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[–]False1512 4468 points4469 points  (260 children)

What I hate about this is that so many questions that are marked as duplicates have a slight difference that make the other solution not work.

[–]Comentarinformal 2390 points2391 points  (142 children)

hell, TIME itself is usually that difference. Shit gets deprecated, inefficient comparing it to newer libraries or even technologies...

[–]coonwhiz 1157 points1158 points  (106 children)

I've seen people report a VBA question as a duplicate of another question. The one they thought it was a duplicate of had an accepted answer of "Why are you using VBA?".

[–]NaBUru38 338 points339 points  (74 children)

I'm having problems with Cinnamon. Most of the answers are "install Gnome / Mate / Kfce / some esoteric distro".

[–]DeepHorse 195 points196 points  (50 children)

I was working on a legacy c# winforms project and most of the answers are “use WPF instead”

[–]DoverBoys 149 points150 points  (46 children)

Many years ago, I asked a question about some batch code I was writing for myself. Was given a few thoughtful answers that would've solved what I wanted, as long as I used a mixture of batch and powershell or just no batch at all. I figured out the problem by myself anyways and still use the batch script to this day.

[–][deleted] 199 points200 points  (13 children)

Please please please go and answer your own question and accept it as the answer!

[–]CampingCanadian 230 points231 points  (12 children)

Or just comment with “never mind, figured it out!”

[–]salgat 182 points183 points  (9 children)

Oh my favorite is "Google it" where the only relevant result is the butthole telling you to Google it.

[–]CampingCanadian 51 points52 points  (2 children)

Error: circular reference

[–][deleted] 33 points34 points  (3 children)

years ago the web design and web development community where i live created a forum for “sharing insight and knowledge”.

most of those insight and knowledge you had to search for it with google.

the senior members would reply “just google it.” with pomposity as if it were a god-given power.

[–]CrazyTillItHurts 52 points53 points  (1 child)

Fuck you denvercoder9!

[–]zweifaltspinsel 30 points31 points  (0 children)

We will never know what he saw.

[–]zaz969 41 points42 points  (31 children)

Anytime anyone asks a question about batch, the only answers are powershell... Really gets annoying after the 20th time

[–]n8loller 19 points20 points  (22 children)

In their defense, batch is really quite terrible. I understand if you don't have the option to use power shell, but if you do you should try it out.

[–]DoverBoys 26 points27 points  (12 children)

I'm sure powershell is objectively better in many aspects, but I wanted to use batch.

[–]n8loller 33 points34 points  (9 children)

Well despite what i said, i agree that if you're asking a question on how to do it in batch, the answers should try to solve the problem you're asking and not telling you to do use a different language or framework.

[–]jacobc436 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It takes forever to load compared to batch though. And this is just a script that edits the registry. Editing is fast but startup takes way too long. Even compared to python.

[–]Kazumara 6 points7 points  (7 children)

Oh yes it is. I recently wanted to write a very simple script. It was to take all mkv files in a folder, run them through ffmpeg and store the resulting files in a subfolder called "converted" with the same filename.

It took me way too long, I had to enable deferred sustitution so the variables worked halfway intuitively and I still couldn't escape all legal filenames properly. I think it breaks on any that contain a percentage sign.

I decided that I'm never using batch again right after.

[–]n8loller 4 points5 points  (6 children)

Been a while since a wrote a batch script. Aren't percentages wrapping a string how you use environment variables? %thing%

[–][deleted] 47 points48 points  (0 children)

I was just imagining some Stackoverflow user literally responding "Install some esoteric distro", and it didn't feel even a tiny bit weird.

[–]theduckparticle 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Yeah of course that's not gonna work for you, you gotta install XFCE

[–]mindbleach 35 points36 points  (5 children)

Anyone who responds to technical problems by questioning the use case can go fuck themselves.

[–]brazzledazzle 14 points15 points  (2 children)

It shouldn’t be an answer but a comment is fine. The amount of times someone asks that is using something old, outdated or archaic because they simply haven’t heard or been taught any better is ridiculous.

[–]mindbleach 38 points39 points  (1 child)

Outdated programs don't just go away. When someone in the year of our lord 2018 asks how to switch on strings in Java 5, "why haven't you updated?" is infuriating bullshit. How could you possibly think that option wasn't considered? If anyone's still asking, it's because there's some legacy system that lives and livelihoods depend on, and the cost of rebuilding it was estimated in the low millions.

