It hasn’t personally happened to me but I constantly see examples when reading through threads of other users who had the same question before me.
Though, constructive criticism can be welcome. Words matter, though, and there’s a fine line between offering advice and being a pretentious asshole because you may know more than me about a given topic. To me, the rule that matters above all is “Don’t be a dick.” If all parties enter the conversation with that as the golden rule guiding discourse, the outcome is usually positive — at least certainly not negative.
Graduated in Digital Media M.Sc. now developing the next generation of educational software. Since a while I develop full stack in Javascript using Meteor. Love fitness and Muay Thai after work.
I guess it's annoying by design. SE is not really a community space but more of a Wikipedia of questions and answers.
I also understand where that toxicity comes from. I've participated there for a while answering questions, and working through their moderation queue. Everything is just super pedantic there, and numbs your mind. You don't see people anymore, just content to criticize.
It really didn't fill me with happiness, so I stopped participating there a long while ago. Sometimes I still go there and try to to leave a helpful comment on new questions behind, shortly before they get closed.
On the flip side, when I google a problem, a Stackexchange post usually comes up first, and more often than not it contains a useful answer.
I asked a question and it was getting too long with explanations, because me and the other guy were discussing. I asked another SEPARATE question. The dude from previous question downvoted and I think he blocked my question?, because it was not publicly accessible and the dude had reputations.
I still get flashbacks when asking questions in SO.
As someone who answers a lot of questions on SO, it's very annoying when someone posts a pages-long question containing all of their sloppy code. If you try to whittle down your code to the bare minimum needed to reproduce the error, you often times find the error yourself. If not, you make it much easier for a stranger on the internet to volunteer their time to help fix your problem.
So many people come to SO with a sense of entitlement, as if people are sitting their being paid to evaluate their code and solve their problems.
I'm in the top 0.34% for rep gain this year and I can attest that what feels like a lecture is actually the review process in action. The people commenting aren't just randomly finding your question and deciding to scold you. Every user has their first question subjected to scrutiny. Quite often we initially have no idea what you're all talking about but, after several rounds of review and revision, maybe somebody who does will see your (now well formatted) question and answer it. Sometimes this isn't a quick process. You may have to wait until someone with the same problem and more determination figures it out and shares their solution. The goal of the site is to be a canonical resource for knowledge, not a magic mirror able to instantly produce an answer to any question.
It's expected that you have heavily researched your issue before asking a question. Quite often, there is already an answer available. Closing your question is the expected outcome in this case. It's not meant as a punishment, but rather prevents fragmenting of the knowledge on the subject. Your question remains in the system but links back to the existing thread so the answers all stay together.
There are definitely some reviewers who are bit heavy handed with the downvotes, but I personally only do so when it's really appropriate. Like if a user with several thousand rep does something obviously noobish. They should know better and I don't feel bad for them. I cut new users a little slack though, if your question needs improvement I'll try and polish it up a bit. If I can answer it, I will. But unless your question has not been asked before and shows real effort to solve it yourself, you're not getting an upvote from me.
The site is completely self moderated. Every reviewer has their own agenda. Some do it for rep, some do it just to be helpful, others are tasked by their employer to monitor certain tags. Whatever the motivation, we all have our own stuff to do. And all the legwork solving your problem isn't it. Sometimes answering your own question is the only thing to do. You could save someone hours of trouble and gain yourself some rep in the process or at least have a quick reference for the future. And if you can't come up with a solution, then maybe your research will help the next poor soul who stumbles into your predicament.
If you're just learning to be a developer then Stack Overflow isn't going to be gentle mentor. There is tons of knowledge there but nobody will hold your hand and lead you to it. If you're lucky you'll get shoved in the right direction.
If you're a professional dev and are expecting someone to sort out your mess for you, then you better offer a bounty. Either that or hire a contractor to get the job done right.
I've answered 83 questions on SO and only asked 9. Out of those 9, I ended up answering 3 questions myself as nobody posted any useful answer and I had to figure them out myself.
Dedicated Full Stack Developer adept in web technologies, UI design, database management, content writing, and proofreading for robust, user-centric solutions.
Location
Ahmedabad, India
Education
In 2022, I completed my Computer Engineering(BE) from Ipcowala Institute of Engineering & Technology
Work
I completed my Django Internship in August Infotech, for 6 months
I am a Full Stack Javascript Engineer with robust problem-solving skills and proven experience in creating and designing web apps in a test driven environment and deploy them to cloud servers.
