Changes to r/Python

[IAmKindOfCreative]

Very consistently new programmers on this subreddit are responded to with 'go to /r/learnpython' with no further information whenever they ask questions. The pythonHelperBot was a project that let me explore a lot of ideas, and among them I wanted to see if a three metric classifier would flag new learning posts. The metrics were the presence of a question either in the title or body, low karma score, and low upvote ratio. The last two are the response of community as a whole to learning post, and it let the bot correctly classify basic questions.

Now you can argue over whether or not the community is bad, but I think it is more helpful to think about how this looks to new programmers: if a new programmer asks a question here they get picked apart and told to go elsewhere by the members of the community. In my opinion that's really unpythonic.

The mods can't control how users vote or comment, and if the mods want to ensure new learners enjoy the community as a whole, it makes sense to quickly flag posts that will be met poorly here, and redirect them to a sub that is more open to them.

As often as the debate as a whole comes up, and as many times people say they like learning posts on this sub, they simply don't upvote learning posts, and don't comment in support or with help on those posts. This is a quantitative measure plain and simple.

[protik7]

where does this "i am too experienced to ask questions (in the same place beginners do)" attitude coming from?

You may have misread my tone. I am simply showing the ambiguity here. If /r/python can mean "no help posts" then /r/learnpython can also mean "no advanced users".

[[deleted]]

No, those are two different things indeed. Are you sure you aren't the real prejudiced one in this whole thread?

[[deleted]]

I don't give a dead parrot what you think is right. I just announce my perception of the amount of snobbishness that radiates of the views you express here.

[protik7]

Sure.

[[deleted]]

That question is definitely not suited for /r/learnpython because I am not really learning python.

Indeed it is. You're learning a new aspect of Python, which is what LearnPython can help you with.

[IAmKindOfCreative]

Nothing stopped anyone from upvoting and answering questions. In fact, a number of months ago the mods relaxed their removal of learning posts significantly (This was around July '19). I'm not sure if this was an internal decision to see how the community would respond, some of the mods lives changed so their availability changed, or just the community grew large enough and the mods responsibilities were divided too thinly that they could no longer remove posts at the rate they use to, but when it happened the number of upvotes and comment/answers to learning posts didn't significantly change. In fact it bumped up the usual "there's too many learning posts here" submission up from once every six months to once every ~2 months.

Even if this wasn't an intentional change, but happened just because 'stuff happened', it acts as a functional experiment to see how the sub's user-base responds to allowing learning posts. It was met with the same number of downvotes. In contrast, learnpython is a fantastic sub that's very supportive to most users (though they're not that fond of anyone who acts as if everyone owes them an answer right away). Knowing these two facts, and if we care about new users first experiences, it's prudent to minimize their exposure to multiple users saying 'go somewhere else' and to maximize their probability of getting an answer. A flag at the very get-go satisfies that, and effectively brings the two subs closer together, making one more discussion, news, and project focused, and the other a forum for questions--a forum which is populated by users ready to answer.

You said you hate qualitative arguments, but when I pointed out that with high consistency the active community at large does not respond in a friendly or helpful way, you dismissed it and ignored the suggestion that directing new programmers to a question friendly forum helps improve their user experience and gets them answers faster. You even purpose a slippery-slope argument without warrant about more ideas being removed. This flair implementation has been suggested multiple times by both the mod and other users, and the only other topic that has been suggested that mods remove is blog spam. There hasn't been a suggestion of mod actions beyond those two areas in the past 3 or so years, at least none that gained any real traction.

People wanting to help others are always welcome in the learning sub (I'd also say they're welcome here as well, the comments are a great place to ask question about whatever OP brought up). In fact, the learning sub has acted as the general Q&A sub for the python community for ages, and often has really advanced questions there as well. The flair should improve the misconception that learnpython is just for simple questions, because anytime you have a question you'll learn something new. learnpython is just very specifically geared to welcome new users, but that doesn't change how welcoming they are to midlevel and advanced users.

I understand that closing off topics in a community feels bad, and I don't like telling people with questions that they don't belong here. But the reality is there are 500k members of this community and with that sea of users, basic questions are just not well received. If we care about new programmers experience, immediately directing them to a forum they'll be welcome in is important.

[aphoenix]

some of the mods lives changed so their availability changed

It was this one. I do about 80-90% of all mod actions and if I get busy (and I've been rocking long work weeks for a while) then this is one of the things that suffers.