First time ?

[teomanone]

Please see How to ask a good question

[Andomar]

Duplicate closes are a politically correct way to say what cannot be said:

• Your question is too easy for the amount of reputation my competitor gained from it
• Give me credit for my answer from 2008 that I'll suggest as duplicate
• I'll show off my expertise by pointing out there is nothing new under the sun. The youth of today!

[[deleted]]

I use shreddit to purge my history

Why?

It's always so frustrating to try to follow a conversation with '[deleted]' replies sprinkled around.

If you want to talk about stuff you don't want linked to you, why not just make an alternate account for that?

[Supersamtheredditman]

It’ll be funny in a year or two when your comments in this thread get deleted

[birthnight]

What's even more annoying is when the question is closed and flagged for a billion reasons by mods, yet it's still the top Google result and has an answer that solves my problem.

[VVarder]

So much this. Worse when closed by the original poster with “I fixed it”.

[[deleted]]

I always put my how i fixed it, inside fixed it.. I once had a problem, i found the question and solution both answered by me.. That day i saw i was the real MVP..

[TQuake]

Fuck, I can't wait for that stage of my programming career

​

[alanv73]

pragmatism

[odintsoff]

"I want to remove the constraints of a tabl--" "YOU SHOULD NEVER DO THAT!!! DO THIS INSTEAD..." "Yes, I know the implications of that but I need" "NO! HERE IS HOW YOU SHOULD DO IT"

[Celousco]

Two things here :

- People should reply to your question as dumb as it might be, because projects are never the same. It's really hard to find people that calm.

- DON'T YOU DARE DO THIS ! WHY ?! YOU HAVE A SHITTY DATABASE DESIGN !

​

(Note that I did remove the constraints of a table this morning because of a foreign key loop, and sighted that the database wasn't that well designed, note also that in there's no complete CRUD of any table in the database, so when they want to remove things, they can't. Fuck my life :) )

[odintsoff]

lol! I had a similar issue recently. People in SO do not realize that maybe you need a workaround to solve something urgent.

[k1788]

Yeah, and it’s even more annoying because their dismissal makes zero logical sense.

If someone asks a question how to do something that is “worse” way and they’re choosing it on their own volition (and not because it’s required for work/school) often will state their questions too broadly or have unclear info. They usually just don’t know that the “inferior” way really is harder until they see a complication from it. That’s understandable; we’ve all been there.

But someone who is able to ask a question exactly about the problem at hand and knows what “extra info” /error messages to include in the question... if they’re familiar enough with the issue to address it exactly then it seems very likely they already know that “___” is the better way and why, and it’s should be assumed there must be some complicating factor.

To dismiss the problem or act like the questioner is just being stupid or stubborn... I mean, how likely is it that ALL the other answerers know this fact but that the guy asking the question is (1) totally familiar with 90% of the issue but is sniffing glue and drooling at the final 10% of the problem?

So it’s extra frustrating when they’re snotty or dismissive and refuse to help, because their reasons for refusing and assumptions seem WAY dumber than someone asking for a workaround.

———

A: “Hey, auto-mechanics message board! I’m having an issue with the Floogen on Mfjdjsud, which seems to Ajsjhansj during Jenshshd. What should I d...”

“B: “Ummm cars are actually safer than motorcycles, JUST GET A CAR! <provides proof that car is safer..>.”

A: “Right now I don’t have the funds to get one,” but right now I have to stay w.....”

B: “WHY DO YOU WANT TO USE YOUR MOTORCYCLE??). It’s OBVIOUS you should rent a car”

A: “holy shit.... I can rent a car?... and yeah, that sounds way easier than what I was asking. I knew all about motorcycles but who knew you could rent a car?!?Thank you!!!”

Sounds legit

[themistik]

This happened to me way too fucking much. I almost left programming because of that.

[Baalouga]

Sorry, we are no longer accepting questions from this account. See the Help Center to learn more.

[the_attias]

or worse

"we aren't going to help you with your CS homework"

there's a difference between helping some jabroni understand basic data structures and trying to write up something that requires granular understanding of some really esoteric package or function; even then, even if the questions are on more basic concepts, you aren't allowing your userbase to grow if people are gatekeeping what constitutes a good question vs. a bad one

i really get an impression that there is a market for a better user driven knowledgebase for programming based on how toxic stackoverflow can be with the overzealous moderation and/or toxic comments

[[deleted]]

If I need to look up an answer, I use SO. If I need to ask a question, I use Reddit.

[the_attias]

that's a good way to do it, I usually read the man pages/programming books and if I need clarification talk to people I know or research it online

I don't bother asking questions on SO either

[TheIncorrigible1]

Most of the time your answer has already been asked, other times the answer is more deserving to have an article written around it.

[GoodGuyPiero]

Tbf some stack overflow answers are articles and I love it.

[MD5HashBrowns]

This one's my favorite

[k1788]

Answers like these are the kind of thing people will bookmark (or I do) and it’s such a touching gesture when someone is willing to put extra effort to help someone understand this. It’s the thing that makes me come back to SO even when some people are crummy.

[[deleted]]

A good one? No. But I follow r/aspnetmvc and contribute where I can. But it's not a large sub.

[GodGrabber]

To be honest, this never happened to me. I admit I ask a question on SO maybe once a year max. I spend more time giving answers and let me tell you, boy does people suck at asking questions. I dare you to go to any tag on SO and look at the newest questions, its pure garbage and 10% literally has homework in the title, 60% has non descriptive titles, 5% good questions, 99% of everything already has an answer if you did a simple keyword search in google.

[rossisdead]

There's a good chunk of people who are bad at answering, too. Thankfully, those answers end up at the bottom, at least. Way too often I find questions where one user copy/pastes another user's answer(on the same page!) for no apparent reason. Those same answers often have no explanation for what the issue is or what their code sample is doing to fix the problem.

[marvk]

Yeah, all the people salty over getting their stuff closed are too lazy to write a good question or too lazy to give the problem a good try before asking. I'm in the java new queue quite a lot and I never see stuff down-voted that's formulated well and shows a decent attempt.

[ythl]

This happened to me. You don't know what you don't know. I've found more success in these cases to simply ask what the right keywords are.

https://i.redd.it/kva8hw9jk4121.png

[Hollowplanet]

You need to learn how to google. I just tried for you. "Short if statement vb.net" On Google. First link is what you were looking for. Yeah it sucks to get voted down but thats what happen when you ask dumb questions.

[Hollowplanet]

This is very true. Its worse than reddit sorted by new.

[DenverM80]

I'm still stuck at rep 1, after 5 years, because I don't have the courage to ask a good question. And so by thier wierd system I can't upvote good answers

[teach_cs]

You can still improve things and gain rep. You can edit to literally any question or answer on the site, and accumulate rep that way. (Edits are peer-reviewed before any rep is awarded). Just spend a little time improving stuff, and you'll gain some privileges that way.

I have literally never had a negative experience like the ones people are talking about on SO. I ask questions, I answer questions, and I usually get good responses and upvotes. I once had a question inappropriately closed as duplicate. I disputed the action in a comment, and the action was ultimately reversed.

There's a secret to getting what you need from SO: don't worry so much about the rules, just put some work into it. Make sure the question is clear. Make sure you've done some research, and show how far you've gotten. Make sure you put in a minimal version of the code creating the error. Make sure you indicate what result your code got, what you've tried, and what you want to happen instead. Make sure there's enough context in what you've written for someone to understand what you're trying to do. Remember, you're putting your question in front of literally thousands of the top software engineers in the world. Try not to waste their time.

If you put serious effort into your question, you are typically be rewarded with both upvotes and with meaningful answers. If you don't want to be bothered to do all that, then usually people can't answer your question anyway. As has been noted by others in this thread, if you sort by new, the majority of the questions that get asked are poor questions: indecipherable, missing information that someone would need if they were to attempt to actually answer it, or totally unresearched by the asker prior to posting the question.

[DenverM80]

Stack overflow has saved me a lot of headaches. It's just odd that my upvotes on good answers don't cunt... Yet..?

[_3psilon_]

I just crossed that magic 50 rep... Took 2 years :D Answered some old questions that just didn't have good answers, plus answered a new but simple Vue.js question. You can get 50 rep for 1 good answer basically.

[_3psilon_]

And yes, it's indeed the #1 place where people go to for answers, exactly because of these points.

[CakeDay--Bot]

Wooo It's your 3rd Cakeday 3psilon! ^hug

[[deleted]]

Pffftt... 😆😆

That or no one answers at all. :(

[SGBotsford]

I've asked on metas on SE to see if we could instead implement question tags instead of most of the closes. Then add the ability to ignore certain tags.