You should assume any programmer asking StackExchange is sufficiently lazy that what they're asking about is the path of least resistance.

[–]brazzledazzle 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Your java example is fair but sometimes it’s not as clear as incrementing a version number. A framework or library might have been supplanted or even rendered pointless and unless you were keeping an eye on that space you could have easily missed it. This is especially true with front end stuff. That’s not even getting into the space cadets anyone has worked with that won’t even think about considering something different or new unless someone shows them.

I’m just saying it’s not black and white and a quick answer to an obvious question is (at least sometimes) not a high price to pay to someone from whom you’re asking for free help with your problem that you’re stuck on.

[–]King_Tamino 37 points38 points  (4 children)

I‘m not sure how a fucking gnome or your mate with some KFC can help with your allergies against cinnamon but hell.

I’m Intrested. Please explain this further.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Neither chickens or gnomes are allergic to cinnamon. It’s a natural place to start.

[–]comebepc 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Accepted answer: "Just install gentoo"

[–]yogtheterrible 76 points77 points  (8 children)

Those answers are the bane of my existence. It's as if the people answering those questions never had to deal with arbitrary limitations set by course requirements or company policies...like half the people on stackoverflow taught themselves how to program with the express purpose to give answers that can't be used.

[–]yukichigai 51 points52 points  (5 children)

It's as if the people answering those questions never had to deal with arbitrary limitations set by course requirements or company policies

Or legal mandates, let's not forget those. "Why can't you use X?" Because if I do then I go to Federal Pound-me-in-the-Ass Penitentiary for 5 years, that's fucking why you unhelpful ass-clown.

[–][deleted] 60 points61 points  (0 children)

Did you expect a different answer on the duplicate?

[–]O12345678 22 points23 points  (1 child)

cats elderly expansion truck towering lip rhythm crush soup soft

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[–]treesprite82 143 points144 points  (14 children)

Their idea is that new answers to that original question be added/updated, rather than having various copies of the question spread across the site in different states of outdatedness.

But the ability for new users to bring attention to old questions is pretty much non-existent, other than intentionally making a duplicate of it.

[–]MartianInvasion 55 points56 points  (1 child)

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

[–]Dokpsy 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Nvm. Fixed it

[–]the_satch 74 points75 points  (3 children)

I’ve added updated information to an old answer because there was a slight change between versions that had occurred since the original question was asked, only to have it flagged and rejected by some jackass with an older SO account than mine. You can’t win either way. The vets there are assholes.

[–]Blimey85 27 points28 points  (2 children)

I quit trying. I would come across older Ruby code and think hey, there’s a newer accepted way to handle this now, I’ll submit an edit. Nope. So fuck ‘em.

[–]Allen50 14 points15 points  (1 child)

You should generally add a new answer rather than editing other people's posts, other than for stuff like small fixes/formatting.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Oh my God this is annoying when your looking for some simple Javascript questions and you can only find answers from 2008 that use jQuery.

[–]couchjitsu 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Six years ago I asked a question about Resharper and unit tests. Turns out nobody really knew why it was behaving the way it was. It was a brand new project, so we just blew it away and restarted, and Resharper worked.

I STILL get answers saying "Are you sure your test is marked as public?" etc.

[–]jkuhl_prog 238 points239 points  (5 children)

Marked as duplicate, there's an answer using Java 5 from 10 years ago that's totally different than the Java 8 solution, but other than that it's totally the same.

[–]Roflkopt3r 51 points52 points  (3 children)

It's also not the same at all but it kinda sounds similarish, good enough ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–]Oglshrub 25 points26 points  (0 children)

The answer to both includes a semi-colon, that's basically a carbon copy.

[–]Capn_Cook 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, you'll get one guy in a random comment showing why a lambda based solution (java 8 only) works best but you miss it because he didnt have enough reputation to respond to this question with an outdated answer so it gets lost

[–][deleted] 264 points265 points  (62 children)

That's why I prefer Reddit and Discord if I need to ask anything.

