opinions on Stack Overflow

[jeeswg]

@Frosti (the Codeman): You mentioned some ancient themes. If there is something of relevance, it's this:

Asterix - House That Sends You Mad - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHRGjfEQpy4

The Twelve Tasks of Asterix - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelv ... of_Asterix

Find Permit A-38 in "The Place That Sends You Mad". A mind-numbing multi-storey building founded on bureaucracy and staffed by clinically unhelpful people who direct all their clients to other similarly unhelpful people elsewhere in the building.

The problem with Stack Overflow is not the people but the bureaucratic system. There isn't any other forum I use where I risk losing reputation points and where I risk losing the ability to ask a question for 6 months, simply for asking a modest/good/excellent question that is in full accordance with the rules.

To an extent it's OK to hide some aspects of the algorithms/weighting systems, so that people can't game the system to bend the rules but avoid being banned. However, Stack Overflow has got the balance here wrong many a time, furthermore, if they were explicitly clear and transparent about the rules, they might actually get the behaviour they wanted.

I might take a look at The Art of War for any relevant quotes. I don't remember any stand-out quotes from it, so it will be interesting to look at it again. Perhaps there was one, something like: if you know yourself and your enemy you needn't fear the outcome of so-many battles. I see it as relating more to competitive relationships, and not educational relationships, but dealing with the unknown links both.

If you were to consider the people angle, it's about the relationship between the master and the apprentice. To which I've just invented a little phrase. