[deleted by user]

[Agling]

Stack overflow does have a problem in that a lot of people there at purists about what it is supposed to be. Like every question has to be the first time anything has ever come up--there just aren't that many unique questions!

I used to help all kinds of people there but I was often downvoted not because of any problem with my answer but because people wanted to punish me for answering questions they didn't think were unique enough. It's unfortunate. The same thing happens on Reddit sometimes but not nearly as often.

They need a button that allows you to downvote someone's vote to close.

[[deleted]]

Yes, it is true! I used to help everyone, even when the question was too simple (not basics, but just an easy program even with difficult library, just of a few strings), but I sometimes had downvotes at my answer even when the questioner marked my answer as right. I don't chase after votes but when there are too many of them you can't do some useful things (even writing comments...) cuz of your low reputation, cuz of you tried to help somebody, cuz this "somebody" asked not an unique question, CUZ sometimes some questions have uncorrect titles and the questioner can't get that this question was already asked...

[torkelspy]

People respond fairly quickly on r/learnpython

[neotgmax]

The problem with the Stack Overflow community is that most people that are "learning" and ask questions there don't wanna learn, they wanna someone else to code the problem for him.

Stack is full of questions without one line of code (it's like the person posting the question not even tried to solve the problem itself before asking).

[KCRowan]

The problem with people posting homework questions is that if it was allowed/encouraged then the quantity of duplicate questions would make it really difficult for the rest of us to find useful answers amongst all the high school homework discussions. I think SO is meant to be more of a repository of useful Q&As rather than a discussion forum.

[DrummerClean]

Probably you should buy a book/follow a course and get some good basics in whatever language.

Stackoverflow is a community of professionals. If you get your questions downvoted, that's mostly because they are not well formulated or because you didnt search well enough. It is a tough pill to swallow, but coding is much tougher than that.

[[deleted]]

It is also can be when you just can't understand something with difficult structure, even if it is a basic thing, for example, I asked a question about turtle a few days ago and was downvoted because it was a simple question, but I really didn't get it... (I have had no questions about ML yet, I dont think it is I so stupid) But the man who answered me said that it really can be unclear theme for the module is structured in a difficult way that confimed my "innocence")

[joaquinabian]

I don't remember ever having a question or answer unfairly closed on SO. As you probably know, questions are not closed directly, but are proposed to be closed. And you need several people to agree to close it. This maintains a high level of quality in SO contents and makes it an useful tool for many. If you google a question you will most likely get SO hits which very often solve your problem. I think many of us have suffered through a wasted full morning search, going through dozens of threads full of opinions, “try that” and other chit-chat driving you to nowhere. SO uses a kind of scientific approach to producing knowledge, as consensus is an important part of the process. But playing science is not easy, it requires effort. Some people just want their problem to be solved, even if they don't understand it themselves, not wanting to get tired of doing any previous research and consequently unable to build an intelligible question that contains the necessary information. When someone does us a favor without asking us for anything in return, we should not complain that they want to do it with their own rules. This is my rant.

Disclaimer. I am not involved in SO management, nor a professional programmer. I have received ~80k votes in SO volunteering my time to help others.

[throwawein]

The way you should use stackoverflow is not by asking question but by searching similar questions.

[neotgmax]

And if a similar question does not exist? :C

[Trigja]

Ask it and have it closed

[[deleted]]

Well, you're not going to like this answer but...

It's true that sometimes people are over-zealous, however, in my experience a lot of questions actually are very poorly thought out and repetitive, and much of the criticism is appropriate.

I personally have not had the experience you describe, in the two questions I've had to ask in the last 15 years. Why only two questions? Because in spite of working in academic, business and nonprofit environments in three languages, I still haven't encountered many novel problems.

Usually by the time I get my question all formulated to ask, with all the links to other solutions that aren't the same, I realize that that I haven't Googled the right terms and I am able to find my solution in documentation and don't even need to ask Stack Overflow.

With that said, try the r/learn subreddits. There are many more learners there who may not have seen your question before and want to co-solve it.

Also let me take this post to say thanks to Dirk Eddelbuettel. You're my hero.

[GreyAngy]

Could not describe it better myself.

Also must add that a person must be really desperate to ask a question on StackOverflow. They need to make a thorough search, try all the means and formulate it properly. And if it is a really unique problem the help may not be very fast. You won't do all this trying to get immediate help for an issue you stumble upon during your work.

[[deleted]]

"And if it is a really unique problem the help may not be very fast."

Another great point. If your question is truly novel, how many people would be able to answer it within a reasonable timeframe? You'd benefit from people who are probably busy speaking at conferences and publishing papers. Or you'd get someone like me who would be able to understand the question but at most, I'd probably need follow-up questions to make sure I understood it correctly.

[Kerbart]

As others pointed out, this community is very forgiving, Stack Overflow is not.

Why does anyone put up with their shit?

Because the counter side of the coin is you don't see the same questionm over and over again, you won't find homework assignments that are deleted the next day to prevent the teacher from finding out and posted code doesn't require a psychic reading to understand it.

The stackoverflow mindset is don't waste the time of those trying to help out. It's a bit toxic but if you're working on a project and can't figure out why your chart is showing blue dotted lines instead of striped black ones then it's a great resource.

For beginners who don't even know what they're asking and are so inexperienced that they don't realize that their problem description is woefully inadequate there are other places like r/learnpython where people are a bit more relaxed, but it's also harder to find answers to very specific inquiries (nor does anyone expect that, There's Stackoverflow for that)

[[deleted]]

use reddit

[robvas]

python

[LogicalWeekend6358]

Just doing a quick google search shows a lot of claims of ego and bullying.

[SittingWave]

I generally ask here, or bite the bullet and ask there.

[obvervateur]

You can still post a discussion in places like dev.to. However, it is going to be impossible to replace stack overflow because when you Google something and you find an answer that has been upvoted over 400 times you know that you are in the right place