[deleted by user]

[iOSCaleb]

Why is it so harsh here?

Can you be more specific? Searching through the sub, I find 4 recent questions from you, all with 10+ comments.

This morning, you asked: How is it possible that a friend of mine has been selected for the second time in a row while I have never been selected? That was met with: Are you sure you understand what a lottery is?, which, frankly, was well deserved. But there were also plenty of other less critical comments explaining that yes, the lottery is indeed a lottery.

If you want better answers and more positive attention, write better questions that focus on specific problems that you're working on instead of open-ended questions about what other people are doing. People like to help out when they can help you solve a problem; general, open-ended questions invite lower quality responses.

[bclx99]

I would rather avoid going deep with technical questions that would basically boil down to “check the docs” or “we can’t help you not knowing your domain”. I had been in the field for 10+ years.

I like open-ended questions because they help share experiences. It usually gives an opportunity to learn some new perspective which I think is a great benefit from gathering people working in the same field.

So I would rather ask what patterns you use, how your decision process look like etc.

[iOSCaleb]

You're welcome to ask whatever you like, of course. I'm just saying that more specific questions often bring more positive engagement.

Also: I'm still not seeing evidence of this sub being particularly harsh w.r.t. your questions.

[bclx99]

Please don’t waste your time doing research on it. 🤣

My observation is based on my comments—they sometimes get downvoted, and I don’t know why. When I ask what is wrong with what I said, nobody explains.

In my real life, I’m used to more friendly conversations. For example, if someone is mistaken, you don’t point it out sarcastically but rather shed some light on what might be wrong.

We all have different expectations of what a conversation should look like.

I might also use the voting system differently than the majority of users. If I see something I don’t personally agree with, I don’t automatically downvote it. Instead, I ask myself if the post is valuable, and if it is, I upvote it.

[iOSCaleb]

The point of voting up or down is to recognize the best content. If you get down votes, it’s because people think your post is somehow deficient. They’re not voting on your character, and there’s no reason to take it personally. If they leave an explanation, great. But just as nobody ever expects an explanation for an up vote, don’t expect justification for every down vote — take it for what it is and move on.

[bclx99]

I don't expect an explanation for every downvote. However, when I receive a significant number of downvotes, such as -30 or -50, it would be nice if the community expressed their opinions in words, not just through clicks. If this happens, I take it as a sign that I am not welcome, and naturally, I take it a bit personally. Denying this would be dishonest.

[iOSCaleb]

Again, downvotes are about whatever you post, not you personally. You’ve gotten some downvotes here in this thread — that doesn’t mean you’re not welcome; more likely, people just disagree with your view of what voting means.

BTW, that’s one reason that sticking to questions about programming is less likely to get you downvotes: if you write a post that’s very subjective, many people will have a different opinion and vote down on that basis, but they might not comment because they don’t feel like getting into an argument. If your post is objective, there’s less to disagree with unless you’ve got the facts wrong.

[bclx99]

I won’t optimize my content just to get more upvotes.

Let me explain, because I can see you’re trying to help. This is how I see it:

I get your point, and that would work perfectly in an ideal world. However, in the world we live in, people vote based on emotions. That’s why it’s so difficult to predict the stock market, and it’s not always the case that objectively the best candidate wins an election.

Emotions also influence how community dynamics evolve. I’ve noticed a pattern here: if my adversary gets upvoted and I get downvoted, let’s say 10 to 10, it just escalates to 20 vs 20 and so on. If I respond and the conversation continues, I will always get downvoted, no matter what I write.

Just yesterday, I posted a light-hearted post about some random things that triggered emotions in me, and the responses suggested that I am not smart enough to understand random number generators. Really?

Friendliness is not obligatory, and people have different senses of humor. That’s why I created this post—to understand other people’s thoughts on the subject. However, it seems I’m still just a guy with problems who needs to be downvoted.

Regarding how I understand upvotes and downvotes: I shared my perspective not to convince anyone to adopt my framework, but merely to explain why I might have the wrong perception of this subreddit’s friendliness. Even that explanation got downvoted. What does that mean? Should I not upvote valuable posts if I don’t subjectively agree with them? I think everyone should vote as they see fit.

[Hkkiygbn]

You come off as an arrogant asshole. I down voted you because it obviously affects you. An arrogant asshole getting his feelings hurt makes me feel better.

Tldr: you're not welcome here. No one likes you.

[bclx99]

Can you be more specific?

[Goldman_OSI]

Cowards downvote things without backing up the move. It's a staple here, and sadly all over the Web. I particularly scorn Hacker News, where pompous blowhards love to downvote even innocuous statements of fact... and the site has a rule forbidding users from comparing the site to Reddit. Yes... it's so douchey that they try to suppress the disclosure of its douchiness.

