Once I was looking how to set bits in a byte to write bitmap images in 2 bit format in C#. Seeing comments about how that was a “homework” question was definitely off putting for me.
Or the famous case of googling something, seeing the Stackoverflow link in the results, clicking that to get the answer and seeing comments about how the OP should have googled it first.
Treating askers poorly is definitely off putting to lurkers.
It’s valuable to hear. It’s not good that you feel this way.
However, to me it was the complete opposite. In the beginning I got corrected many times. I did not take it personal, but just motivation to learn the ropes. I understood that the rules are there for a reason, and it’s my responsibility to follow them.
I rarely see unmotivated harshness. When people are overly harsh in the comment section, it’s often because of one of these these situations:
I have NEVER felt afraid to ask anything. But on the other hand, since I follow the procedure of creating an MRE, I usually find the solution on my own in the process. And in most other situations, I find another question that suits my needs.
One thing that has happened to me a lot is that I find a question that is similar to my question, but the answers are pretty crappy. And it can take some time to find a question with good answer. That’s when I wish that the duplicate system worked better.
We obviously have a little different experience. 
This is not necessarily all bad. If you’re not reasonably confident you can post a good question, then it’s probably better that you don’t. Having people be a little less trigger-happy so as to be more careful is useful.
That all said, anyone lurking long enough should have a pretty good idea how to ask a question. Pretty much anyone that puts in at least a little effort ends up asking a good enough question. Anyone thoughtful enough to be worried about the reception they get probably has nothing to worry about.
The questions that get blasted usually do so for good reasons. I haven’t seen harsh treatment of a few spelling errors, the occasional wrong tense, and the like.
Did not see that particular question, but homework dumps are frustrating. Often it is so obvious that OP have not done any effort whatsoever, and also does not even care about learning. They just want to pass the course an is asking US to put in our free time of helping to CHEAT. That’s downright rude in every way possible.
What’s strange? Someone asks a question that is really easy to google. Let’s say “In C, what has highest priority of ++ and == ?” Then someone else googles something similar, and since SO is so huge, it will show up there immediately. The problem here is that the question is still there and is not deleted. And this is because all SO cares for is clicks.
Sure. The trick is to find the perfect balance where you scare off those who would never be a net contribution anyway while keeping those who would. And that’s a really tricky challenge.
Which comes from the people that can’t be bothered to read a few instructions and get familiar with a site before barging in and demanding their homework be done for them.
Yeah…I joined SO a fair ways back, before SE was much of a thing, and in that time, I watched it become more hostile to people for not writing questions a very specific way. I still remember more than a few exchanges I had on SE sites when I asked a completely valid question as an experienced user and people got their knickers in a twist over my specific word choice when they clearly understood the question I was asking (or even the answer I wrote, because that happened, too). It wasn’t even about me thinking they “owe me an answer” (what does that even mean in the context of a Q&A site, anyway?).
To say it’s a red herring and based solely on “people wanting their homework done for them” is itself disingenuous.
This does give me an idea, though - what if we had a sanctioned “homework help” subsite/sister site/whatever?
It’d be a little more conversational in nature, but the idea would be that people wanting homework help could ask and the people answering could work on leading them to the answer (not giving them the answer). The people who are genuinely looking to learn will take to the approach, while those just looking for answers will effectively weed themselves out (and perhaps the question would auto-close and archive after a certain length of time without a response from the asker).
I think this will be very much a community-dependent thing. Some will, some won’t. But for those who want to support such a thing, it could be a Category within a community site.
I like the idea, but it’s a bit troublesome.
On SO, the more complete an answer is, the better. But if the goal is not to give complete solutions, how much should a user help? Who judge that? By what standards?
CodeReview.SE works quite well: it defines preconditions for what makes a question there on-topic[
In theory perhaps a community might define preconditions for answerable homework. If not enough professionals wanted to answer, perhaps the community (who answer) might be students, who are the experts most interested in such questions.
I’m failing to see how this is a problem. Google question, find answer. Problem solved! Happy (invisible) SE user! Happens often enough - they will start to notice and visit more frequently!
Search engines are good enough these days that most relevant stuff can be found quickly, regardless of the quantity of irrelevant stuff also in existence. If exact duplicates are proliferating, merge them, but that’s an issue of moderation. Good moderation is where the project will stand or fall but there’s no reason at all not to keep it friendly. This has to be thing that differentiates Codidact from SE; it’s what will attract the initial user base.
Yes, and one that SE is failing. Considerable numbers of potential good question askers are feeling repulsed. And some people here insist that Codidact needs to raise the bar for entry!!
I see moderation as more to do with moderating user-misbehaviour than evolving content – the content is the community’s.
But anyway I’m not sure I can/did identify every duplicate on my site – where there are only 6000 topics.
How do people do it?
It’s not so hard on Skeptics.SE where the topic tends to include or be an identifying name or noun.
