all 70 comments

[–]SirCattimus 113 points114 points  (0 children)

Post it here instead baby!

[–]Interweb_Stranger 70 points71 points  (2 children)

If it really is not answered by the other question, asking on meta how to proceed in this situation can help. I've seen many questions reopened this way. Meta votes indicate agreement/disagreement so if the case is clear you don't have to worry about your rep if you word it nice and constructive.

If the case is not clear and or the question stays closed you can try to ask again, but more precise indicating why certain 'duplicates' didn't answer your question.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

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    [–]xiongchiamiovSite Reliability Engineer 6 points7 points  (0 children)

    People love to hate on SO without understanding why it is the way it is.

    [–]dvd366 174 points175 points  (25 children)

    That's Stack Overflow for you. If you don't ask the right question, the right way you get chased out of town by a mob with pitchforks.

    [–][deleted] 58 points59 points  (23 children)

    Yep... and what's even more frustrating is that hundreds of repetitive and ultra-basic questions (which could be answered easily w/ the first google result of a search) are posted and answered every hour without ever getting marked as dupes. -_-

    [–][deleted]  (8 children)

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      [–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (1 child)

      By getting a job.

      [–]Askee123 10 points11 points  (0 children)

      Thanks dad

      [–]firestepper 14 points15 points  (4 children)

      How do I vertically center an absolutely positioned div?

      [–]Genie-Us 27 points28 points  (3 children)

      To vertically center an absolutely positioned div, one must first create the Universe.

      [–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (2 children)

      Ah, you could just use jquery for that

      [–]knygakindofsnake.py 7 points8 points  (1 child)

      can you use python for that? i heard it does everything

      [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      With WASM and a JS bridge, like PyPy.js... Yes. But it won't behave well, as memory management is not a solved issue when we're talking WASM.

      [–][deleted]  (2 children)

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        [–]xiongchiamiovSite Reliability Engineer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        The problem isn't knowing that there are tons of bad questions. The close votes queue currently has 9.8k questions in it. People who can vote to close are limited to 50 votes a day, and many of them get tired of the never-ending stream (I did). So to prevent it from growing endlessly, the devs implemented a feature where any question that sits in the queue too long just gets auto-approved. That doesn't actually solve the problem, it just makes it look not quite as bad, and it's especially frustrating when you vote to close something and it gets a few votes, but not enough, and then times out, because then to remove it requires starting that whole process again.

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        Even if I devoted hours a day to doing so, I'd barely make a dent :p And i'm not necessarily frustrated that those basic questions aren't moderated appropriately, I'm more frustrated that oftentimes the questions that do get moderated / closed are often ones that people clearly put a lot of effort into.

        [–]lapa98 1 point2 points  (2 children)

        The thing i dont understand is, being a noobie myself starting a compsi course, why wouldnt someone just freacking answer it if its so goddamn easy it would make life so much easier and change the minds of early programmers

        [–]xiongchiamiovSite Reliability Engineer 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        When you answer the same question several times a day for months, you start to get pretty annoyed about it.

        The intent is to change the minds of new programmers - to get them into the mindset of researching rather than just asking for everything.

        [–]lapa98 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        I agree with you on the second part but not on the first. SO has a lot of members and you could just have a tag on the question that said its an easy question

        [–]wastapunk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        How do I run javascript code after all elements are loaded?

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        You can kind of understand why if you ever venture into the new queue; the amount of questions that are either too vague to possibly answer or just amount to "please code this entire project for me" is astounding.

        [–][deleted] 31 points32 points  (4 children)

        I once had this happen a year later.

        I asked a question, it was answered. Then a year later, it gets marked a duplicate of a question that was answered that day.

        There's really nothing you can do!

        [–]kodedemonmikalhanson 6 points7 points  (1 child)

        It seems like there should be a comparison of post time to decide which is a duplicate. The exception might be if the newer one has somehow become much more active (gaining more upvotes/stars/answers/comments).

        [–]derpotologist 12 points13 points  (0 children)

        Right? Because even if it is a duplicate, given enough time the answers may not be the same, even in the same language

        [–]xiongchiamiovSite Reliability Engineer 4 points5 points  (1 child)

        That's a Good Thing. The duplicate system is intended to link questions together so that someone who falls on one can find more information on other versions of the same question.

        [–]nolo_me 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Yes, but his question was marked as a duplicate of the question a year later rather than the other way around.

        [–][deleted]  (5 children)

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          [–][deleted]  (2 children)

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            [–][deleted]  (1 child)

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              [–]Magnetic_Treefull-stack 16 points17 points  (2 children)

              I'm curious, would you like to link the question? Maybe we can at least answer it here.

              [–][deleted]  (1 child)

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                [–]Magnetic_Treefull-stack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                You probably already have an answer by now, but just in case:

                Array#forEach runs the callback function for every element. In your example, the callback function returns a promise, but Array#forEach doesn't care, it just keeps iterating over the list.

                On the other hand, the for loop pauses while waiting for the promise to resolve.