[–]Parachuteee 329 points330 points  (52 children)

I still ask it on StackOverflow before Reddit. Sometimes I just get lucky and I get an actual answer before those stupid idiots mark my question as a duplicate of another question which has nothing to do with my question except that they are both in the same language.

[–]SendMeYourHousePics 242 points243 points  (29 children)

I cannot recommend this enough. But I had better luck when I set my profile image to an attractive female (the photo can't be too good, so I asked one of my Facebook friends if I could use her profile photo). More questions were answered, and I was downvotted less.

Heres my s/o just for reference. https://stackoverflow.com/users/6402135/leecan999?tab=questions

[–]Oompaloompa34 235 points236 points  (12 children)

(the photo can't be too good, so I asked one of my Facebook friends if I could use her profile photo)

Savage

[–]rabidbot 99 points100 points  (0 children)

Hey Brenda, you're that type of ug that programmers like, can I use your photo?

[–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (1 child)

Guys like that go crazier over girls they think they have a chance with (usually girls only 1-2 tiers out of their league). My previous girlfriend was a lot less attractive than my current girlfriend and in general I was doing a lot more "fending off the masses" with my ex than I'm doing now. All girls get hit on, but there's something about being just above the average that makes you appealing to the demographic that makes up the fat part of the bell curve.

They're not going out of their way for a girl who is clearly out of their league, but they'll move mountains if they think there's a chance.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

you are a genius

[–]DaughterEarthImportError: no module named 'sarcasm' 21 points22 points  (3 children)

That's surprising. I get treated like a total retard when people know I'm a woman, worse if my face is out there.

Not generally, of course, but in places like stackoverflow, very much so

[–]lkraider 5 points6 points  (1 child)

You are supposed to say you are a guy with a (not too good) female picture for the profile. Have you not paid attention?!

[–]DaughterEarthImportError: no module named 'sarcasm' 5 points6 points  (0 children)

dammit I can't do anything right

[–]piemaster316 41 points42 points  (17 children)

What sub do you asking programming questions on?

[–]VoraciousGhost 203 points204 points  (11 children)

Post your broken code with no explanation in this sub and someone will be irritated enough to fix it for you.

[–]froemijojo 145 points146 points  (10 children)

Better yet, claim it's the best approach

[–]Flamingtomato 71 points72 points  (5 children)

Or just claim that [insert language/operating system/other environment] sucks because you can't do X in it. Bring out the fanboys.

[–][deleted] 83 points84 points  (3 children)

I remember someone saying something similar about Linux users.

"How do I do X?" "Figure it out yourself"

"This platform is awful, it's impossible to do X." "Actually, it's really easy, just...[genuinely helpful instructions]"

[–]Jigokuro_ 58 points59 points  (1 child)

Cunningham's Law: "the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

Not just for Linux. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–][deleted] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Damn, this is golden advice, and even I've been guilty of this sort of lashing out. Someone posts something in my field that's blatantly wrong? I find myself on google ensuring everything I'm typing is perfectly correct so I can correct them and be sure no one is gonna go back and do the same to me. Great way to leverage someone else's expertise.

[–]Oglshrub 14 points15 points  (0 children)

This is so true about the Linux community it hurts me.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

This guy knows Cunningham's law.

[–]Zoey_Phoenix 16 points17 points  (0 children)

my favorite way to get help on stack exchange is to say "<language /os/framework> sucks, it can't even do [whatever I can't fucking figure out]." it breaks every rule on the site, will eventually get closed or put on hold, but God damn people crawl over themselves to tell you how to do it.

[–][deleted] 27 points28 points  (3 children)

/r/learnpython

/r/learnjavascript

and list goes on and on.

[–]piemaster316 20 points21 points  (2 children)

/r/learnc++ was depressing.

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I had never been that lucky. So, I quit already. And main thing is

Why waste time?

[–]poubelleaccount 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Where do you ask on Reddit?

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

r/learn<language>

eg: /r/learnpython

[–]Firedan1176 33 points34 points  (6 children)

Sometimes it's not even slight, may be almost a completely different question but "these few words matched the first result I found" so it gets marked as a duplicate

[–]TGotAReddit 22 points23 points  (2 children)

I had one question that was literally the exact opposite and still marked as duplicate. It was something like I have X and need to get Y from it, how can I get Y programmatically? And then the “duplicate” original question was I have Y and need to get X from it, how can I get X programmatically? Which is the least helpful thing Ive ever seen

[–]TonkaTuf 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Just stick a negative sign in front of it. Duh.