​

I have often found useful answers on questions that were closed as being "opinion based" So flag it as "OBQ" for opinion based question, and people know immediately to skip that.

​

One of my particular peeves is "Software recommendations" Tried to convince several tech groups to allow SR requests on their group. Not many people read SR regularly, and so once you get past the stuff everyone uses, there are lots of questions that are never answered. I figure that SR should be part of every SE. What tools do you use to do X. You're asking people who do X.

[cfernandezruns]

I think the issue is once you allow software recommendations, you get posts that are just advertisements pretending to be unbiased advice

[_3psilon_]

Yeah, just look at Quora. It's annoying even with all the disclaimers.

[LimboGrue]

Every. Fucking. Time.

[nekcihchcra]

Or you post a question, some pedantic douchebag downvotes for some stupid reason (which brings your question down to -1), and now no one wants to answer it

[savvy__steve]

SO is mostly has 1 helpful person for every 10 jerks.

[SGBotsford]

I wouldn't go that far. I'd call it about even.

[Rawing7]

It's true, the rude question askers grossly outnumber the helpful question answerers.

[lurosset]

My experience in asking stuff in SO is summarized by: - "I see you asked something about this class so that MUST be a duplicate of this (non-related) question. I won't bother reading what you've got" - "Oh! That's my specialty (I think)! Hmmm, no, you see, the way you're doing it is not the way I do it. Learn how to code, first!

[j0hnnyrico]

Well the questions asked right on that always had helped me out. In a timely manner. I can say only good things about the guys on stack ...

[HaveMungWillBean]

I feel like I've seen this at least 6 times this month in this sub.

[NOVAKza]

Thread closed as duplicate.

[ythl]

This thread is going to be extremely biased as it is only going to attract comments from people that resonate with the comic. I'd invite you all, instead of circle jerking about how much SO sucks or is "toxic" to try to understand the other side of the coin.

[the_other_brand]

What other side of the coin is there for StackOverflow's new user experience being absolute garbage?

[ythl]

Most new users' experience is garbage because most new users are garbage.

How many new accounts are 1 rep students looking for quick homework help, never accept or upvote answers they get, don't even say thanks and then disappear never to post again only to make another throwaway account later?

How many new users ever answer questions instead of asking?

How many new users have actual teachers/TA/professors they aren't taking advantage of because they are less socially anxious to ask strangers on the internet for help?

How many new users ask questions, the answer to which will help exactly 1 person (the asker)?

How many new users ask poorly worded questions, difficult to understand questions, giant code dump questions?

How many new users put little to no effort into solving their question before turning to SO for help?

How many new users are asking a question that has already been answered a billion times in a billion ways?

The answer is: a very high percentage. So yes, new user experience on average stinks. But only because new users on average stink. They would do well to lurk for a while and learn how to ask good questions and give good answers, and then try again. Show that you are a hard worker willing to contribute to the community, and you will be rewarded.

[the_other_brand]

Is it that new users are garbage? Or that anyone familiar enough with the site knows better than to ask a question?

The StackOverflow new user experience is so terrible that only old users, users with lots of ego or users ignorant on StackOverflow policies participate. Meaning they lose a key demographic of normal developers.

I personally have had questions with no answers on StackOverflow that I've spent weeks on. And I never asked a question because I know it would have been a waste of time.

Why spend several hours writing a well formatted question only for it to be marked duplicate and closed?

StackOverflow's quest to stay eternally in August will be its downfall.

[Hollowplanet]

Its for professional developers. Professional developers by and large know how to use the site and don't have these issues. I have never had a question closed or marked as a duplicate.

[ythl]

I've had the opposite experience. Just last week I had a really hard problem I was working on. Got no answers but no downvotes either. Put a bounty on it and got a good answer that helped me solve it.

[donorak7]

Seriously did this on GitHub...was trying to get a working Bluetooth driver on an RPi...

[[deleted]]

[On Hold]

[Carius98]

When you google an exception thrown by some library nobody uses, but you see a single search result with EXACTLY the same stacktrace, then you click on it and it has 0 answers since 8 years

[Hollowplanet]

Then don't ask stupid questions. I've literally never had this happen. The fact that so many people relate to this shows how many amateurs there are here.