aren't perfect or unique enough, and there is often no explanation for the downvote. All the veterans just say, "Don't take it personal - a downvote isn't an attack," but then it's used like one, so these new people who just want some questions answered feel anonymously attacked. Every time I go back and try to help out, I end up feeling angry at the way everyone is treated.
I personally love helping newer developers and I have been attacked multiple times on SO for trying to do that. It's why I usually do that kind of thing on Experts Exchange. It isn't perfect, either (lower volume of questions and some confusing UI), but I feel like it's usually supportive of that kind of situation. I've answered many thousands of questions over the years and many have been similar but they're all different in some way and deserve a human touch in the response.
Considering that's one of the founder's visions for StackOverflow, it's not "the elites".
Okay but it's still not a wiki, no matter how much anyone wants it to be. SO and all the other StackEXCHANGE sites are presented as forums. Even the terminology (question and answers) reflects a Q&A forum, not a wiki. If you think about it, ALL of the knowledge that has been gathered so far is an answer in response to a question.
So saying, "I want this to be a wiki," while retaining all of the indications that it isn't... is it any wonder why people get frustrated?
To top it all off, the voting mechanism is blindly seen by a small handful as some quality control device but it's implemented in a way that encourages inertial voting rather than quality control.
If an answer is downvoted once, it has a very good chance of getting more downvotes. Similarly, answers with several upvotes will get a lot more of them just by virtue of being the top answer, even if it's a bad answer. One downvote by someone knowledgeable will quickly be overshadowed by four upvotes from people who just copy-and-pasted the top answer blindly and thought it worked.
So even though some people have big dreams about how they want the site to work, it's ignorant of how it truly IS working.
Indeed, I too have seen this. Mob mentality at its worst.