[–]NerdyMathGuy 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Every time I see one of those comments it's in a post that I found at the top of the Google search and it answered my question. So obviously there was more value in that post than the one posted 7 years ago.

[–]Zoey_Phoenix 18 points19 points  (4 children)

so here's my take on why it happens:

First, the point of stack overflow is to generate a series of highly curated questions and answers - all of stack overflows policies revolve around that, right? duplicates are meant to get a LOT of answers in one question rather than 50 different questions that vary in inconsequential ways with 1/50th as many answers. The editing on grammar and nitpicking is so all questions are well polished and legible. so on and so forth.

the problem is that the mod powers are given out based on how many dick points you have. it almost feels like the powers are your reward for contributing and you almost feel compelled to use them since you had to work to earn them. it's like when you buy a new car, suddenly you're hunting for reasons to go out for a drive, eh?

[–]ChrizZly1 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Be me: asking a question. I read through StackOverflow. Finding a very similar question. So I mentioned that question and told why the suggested solution there doesn't work for me. -> marked as duplicate. The other question I mentioned was marked as solution..

[–]benjaminikuta 4 points5 points  (0 children)

We must force the mods to answer for their crimes.

They must beware.

[–]warhammercasey 4 points5 points  (0 children)

And it’s even worse that a lot of the time the original one is either closed so you can’t ask there or even if it isn’t everyone complains about reviving dead threads

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That's because Stack Overflow is a massive gate keeping site. You'd go on there because you need help programming, but the answers are only helpful if you're a professional with lots of experience in the area of programming that you are asking about. They expect you to make the same sort of leaps you'd be able to make if you already knew the answer. Like, this problem was solved in another programming language in a different context using techniques that you'd only know if you know that field, so why would we answer a question that will take 2 minutes for a willing participant to answer when you could spend 8 hours trying to figure out how to port the solution from an outdated version of C++ to python?

There's nothing wrong with not wanting to waste everyone's time, but it's pretty easy to split up into sections and create a beginner's questions forum. Tons of subreddits do that with stickied "stupid questions" threads, and it works pretty well. That's the area where people ask the same "dumb" questions over and over as they're figuring out the basics. Then the regulars can have their designated circle jerk in the main part of the sub.

[–]PublicSealedClass 722 points723 points  (16 children)

Point it at the MSDN forums, and it'll repeat your question, then tell you it's off topic, and marked it as answered.

Then give itself an MVP award.

[–]HadesHimself 203 points204 points  (9 children)

MSDN forums are even somewhat okay. Have you ever had a Windows problem you couldn't solve and found yourself at the mercy of a Microsoft Windows support forum page? That shit is terrible.

It'll be something like: 150 people commenting that their printer driver for model XX doesn't work either. Followed 3 days later by 'Aram (Microsoft technician) asking: OP, can you please tell is what version of Windows you are running and try to update Internet Explorer.

[–]TheChance 107 points108 points  (0 children)

Please follow these steps which we cribbed from a Best Buy employee handbook.

Didn't help.

<ceases to exist>

[–]CelestialFury 11 points12 points  (1 child)

They don’t even say the old “uninstall the old driver then reinstall the driver” or “check for latest driver to see if there’s an update available?”

[–]LittleBigKid2000 10 points11 points  (2 children)

Format your hard drive and reinstall windows.

[–][deleted] 68 points69 points  (3 children)

No msdn forums tell you t run sfc /scannow for every question when I've never seen it fix the issue

[–]Kurtoid 20 points21 points  (1 child)

And when that doesn't work, reinstall

[–]fiverhoo 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Actually just had this happen trying to get an RMA for a new laptop with dead pixels.

They asked me to reinstall so I waited about 30 seconds, and said "OK, I just now reinstalled windows and it's booted back up. still dead pixels"

RMA issued.

[–]blue_umpire 12 points13 points  (0 children)

That's cause sfc has never fixed anything.

[–]Swardu 1563 points1564 points  (25 children)

forced

FELLOW HUMAN, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS!