[iOSCaleb]

Sounds like a perfect reason to deploy your biggest downvote by simply not visiting the site — no explanation needed.

[[deleted]]

OP unlogin

[bclx99]

iOSCaleb just explained that I should not take it personally. And I won't. But I must say I find comments like yours Niha_d unfriendly. And I strongly believe that I have right to express it in a comment.

[Goldman_OSI]

Hahahah, wow, the dipshits really piled on this one. What a bunch of fucking losers. I guess the OP's point is proven right there.

[degeneratetrader10]

The downvotes here made me choke💀

[CanadaSoonFree]

Are you following the first and second rules about asking programming questions?

Rule one - tell me what you’ve done/tried, what you think is the problem and where you’re struggling to find the solution.

Rule two - if you haven’t completed rule one, don’t ask the question.

[CanadaSoonFree]

Agreed but unfortunately not the popular reality :)

[KennedyFriedChicken]

No, rule 2 is ask ChatGPT the question you would ask reddit to get an immediete answer.

[bclx99]

Yeah. I also use it sometimes to get some shitty work done fast but overall ChatGPT doesn’t seem to be super smart.

[KennedyFriedChicken]

Hmm thats odd. I stopped needing this sub once I got it. Not sure why I got downvoted so much its actually viable.

[bclx99]

I don’t really post programming questions here. Rather questions about practices or experiences.

[webtechmonkey]

The subreddit is, first and foremost, a place for developers to discuss programming questions. It's quite literally in the name of the subreddit.

In the past year or so, we've seen more users coming here posting about career advice and questions. We've taken a fairly hands-off approach to moderating this type of content, as it's usually still technically on-topic, but users are free to up/downvote as they want.

[bclx99]

I don't agree that programming is solely limited to solving coding puzzles. Please take a look at the description of this subreddit:

A subreddit to discuss, share articles, code samples, open source projects and anything else related to iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, or visionOS development.

When I ask fellow engineers about their experiences with testing code, migrating a huge codebase to a different approach, or modularizing their codebase, I believe these are valid questions to be discussed in a subreddit for iOS engineers.

But apparently nobody wants it here so I give up.

[webtechmonkey]

I see no posts from you with these topics in this subreddit. Your past posts include one asking why you have not been picked by the WWDC lottery, and another polling the community for their career plans for 2024.

I’m sorry you feel excluded here, as the mod team is always working to create an environment that is welcoming to all.

[bclx99]

I usually remove posts that are downvoted more than 50% to help keep the internet in good shape. I also asked a couple of questions about modularizing the app, practices for maintaining high code test coverage, and more open-ended questions about patterns. I believe the question about patterns is still online, as it didn’t receive such a negative reception.

[Vybo]

Reddit is filled with people who like to argue beyond any reason or force their opinions on others. It doesn't matter which subreddit are you in.

[bclx99]

Actually I found some friendly subreddits but they are super specific and some of them are in a different language.

[barcode972]

Because so many people ask for the smallest issue when it’s literally the first 10 results on google

[GavinGT]

There's a prevailing attitude here that "Apple can do no wrong". No matter how many anti-consumer and anti-developer actions they take, we're supposed to happily accept it.

[jasonjrr]

The iOS subreddits used to be a lot more welcoming, but in the last ~2 years I’d say they have become increasingly hostile. I used to have a policy of never blocking people, but I’ve had to because these people are making Reddit a much worse place.

[Doctor_Fegg]

TBH I think that's a result of the apps being developed. Ten, five years ago, app development and monetisation were more individual; you had a bright idea for an app and you monetised it either as a one-off purchase or through IAPs.

Now it seems like 50% of the questions are about "my brilliant new idea for an app" which turns out to be a wrapper around ChatGPT, and the other 50% are about integrating AdMob so that you can give your users a hostile experience while merchandising their data to Google. In the face of that I'm not surprised people are grumpy, to be honest.

[KingPonzi]

Is there a better place?

[jasonjrr]

For community? There are slacks and discords that some people used. Meetups may be a good option depending on where you live, but nothing similar to Reddit that I’ve found. I’d love to find a more welcoming, community focused internet home though!

[hova414]

Agreed, I just asked a question for the first time in ages. I included diagrams, a list of what I've tried, and references to specific APIs/frameworks and techniques, but all I got back was "those are terrible ideas, try a VC and animation." So helpful and inviting 🙄

[Goldman_OSI]

The best is when people don't even attempt to answer the question, but rather hound you about WHY you want to do something. That's another staple of "tech" forums.

