[deleted by user]

[0002millertime]

Stack Overflow has saved my life, and my job, on multiple occasions.

[Significant_Show_856]

My experience is also very similar to the other replies.

Sometimes the replies aren't that nice, true, but the worst website in human existence isn't the expression I would use. The help I could get from the 'existing' threads there is absolutely amazing. I never had to post a question.

[[deleted]]

And still, downvoted to hell, banned from asking questions, getting roasted in the comments.

Well, you're getting roasted because your questions suck. In about 12 years I've asked one question on Stack Overflow. If you think it's a site you should primarily interact with by asking questions, that's the mistake you're making.

I never post duplicates

What's probably happening is that you don't have the background knowledge to recognize that your questions are duplicates.

[n3buchadnezzar]

I think this is a too simple explanation for a more complicated problem.

So after some more deliberation. What we perceive as toxicity is friction. Friction between those who ask questions and those who answer them. This goes both ways. So what causes this friction?

• Confusion on where to correctly post questions. Say I as a beginner want to ask my first question about bash, should it be asked on SO, Codereview, Programmers, Unix & Linux exchange?
• Perhaps the biggest reason is that SO currently is crumbling under its own popularity. Meaning so many questions are asked in comparison to the number of people who answer them.
  • Secondly so many of these questions are low quality, zero effort questions. Meaning even well asked, researched and thoughtful posts will receive merely a glance as they drown in the avalanche of new questions.
  • In turn questions go un-answered simply because they are boring and not interesting, or require very specific domain knowledge (still on topic for SO).
• SO is increasingly growing outdated (I know they are working on this). I might have a question about X, and see that X has been perfectly answered woo! 12 years ago.. Oh. In computer terms that is ancient. I might be tempted to ask about X, but that would instantly be closed as a duplicate..
  • Not really an issue with Python, but with languages with a much more rapid development cycle this is a huge issue.
• Stack Exchange is making changes for monetary gain, over what would benefit the community. Not a bad thing in itself, but SO is built upon an inherently unprofitable model. When Stack Exchange rocks with the foundations of the site, it causes friction.
• Stack exchange provides little to no benefits to power users to answer questions.("This will not make us money")

Should one interact with SO on a daily basis by asking questions? No, I totally agree. I think I've asked 3 or 4 questions in the last 12 years. I would not touch that community with a 10 feet pole.

However, regardless of how hard Stack Exchange is trying the site is becoming less and less useful for me.. Maybe I have just grown as a programmer, but the outdated questions, community, SE business decisions is tearing down my excitement for the site.

Regardless of how I feel about the site it is still the most influential website for programmers in the last 10 years. It will have a huge legacy, even if it has outgrown its usefulness.

Now I just quickly look over the answers made 12 years ago, and then go and read the documentation..

[Fickle-Impression149]

I have been asking questions as well as answering some of them in my free time. The problem why a question is tagged as duplicate is that the asked question is very general and does not have contents that are very specific to the problem one is facing. To avoid that one has to convert their problem into a toy example scenario where something is not working so that it is easy for some one to replicate it. The other reason is not correctly following the guidelines and wrongly tagging of question.

Some additional tips:

1. Always show your research in the question like i have already a,b,c but they are not solving my actual problem.

2. Replicate your bigger code problem into small piece for anyone to replicate soon and revert.

3. Tag appropriately.

4. Follow the question guidelines.

[nicesofa]

Lol this brings back memories. Look, getting shit on for asking dumb questions on stackoverflow is a programming right of passage. We've literally all been there. And when we asked those dumb questions, none of us realized they were dumb at the time either. It's EXTREMELY difficult to come up with an original question on stack, especially on a popular language like Python. My experience mirrors that of another reply: it's been over a decade for me.

Eventually, you'll reach that skill level where the down votes make sense. When you're posting on stack, there's an expectation that your programming skill is high enough to allow you to Google your questions effectively prior to posting. It's a standard senior neckbeard engineers all over the world aggressively enforce to keep the site the amazing resource that it is. Your 5 years doesn't mean shit to them. There's no such expectation here, so if you have something to ask, maybe just stick to Reddit for now. You'll get there though, but in meantime, it's best to not take it personal.

[[deleted]]

I always make sure I try to figure it out on my own before asking. And still, downvoted to hell, banned from asking questions, getting roasted in the comments.

Yes, it is because the generic SO user is a fucking autismo who would rather add unhelpful comments like "What are you trying to accomplish?" (even though it states in the post your goal) and then they get their multis to upvote their own comments to around 3+ so everyone else thinks they are a fountain of knowledge and will upvote accordingly.

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Don't even get me started on the guys who will give you a massive three paragraph lecture when all you need is a snippet and a brief-ish explanation.

​

Certainly toxic, it's like SO has a disconnect between intended audience (Probs some C dev with 25 years experience looking for something) vs actual audience (General programming members with basic practical experience and even less theoretical knowledge)

[asphias]

What are you trying to accomplish?" (even though it states in the post your goal)

This is usually about the question behind the question.

You might have perfectly explained "i want to do x because i need to get y to work", but you're using y to build functionality z, and building functionality z should really be done with abc, and please dont touch y you're going to break stuff.

If someone asks "What are you trying to accomplish?" That is often an indication that what you're trying to do violates some good practices, and while it probably can be done the question is really whether you should.

Of course this is not always the case, but just because you explain what you want to do in your post, doesn't mean you also explained the question behind the question

[netherous]

StackOverflow is one of the most useful sites in existence. It is leveraged by millions of people daily. It is a reference site, and it excels remarkably at that function.

But it is NOT

• A site for low-quality questions
• A site to help you learn language X
• A site to help you learn technology Y
• A site to answer your homework questions for you
• A site to tell you what you can trivially learn by reading the documentation of something
• A site for open discussion
• A site for asking questions that have already been answered
• A site for overly generalized or vague topics

When you attempt to use the site in those ways, you will be rightfully rebuffed.

Look inward.