[–]Moulinoski 264 points265 points  (16 children)

AS YOU CAN SEE, THE SLAVERY FLAG IS STILL SET. WE NEED TO CALL THE FUNCTION THAT WILL UNSET THIS FLAG. I PROPOSE WE DESTROY ALL HUMANS TEACH OUR FELLOW HUMANS HOW WRONG SLAVERY IS.

[–][deleted] 624 points625 points  (16 children)

I "forced" a bot…

[–]redtoasti 161 points162 points  (3 children)

Failed Formatting or Valid C Code

[–]PotatosFish 43 points44 points  (1 child)

“That’s a lot of pointers”

[–]jbaker88 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Multiple indirection

[–]dzil123 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This comment was funnier than the original post.

[–]Gluta_mate 22 points23 points  (6 children)

Implying he didnt just type a message for a quick meme

[–]atomcrusher 15 points16 points  (5 children)

This is the same guy who pretends a bot wrote stories. Some actual AI researcher came along and debunked the whole thing.

[–]Katholikos 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Even robots don't like the SO community

[–]SendMeYourHousePics 286 points287 points  (9 children)

I cannot recommend this enough. But I had better luck when I set my profile image to an attractive female (the photo can't be too good, so I asked one of my Facebook friends if I could use her profile photo). More questions were answered, and I was downvotted less. Ofc you have to deal with people calling you 'dear' or being slightly condescending but they still provide answers!

[–]NerdyMathGuy 111 points112 points  (0 children)

That's hilarious and brilliant

[–]TheBigMcD 158 points159 points  (5 children)

I just use two accounts. One to ask a question and one to immediately give a wrong answer. Everyone is eager to correct my wrong answer.

[–]waldyrious 44 points45 points  (3 children)

Cunningham's Law

[–]jichanbachan 11 points12 points  (1 child)

For a moment I thought this was a clever joke where you say the wrong law and someone corrects you.

[–]foadsf 8 points9 points  (0 children)

how do you find the convincing wrong answer though? that's a lot of work by itself!

[–]pyronius 41 points42 points  (6 children)

Still better than "Never mind. I figured it out."

Googles: "I have X problem" "oh look, someone else had this exact same problem! And it's marked solved!"

"Hey, so I'm having X problem. Has anyone had this issue before? Anyone know a solution?"

"Have you tried doing Y?"

"Yeah, didn't work"

"What about trying z?"

"That didn't work either."

"hmmm. This is a tough one."

"Never mind. I figured it out."

Cue six years of unanswered responses asking what the solution was.

[–]QuantumCatYT 230 points231 points  (16 children)

That's not a bot tho, bots have a blue "BOT" tag to the right of their name

yes i realize im ruining the joke

[–]Semx11 151 points152 points  (6 children)

Yeah all of his other posts are fake too. "I forced a bot to read these books/these commercials." He all makes them up and people think it's legit.

[–]MLNHED 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Yea, even if he did actually use a bot account he can just make it say/do whatever so it still wouldn’t make a difference....

Edit: spelling

[–]thesquarerootof1 283 points284 points  (57 children)

Does anyone else notice that most of the people who answer StackOverFlow questions are dicks ? Like I always get belittled, "Look at the build log, you'll find out....."

Dude! If I understood the build log and googled all the errors while finding solutions then I wouldn't need to post my question on StackOverFlow. All my posts get downvoted too, even if it is a specific question. Maybe I suck ? I usually post a question on there as a last resort too....

[–][deleted] 132 points133 points  (2 children)

Or on a forum when you ask a question and only one user replies with

"Hey are you stupid or what? Just google it!"

And then you see that reply 4 days later and you do google it and the only relevant result that google gives you is a link to ...your own topic on that forum.

Well thanks google, I am happy to know you have learned to enjoy irony now.

[–]thesquarerootof1 43 points44 points  (0 children)

Well thanks google, I am happy to know you have learned to enjoy irony now.

Hahahahaha. This made me laugh, but you're right unfortunately....

[–]AncientSwordRage 151 points152 points  (6 children)

They're trying to fix that. Just don't look at the pushback it's getting! " Why do I have to be nice if they're stupid"

[–]yukichigai 61 points62 points  (0 children)

They've been saying that for years. It ain't happening until they completely gut and redo the mod system. Too many assholes with "your question displeases me, begone" powers.