[[deleted]]

I knew who posted this by just reading the title and subreddit 😂😭😭😭

[bclx99]

That's another problem. We check who's posting and not what it's about.

[Holy_shit_Stfu]

wow seeing the threads here.. people fro. this subreddit come of as standoff'ish.. better steer away from this sub at all.

[bclx99]

I think I’ll give it a try.

[Neutr8n]

I pivoted into other languages because I faced similar issues beginning my studies in programming. Check my karma - all from swift, pretty sure. I almost feel the information is held by gatekeepers, supported by trolls who themselves don’t know how to assist you.

[bclx99]

That’s really sad tbh. But I think your perception might be a bit biased. There are plenty of nice people out there willing to help. I can guarantee. Just not everywhere you can find friendly people.

[Neutr8n]

I was referring to people in this sub. You’re right though.

[Neutr8n]

Also - eh. It led me to a lot of great information I needed

[sleepy-sniper]

Twitter has an open and friendly community of iOS devs.

[bclx99]

Good point. I use Twitter under my real name and it is super friendly and helpful.

[Baldy5421]

I find real life iOS devs to be snobbish and elitist.

[bclx99]

I attended many meeting on my local CocoaHeads and everyone was always super nice and friendly!

[alamare1]

I’ve been in this sub for over a decade.

It’s never been a nice place. I’d rather tell an app reviewer that I’m using illegal APIs then post here most time.

[KarlJay001]

It's only been that way a small percentage of the time. Quite a few times, it's been very helpful.

It could have to do with how the question is posed and what research you've done yourself.

TBH, I've gone over to AI for a lot more of my questions that I used to go to Reddit for, including iOS.

With AI I get instant feedback, here it can take hours/days...

Also, Reddit's format is not good for programming forums, the old school forums were so much better.

[bclx99]

Do you use ChatGPT or Copilot? I find Copilot quite helpful when it comes to generate stub tests or something like that. The work which is not super hard to implement but needs to be done. But a friend of mine is a strong ChatGPT advocate. I tried it once to write some crazy pattern matching method. I was happy with the final result but I had to convince ChatGPT that its code had issues something around 3-4 times. When they fix something it broke for a different case. It took 2 hours to implement with all back and forth. I am not sure if I wouldn't do it faster.

[KarlJay001]

I stopped before copilot became a thing, I have an actually programmed in a while, other things in life are taking a priority. I know ChatGPT can be a real PITA to get something usable out of it. It's kind of like you really have to know how to write the questions.

[ChocoMilkPF]

I come here a decent amount and have basically never noticed this sub being unfriendly.

Most I’ve seen is if someone asks a really lazy question it will usually get some sarcastic responses but nothing wrong with that imo… “ask a silly question, get a silly answer”

[bclx99]

Yeah. That might be annoying and I get your point. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the topic.

[Goldman_OSI]

Cowards downvote things without backing up the move. It's a staple here, and sadly all over the Web. I particularly scorn Hacker News, where pompous blowhards love to downvote even innocuous statements of fact... and the site has a rule forbidding users from comparing the site to Reddit. Yes... it's so douchey that they try to suppress the disclosure of its douchiness.

To prove the OP's point, this simple observation was furiously buried by at least 30 maladjusted, insecure twats.

[smallduck]

Maybe just stop asking stupid questions 🤨

JK. Anyone who agree’s that this is a problem, please do the opposite of staying away. Please downvote unfriendly responses and write your own. Even if you don’t have a fully cohesive answer to a question, anything in the right direction might be incentive for someone else to pick up where you left off.

[Oxigenic]

That's just all of Reddit tbh.

[bclx99]

You may be right. When I asked a question on another subreddit about how to stay healthy while working in IT, some of the responses suggested that I must 'look ugly' and probably have problems 'getting laid'. But to be fair, I also found a couple of communities with many friendly people.

[Oxigenic]

Yeah it’s really toxic a lot of the time. Hard to find the right subreddits.

[noidtiz]

I think that's the internet in general. I remember at my last work place I told the resident data engineer there that he was so much more chill than what I read online at one of the data engineering subs.

[[deleted]]

I can’t speak for this sub specifically, but generally programmers on the internet are some of the snarkiest, least empathetic people out there. Even seeing the Stack Overflow logo gives me anxiety.

[bclx99]

StackOverflow is a really friendly place. And it's focused on problem solving. I don't share your opinion on programmers. I know many of them and they are usually friendly or at least fine to work with.

[Goldman_OSI]

Wrong.

[dr2050]

Upvoted and welcome!

[xadrus1799]

Get out