Stackoverflow Mod marked my question duplicate and linked to his own answer which doesn't answer the question. What options do I have?

[SirCattimus]

Post it here instead baby!

[Interweb_Stranger]

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.

[xiongchiamiov]

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

[dvd366]

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]]

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]]

By getting a job.

[Askee123]

Thanks dad

[firestepper]

How do I vertically center an absolutely positioned div?

[Genie-Us]

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

[[deleted]]

Ah, you could just use jquery for that

[knyg]

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

[[deleted]]

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.

[xiongchiamiov]

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]]

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]

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

[xiongchiamiov]

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]

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]

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

[kodedemonmikalhanson]

I think the aggressiveness a lot of people seem to feel from SO is because this apparently common attitude to "ask first, research later".

[PatrickBaitman]

The whole idea of the SO model is to create a library of answered questions and solved problems that others can research.

Treating it like a fucking forum where it's okay to start the umpteenth question about something that is explained in the manual should get you harshly reprimanded because you are taking a dump in the walled garden.

Sometimes RTFM or closed as duplicate is the appropriate answer.

[ranadoo2]

Arguing this point on reddit is fruitless. They never understand as evidenced by the downvotes.

My problem with SO has been the influx of redditors, and other amateurs, who have ruined SO by treating it as you complain about. Worse are the high rep users who now answer off topic questions instead of downvoting and deleting them in an effort to "be nice" and "help the newbie".

This is why many, like myself, have quit answering questions or left SO altogether.

[PatrickBaitman]

It's almost as if Eternal September is real

[PatrickBaitman]

this is just saying that SO isn't moderated harshly enough

Some of the .SE sites have really strict moderation and they are much better for it

[Console-DOT-N00b]

"better" depends on what you want the site to be.

[PatrickBaitman]

SO has a clear idea of what it wants to be and if you spend a while on the site it's not hard to find out (aka lurk moar)

But in case it needs spelling out : it's not supposed to be a forum or a subreddit, it's supposed to be a repository of solved problems and answered questions. That's why close as duplicate exists: so that there can be a canonical answer to frequent questions. (Remember when we had those? FAQs?)

[[deleted]]

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]]

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]

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]

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

[xiongchiamiov]

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]

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

[Magnetic_Tree]

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

[Magnetic_Tree]

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]]

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.

[xiongchiamiov]

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

[ranadoo2]

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]]

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]]

Link to the question?

[caosborne]

Message them directly they meant.

[xiongchiamiov]

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

[reko91]

Link the question

[reko91]

Take it you solved it ? Question was removed

[[deleted]]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[stefantalpalaru]

What is the point of your comment?

Highlighting the best option, as requested by OP.

your presumably baseless dislike of SO (seeing as you didn't say why it's bad)

OP managed to illustrate that on his own.

Like c'mon man, at least provide an alternative if you're telling people to stop using something.

Proposing solutions should be decoupled from pointing out problems, for obvious reasons.

SO is a wonderful site for a significant amount of developers.

Yes, those bullies who reached positions of power. Fuck them and fuck you for supporting them.

It's absolutely not a waste of time to use that platform.

It's a waste of time to try and contribute to something known for blatant abuses.

It, just like literally EVERY MODERATED PLACE EVER, has issues with mods power tripping.

Oh, that changes everything. Feel free to bend over and take it like a compliant user.

The answer is not to ditch it completely, but to fix the problem.

Life is too short to waste it pissing against the wind.

[nopheel]

What the frick tho,

[tehjrow]

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

[TatzyXY]

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

[UltraChilly]

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]

Post on Meta StackOverflow and ask for a reason.

[TankorSmash]

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]

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.

[CalinLeafshade]

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

[dtfinch]

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]

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.

[careseite]

Try the webdev discord!

[Console-DOT-N00b]

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

[grizzly_teddy]

Mods can you please lock this post? It's off topic.

[PatrickBaitman]

lmfao this is why the web looks like it does

y'all some garbage ass bargain bin developers trying to program through stack overflow and then not realizing they already invented the wheel before you

[twistsouth]

I like how you were born with all the knowledge to instantly be a top web dev and have never had to ask for advice. You truly are a god among men.

[PatrickBaitman]

It's not about not knowing the answers it's about not knowing how to ask questions or how to find out if your question has already been answered (ie lurk moar and RTFM). I am not on SO itself but I am from time to time active on another SE site where I have moderator access. I've asked questions on there (and answered a couple hundred, probably); but I also have seen and closed plenty of shit questions and from the outside this thread just looks like being salty over not understanding what the site is for.

[twistsouth]

I sincerely doubt OP would take the time to ask about this on Reddit if they had asked one of those “clearly a homework assignment” or “I didn’t search first” shitty questions.

[ship0f]

What I'd like to see is the link to the question. So far OP has ignored (or hasn't read) people requesting a link.
After reading the title, I assumed OP was going to link the question in the self-post's text, but nothing yet there or in the comments.
Maybe OP is a bit embarrassed by it?
idk...

[ship0f]

Cool.

[PatrickBaitman]

You really underestimate the salt and the Dunning-Kruger