I'm curious; has this ever actually happened to anyone here? And if so, what was the question?
I never ask something myself. I look for some similar question. Cracks my head every time I see a comment teaching how to ask. Its pretty common.
But do you see those comments under good questions, or under bad ones?
If the search for knowledge is the intent, is there really a bad question?
Maybe TL/DR but someone may find this helpful…
It hasn’t personally happened to me but I constantly see examples when reading through threads of other users who had the same question before me.
Though, constructive criticism can be welcome. Words matter, though, and there’s a fine line between offering advice and being a pretentious asshole because you may know more than me about a given topic. To me, the rule that matters above all is “Don’t be a dick.” If all parties enter the conversation with that as the golden rule guiding discourse, the outcome is usually positive — at least certainly not negative.
Happened to me often on software engineering space on stack exchange. These people are so annoying 😠
I guess it's annoying by design. SE is not really a community space but more of a Wikipedia of questions and answers.
I also understand where that toxicity comes from. I've participated there for a while answering questions, and working through their moderation queue. Everything is just super pedantic there, and numbs your mind. You don't see people anymore, just content to criticize.
It really didn't fill me with happiness, so I stopped participating there a long while ago. Sometimes I still go there and try to to leave a helpful comment on new questions behind, shortly before they get closed.
On the flip side, when I google a problem, a Stackexchange post usually comes up first, and more often than not it contains a useful answer.
I asked a question and it was getting too long with explanations, because me and the other guy were discussing. I asked another SEPARATE question. The dude from previous question downvoted and I think he blocked my question?, because it was not publicly accessible and the dude had reputations.
I still get flashbacks when asking questions in SO.
As someone who answers a lot of questions on SO, it's very annoying when someone posts a pages-long question containing all of their sloppy code. If you try to whittle down your code to the bare minimum needed to reproduce the error, you often times find the error yourself. If not, you make it much easier for a stranger on the internet to volunteer their time to help fix your problem.
So many people come to SO with a sense of entitlement, as if people are sitting their being paid to evaluate their code and solve their problems.
I'm in the top 0.34% for rep gain this year and I can attest that what feels like a lecture is actually the review process in action. The people commenting aren't just randomly finding your question and deciding to scold you. Every user has their first question subjected to scrutiny. Quite often we initially have no idea what you're all talking about but, after several rounds of review and revision, maybe somebody who does will see your (now well formatted) question and answer it. Sometimes this isn't a quick process. You may have to wait until someone with the same problem and more determination figures it out and shares their solution. The goal of the site is to be a canonical resource for knowledge, not a magic mirror able to instantly produce an answer to any question.
It's expected that you have heavily researched your issue before asking a question. Quite often, there is already an answer available. Closing your question is the expected outcome in this case. It's not meant as a punishment, but rather prevents fragmenting of the knowledge on the subject. Your question remains in the system but links back to the existing thread so the answers all stay together.
There are definitely some reviewers who are bit heavy handed with the downvotes, but I personally only do so when it's really appropriate. Like if a user with several thousand rep does something obviously noobish. They should know better and I don't feel bad for them. I cut new users a little slack though, if your question needs improvement I'll try and polish it up a bit. If I can answer it, I will. But unless your question has not been asked before and shows real effort to solve it yourself, you're not getting an upvote from me.
The site is completely self moderated. Every reviewer has their own agenda. Some do it for rep, some do it just to be helpful, others are tasked by their employer to monitor certain tags. Whatever the motivation, we all have our own stuff to do. And all the legwork solving your problem isn't it. Sometimes answering your own question is the only thing to do. You could save someone hours of trouble and gain yourself some rep in the process or at least have a quick reference for the future. And if you can't come up with a solution, then maybe your research will help the next poor soul who stumbles into your predicament.
If you're just learning to be a developer then Stack Overflow isn't going to be gentle mentor. There is tons of knowledge there but nobody will hold your hand and lead you to it. If you're lucky you'll get shoved in the right direction.
If you're a professional dev and are expecting someone to sort out your mess for you, then you better offer a bounty. Either that or hire a contractor to get the job done right.
I've answered 83 questions on SO and only asked 9. Out of those 9, I ended up answering 3 questions myself as nobody posted any useful answer and I had to figure them out myself.
That sounds more like a typical SO experience xD
I can't even post the question 😭 on the stack overflow
Well, you can get the FAT MINUS without any lecture)))
I have never posted a question on stackoverflow just because of this meme XD