I managed to retrofit (after the fact) an orderly set of tags onto my 350 meta-topics – but that wasn’t a big job, I’ve never attempted it for the main site – so the tags there are only semi-orderly, organic, unreliable. I wonder whether “ideally” you’d pay (or require) as much attention to the tags of each new topic as you do to its content, and have insight into how your tag cloud evolves.
I interpreted @cbrumbaugh as if it was a question with NO answer, but only comments that OP should have googled it first.
I think you’re looking at it in a very one dimensional way. Don’t get me wrong. You certainly have a valid point. But I don’t think it’s very fruitful to just picture people who can be experienced as hostile as evil people who destroys everything. Like you, they do what THEY believe is in the communitys interest. Assume good faith.
I was thinking about this, and if we simplify stuff a bit, I’d say that there are three types of people here that TOGETHER creates a hostile atmosphere. 1) Users who asks crappy questions, 2) Users who fixes and answers these questions 3) Users who tries to educate the users asking crappy questions.
Let’s look what would happen if we raised the bar considerably and focused on 1). Maybe by forcing new users to wait one day before posting a question so that they have time to read the rules. Make their first questions peer reviewed to ensure that they are good before posted publicly. This would remove the problem with too many bad questions, but it would certainly also scare people away. Possibly too many.
Now let’s focus on 2) instead. Make it against the rules to fix things that are considered OP:s job to fix and learn how to fix. This would solve the problem with too many bad questions, because they would get downvoted and deleted into oblivion. It would certainly also scare of many newbees, and it would also alienate experts who spend their free time doing things better.
Let’s try dealing with 3) instead. If we removed this group, well then it would be less hostile for sure. But I think that the amount of questions needing fixing would pile up. Also, it could lead to a lot of questions not getting answered because the experts are busy fixing other stuff. And in the long run, many helpful users will get annoyed and transform from 2) to 3).
Just saying that SE is to hostile towards newbees is a way to simple analysis. While those users who comment in the style of “You should read the documentation. It’s very clear on this specific matter. SO is not a replacement for google.” certainly can be experienced as hostile by some, I think it’s a BIG mistake to completely ignore the good effects that has. It has happened that people have said stuff like that to me. My answer is simply “Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry.” and then I move on.
“SE is hostile to new users”, as a blanket statement, is not my position either. However, the fact that some SE newcomers find the atmosphere created by some SE veterans hostile is very well established, and it’s a problem that Codidact needs to address from the very beginning if it hopes to get off the ground - IMO it’s one of the critical features that must differentiate Codidact from SE. Remember, Codidact needs to attract a user base, not just retain one. So Codidact needs to be more user-friendly than SE already is.
What I object to is the belief (among some) that hostility is necessary to maintain quality, or that being welcoming is mutually exclusive with teaching people the rules. That just isn’t true. And no, it’s not that new users need to learn to take criticism more graciously. “I wouldn’t be bothered by this, therefore nobody else should be” is not how tolerant human interaction works.
“You should read the documentation. It’s very clear on this specific matter. SO is not a replacement for google.” is a pretty mild example, but it can still be reworded more gently and convey the same information. More goodwill is gained, and what does it cost? Nothing.
Assuming good intent is important, as you say. It’s been mentioned before that some people aren’t aware that their tone comes across as harsh or rude, for language, cultural or other reasons. That’s not their fault, but unconscious harshness needs to be treated on the same level as unconscious newbie cluelessness, and gently corrected (as @cellio already said a few weeks ago). Both are problems. Persistent, wilful refusal to correct either problem should ultimately lead to equal sanctions.
No. In fact, this is exactly the problem leading to the exodus of core contributors from SE.
Users will come when there are good answers to be had. To ensure that, you have to have a core of contributors that feel appreciated and feel a bit like it’s “their” site. These people get frustrated and burned out quickly seeing the same bad questions over and over again. To retain the core contributors, you have to empower them to keep the place clean.
There will always be some users that simply won’t bother and don’t care about the rules, and ask bad questions as a result. The software should do what it can to communicate expectations to all new users, but in the end, some are going to post crap anyway. Those are not the users we want. Not every user is an asset.
Put another way, you can’t be nice to everyone. You have to choose. By not dealing expediently with those that post bad questions, you are being effectively rude to the core contributors. You don’t get to have it both ways. Some small percentage of users getting rebuffed because they won’t learn the site is a Good Thing.
I would not say that it necessarily is a problem. We can agree that is is a thing that Codidact needs to address, but it’s not necessarily a problem. Also, just because X finds Y hostile does not mean that Y is hostile, and neither does it mean that X is to sensitive. I can imagine that some of those you would call hostile would call you the same.
I’m not sure you’re correct here. I assume that most of the bad newbees (sorry for harsh language) who don’t bother to google and read the rules also are not trying find alternatives to SO. They will come when Codidact has become big. Most of the users that will be attracted in the beginning does not belong to these. Also, keep in mind that there are quite a lot of veterans on SO that grew tired on SO because it was too much spoonfeeding of newbies. Codidact will probably attract quite a lot of them.