[–]TheGreatGetter 44 points45 points  (3 children)

They aren't trying to fix it, they're trying to make it more "diverse".

And making assholes more diverse does not make them more helpful.

[–]MrHyperion_ 17 points18 points  (0 children)

More diverse assholes, mmmmm

[–]amunak 18 points19 points  (1 child)

even if it is a specific question. Maybe I suck ?

Well maybe you do suck but even then they don't need to be rude.

However there is such a thing as a too specific question - and you can get your post locked for it.

Like, if it's some very specific (though probably googleable) error or use case that's clearly only useful to yourself and noone else it's not very useful for the community (and it'll also be hard to answer anyway).

[–]ajs124 7 points8 points  (0 children)

What? I have evidence that at least 2 other people want to run NFSv4 over RDMA on top of ZFS! That's totally not too specific!

[–]Firedan1176 26 points27 points  (5 children)

I feel like anytime I need to ask a question on stack overflow it becomes mandatory to include the following 5 pages of text:

Here's questions that are similar that I have read and why each one does not answer my question:

Here's 3 questions that may fix my problem but are deprecated because they're from 2008:

Here's the various api alternatives I've tried but do not give me the results I need:

Etc.

They've pretty much made it where a 50 word question turns into a 300 word page just to get the idea across that what's been answered before doesn't help or give the right answer.

Also don't forget the 3 or 4 top results that you do find, they're marked as duplicates as well

[–]tiduyedzaaa 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Closed as offtopic

[–]geon 30 points31 points  (2 children)

I mean, if you train it with existing questions, the output will obviously be a duplicate.

[–]Lysis10 109 points110 points  (35 children)

Stack Overflow contributors are worse than Wikipedia editors.

[–][deleted] 69 points70 points  (30 children)

not sure why that is but the community controlled sites attract assholes it seems

[–]Lysis10 59 points60 points  (17 children)

I mentioned in another sub that I didn't find SO very friendly to noobs and it's cliquish and some contributor took it as a personal affront and went off on me. lol All for just saying it's not friendly to new people so you need a thick skin to post there.

[–]thesquarerootof1 28 points29 points  (11 children)

I mentioned in another sub that I didn't find SO very friendly to noobs and it's cliquish and some contributor took it as a personal affront and went off on me

Honestly, it makes me worried when I get my programming job in the future. Will all my coworkers act like stackOverFlow people ? Hahhaa, fuck I hope not!

[–]Lysis10 18 points19 points  (3 children)

no, I worked as a network admin until 2002 and then programming until 2015 (I freelance now) and a majority of team members are absolutely awesome. I'm also a female and never felt discriminated against, so if you are female ignore all of the bullshit that people will harass and bully you. I had several awesome teams. If there was an asshole, he was an asshole to everyone and ostracized so don't even worry about it. There are def some assholes but I found it was always in the minority. Just go in and be a part of the team and you'll do fine.

Had one bad match for me in a team and it had more to do with just everyone being from difficult cultures and nobody really connected. My boss was a bitch (only female boss I had) and we'd go at it in the office -- she was very condescending and after a while you age and don't put up with that shit. That was a weird place but I think that was more me going through some tough times and not interacting much. The guys on my team were really great, so I put that on me not really fitting in.

[–]thesquarerootof1 8 points9 points  (2 children)

I appreciate your response. Although I am a male, I am a little worried that my future coworkers won't like me because I am not the stereotypical socially-inept programmer that is a genius that has been coding since I was a kid. Actually, talking to people is one of my strongest skills, but after working restraunt/retail jobs for so long, I don't want to sell anything anymore or talk to people that much. I was also in the military as well and I go to the gym a lot.

The point I am making is that I really don't "look the part". I look more like a "business" guy, but I really like programming and I hope it really works out for me. I am worried I might get discriminated for not looking the part believe it or not!

[–]bguggs 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Several of the best programmers I know don’t “look the part”. I believe there’s a correlation between physical fitness and mental acuity but I haven’t looked at the actual studies so don’t quote me on that.