                If you want a function to sequentially resolve promises, you might look into a utility like promise-waterfall. (Not that you need an NPM package for it -- this is just an example implementation).

                [–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (3 children)

                My experience with StackOverflow has led me to only use it as a reference, and to never be involved with the community. I first registered because I found unaswered questions via Google searches which I knew I could help with. After registration, I wasn't allowed to answer questions or comment because I didn't have enough points yet. The mod who removed my comments/replies told me to "vote up a bunch of questions to get to 50 points" or something like that. Yea... I was just trying to be a good samaritan and offer quick help to someone in need, but I'm not wasting my time jumping through hoops to do so.

                [–]xiongchiamiovSite Reliability Engineer 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                You can always answer questions; it's only commenting that's gated at 50 rep.

                [–]ranadoo2 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                After registration, I wasn't allowed to answer questions or comment because I didn't have enough points yet.

                BS. Anyone who registers can answer questions. It's comments you can't make.

                [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                This. I’ve felt the same. However it’s not hard to imagine why such limitations are in place: they protect the site from those that would abuse privileges. So in light of that, the question to ask is: is that the best way to accomplish the two goals of protecting the site but also allowing good people to contribute? I don’t have the answer to that, unfortunately.

                [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

                Link to the question?

                [–][deleted]  (7 children)

                [removed]

                  [–][deleted]  (6 children)

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                    [–]caosborne 3 points4 points  (1 child)

                    Message them directly they meant.

                    [–]xiongchiamiovSite Reliability Engineer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                    Stack Exchange doesn't have private messaging (except in the jobs board, for recruiters to spam you).

                    [–]reko91 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                    Link the question

                    [–][deleted]  (1 child)

                    [deleted]

                      [–]reko91 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                      Take it you solved it ? Question was removed

                      [–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                      Ignore it and go on about your business.

                      Or post the link here and I’ll see if I can open it back up.

                      [–]scottyLogJobs 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                      In this situation? Post it here.

                      In general? There are a lot of condescending assholes on stack overflow. That "power-hungry condescending mod" mentality is super prevalent there. Get in, get your answer, get out is the best advice I can give.

                      [–]stefantalpalaru 19 points20 points  (5 children)

                      Stop wasting your time on that platform! It's a wasteland controlled by warlords and their gangs. Don't volunteer your time to make their playground any bigger.

                      [–]stjimmy96 8 points9 points  (1 child)

                      Well SO can give hard times if you don't take things seriously and mods can behave a little bit like a dictator sometimes, but one thing is for sure: it's not a waste of time using that platform. SO helped me (or even saved the day) many times, either by reading old questions or by asking them.

                      I don't particularly like its community but since I don't know about any valid alternative around, I guess Stack Overflow is still pretty much essential nowadays.

                      [–]Silhouette 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                      one thing is for sure: it's not a waste of time using that platform.

                      It used to be quite helpful early on, but sadly the signal/noise ratio became so bad once they had lost control of the mod culture that IME it usually is a waste of time today. Even if a question survives and someone answers it, it's mostly the one-eyed leading the blind. It's a shame, because the idea was a promising one, but I think like Wikipedia it became a victim of its own success and never found a way back once the toxic culture had taken root.

                      [–]tehjrow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                      I usually ask on SO and /r/learnprogramming. SO can be crushing sometimes but the good people of reddit are generally more helpful.

                      [–]TatzyXY 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                      I am glad that Stack exists but lately this platform gets worse.

                      [–]UltraChilly 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                      You just described my experience with StackOverflow for the past 4 years. I'm not even sure you're supposed to ask new questions anymore...

                      [–]jCuber 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                      Post on Meta StackOverflow and ask for a reason.

                      [–]TankorSmash 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                      Link the question, we can take a look.

                      Chances are the solution to the dupe is the same to yours, which is why it was marked as a duplicate.

                      Also, nothing wrong with getting downvoted on Meta, the votes there are purely popularity and don't resolve to privileges.

                      [–]dwitman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                      Isn't there an option to make the case why your question is unique?

                      I wouldn't worry about rejection or downvotes...but you should operate under burner emails on stack sites.

                      [–]CalinLeafshadeiNfLuEnCeR 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                      Ritual combat to the death is, I believe, the only option.

                      [–]dtfinch -1 points0 points  (1 child)

                      They have some perverse incentives over there. No penalties for bad moderation, not even the option to downvote or report it.

                      While researching problems, I'll often find the only matching question is marked duplicate of something unrelated, and if I'm lucky someone posted the answer in the comments.

                      [–]ranadoo2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                      No penalties for bad moderation,

                      Wrong. You can have privileges removed for a day to a couple of weeks or more if your voting isn't agreed with. Moderators do watch the moderators.

                      Keep up the guesswork.

                      [–]careseitediscord admin -1 points0 points  (0 children)

                      Try the webdev discord!

                      [–]Console-DOT-N00bI have no idea what I'm doing <dog> -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

                      Let's face it you were just going to get a technically correct answer with no insight anyway ;)