I do not claim that it is necessary either.
Well, these are the things that are easy to say and sound reasonable, but if you start to analyze it, it becomes more complicated. Let’s just take the example that a new user gets extremely offended because you do not address him “sir”.
I’m sure that there are some people that think that both you and me during this discussion could have put a lot more effort into inserting a lot of “I really respect your opinion” into our posts. Does that mean that you and me are hostile now? Because someone else think so? Btw, some old people would probably think it is impolite to spell “you” with underscore “y”. I’m pretty sure that you find these examples ridiculous, and I agree. But at the same time, there are things that I think are too rude to say that someone else would think is completely ok.
You’re arguing like we are proposing two fundamentally different things, but I would say that we’re not. We just disagree where to draw the lines.
Yes, it can be reworded to be more gently. It always can. Who decides when it’s good enough? Also, I would say that your claim that it costs nothing is objectively false. It put restraints on people when they express themselves. It can be frustrating to have to think carefully about your choice of words when you just have a thing to say and wants to have it said. Maybe it’s not for you, but it can be for someone who have not grown up in an environment where politeness have a high priority. And especially for someone who is not very good at speaking English. Also, hostility CAN (at least in isolated cases) decrease the number of bad posts, which means that politeness CAN increase the number of bad posts. So yes, there is a cost. It may be worth the cost, but there certainly is a cost.
I do think that one of the most important things here is to realize that we have to have some level of rudeness that users have to accept. I’m certain that anything that you find polite enough is something that I also would find polite enough. I’m also certain that anything I would find too rude is something you also would find too rude. We just disagree in the middle there. But who are right?
This was a very common frustration even on Usenet, and one of the reasons that Stackoverflow was created in the first place.
There’s a difference between being nice and not moderating questions. We can say that a question is off-topic, a duplicate or unclear. We can’t say that a user is an idiot. If you say the latter because you’re frustrated because of the former, you’re simply rude. You don’t help anyone. Constant rudeness hurts the community. You’ll be in violation of our and the community’s code of conduct.
And I’m not rude to the core contributors if I give them tools to handle/moderate the question. You are not obliged to answer all questions. You can ignore questions you don’t. But you can’t be rude to the asker or to people who want to help them.
Agreed, and nobody has suggested we allow such a thing. There has to be separation between the person and the post. There is a big difference between telling someone that their question is bad, versus that they are bad. The latter is, well, bad.
Look, we are not going to tolerate rudeness. Full stop. And I want to guide people toward more constructive forms of commenting – asking questions versus asserting errors, using more “I” language, etc. “How do you account for (problem)?” is way more constructive than “that’s wrong because of (problem)”. “Could you add a source for X?” is way more constructive than “your unsupported claim is wrong”. “I’m having trouble understanding X; can you clarify?” is way better than “this is unclear” – and, by the way, leaves open the possibility that you’re the one who’s missing something, not the poster.
None of this conflicts with site quality. How we interact with users sets a tone very early, and I’ve seen it drive away people who would have been expert contributors, but they didn’t like the abrasive, sometimes-combative culture of a site. We don’t need to coddle people (and shouldn’t; it’s insulting), and we don’t need to accept poor content lest the author be upset by downvotes, but we do need to act with decency. There is a real human being on the other end of the words you write. Remember that.
As I write use cases for Codidact I’m finding lots of places where I want the software to inject guidance for users, long before another person would need to step in. Adding that guidance will be a (probably) never-ending task, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start. And we will.
So we’re approaching the issue on two fronts: better guidance (and moderation when needed) for users who are trying to help but might be stumbling a little, and better guidance in the software to avert some problems before they happen.
Quality content and expert participation are not incompatible with treating people decently. This will be a point of distinction for Codidact. I for one will not tolerate rudeness and abrasiveness rooted in this false dichotomy, and I think I’m not alone in that.
A lot of the things you mention - “I language” immediately comes to mind, but a bunch of the other things too - are exactly the things that Toastmasters pushes for Speech Evaluations. I think the concept is very much the same - comments about a Question to improve are essentially the same as an Evaluation is to help someone improve their Speech, with one exception - you go to a Toastmasters meeting and give a speech expecting and actually wanting that Evaluation/feedback. You go to a Q&A site to ask a Question and you just want the answer (unless it is a “Sandbox”). But the concepts are much the same, and the specific issues - don’t be rude, be constructive, use I language (I used to think that was meaningless, but I am getting used to it - it has become a “big” thing lately), focus on specific points instead of generalities, etc. - are largely the same.
I was going to say “but how do people know to do this” and the answer is "we don’t expect newbies to know this, but we expect the regulars to know it, and they are the ones commenting. And looked at that way, it all makes sense. And even SE’s minimum rep. to Comment makes sense in that context - anyone can “answer” but you need more than just domain knowledge to comment in a constructive way.