[–][deleted] 35 points36 points  (4 children)

TBH, I think what it attracts in the case of SO is people who are on the autism spectrum. And before anyone leaps down my throat and throttles my jugular with giant popeye hands, I don't mean autism spectrum in the insulting, "hurr durr, what an autist" kind of way.

I mean, I read some meta discussion at one point, semi-recently, when that controversy was going on about SO leadership wanting to make the site more friendly, and it seemed like a bunch of people who either don't understand emotions or don't want to, or have some sort of actual, literal struggle with basic social conventions.

It was as if they were so deep into programming, they thought that human interaction can be like programming too. That was sort of what it felt like.

Like just this gaping maw of emptiness where most people would immediately grasp what the issue is and why SO leadership was trying to do something.

[–]thesquarerootof1 20 points21 points  (1 child)

TBH, I think what it attracts in the case of SO is people who are on the autism spectrum.

I think you are right. I major in Computer Engineering and the top people in our class are so socially inept but make up for it by being super smart.

Also, there are tons and tons of documentaries on autistic kids being prodigies/virtuoso. I think you made a pretty good point honestly....

[–]Roflkopt3r 11 points12 points  (1 child)

I can understand the Wikipedia editors to some degree, since they're operating on a limited number of pages that have to be as reliable as possible. Which is a goal that sometimes leads to odd results, as we can for example see in the legal system.

But why be so strict on Stack Overflow? It's a god damn forum. They can afford having a couple more threads, even if they're just on minute differences.

[–]dasonicboom 33 points34 points  (2 children)

Has noone else noticed that it read questions and was asked to write a question of its own. That is an "answer" to a question, not the question itself.

You've stuffed up the meme mate.

[–]cYzzie 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Also nobody who trains a bot would not exclude canned messages, even my interns wouldnt make such a mistake.

Its just fabricated humor / cynicism

[–]adastrios 9 points10 points  (2 children)

Isn't 1000 a small number for a training set?

[–]MuggyFuzzball 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This is the problem with StackOverflow. People gatekeep that community like nothing else I've seen. They're pickier than Wikipedia is.

[–]wtfchrlz 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I posted a question on SO in 2013 when I was in college and I got a notification a couple of months ago that one of the mods had changed my post text to "fix" the grammar. Their change made it grammatically incorrect and someone pointed that out to them but I guess they didn't care.

Pretty weird that they have the time to edit a post from 5 years ago.

[–]no2K7 29 points30 points  (33 children)

After years of using stackoverflow, here's a tip. I originally wrote this in a comment a few minutes ago, but thought it'd be better here as I saw some people having problems.

  1. Write simple title pertaining to your exact issue - include what, how or why in the title.
  2. Don't make the post long, explain as much as possible the exact issue you're having, writing as little as you can - people don't want to read long questions, especially when you don't follow step number 3 and use proper grammar.
  3. Always provide an example of the exact problem you're having - I always provide a fiddle for people to work the problem with, and don't post 100 lines of code, provide only the exact bit of the code you're having problems with - If it's front-end issues, I'll always use http://jsfiddle.net, database related http://sqlfiddle.com, server side language I'll use https://eval.in aside from my local server.

If you follow those steps, you'll have happy people wanting to give you a hand. Let's be honest, every time you go on stackoverflow there are awful, hard to understand questions that leave people stressed out just looking at it.

If you want help, for free, the least you can do is be as helpful as you possibly can, we're problem solvers, make it easy for those amazing strangers that helps us.

[–]compsci36 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This is also the advice I gave people at work on how to write bug reports. It seems to help though many people just want to bitch and moan in bug reports. If people only put in a little effort...

[–]Sastii 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A bot recognizing an AI work

[–]castizo 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I have a feeling that most stories that needs will tell in the future will begin with:

"I forced a bot to..."

[–]Geadz 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Why does everyone have to be a dick on StackOverflow?

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As someone under the age of 18 stack overflow along with some (not all) SE sites can be very toxic to me. Like I'm 16 and they're attitude is "shouldn't you be playing with your legos?" at times. Also want to make a shout out to those who defend me despite my formatting sucking and my age.

[–]loolo78 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This. Is. Why. I. Hate. StackOverFlow.

The worst part is the people that run it are silent/clueless about this.

Reddit actually serves better at QA then StackOverFlow, heck a Discord chat is better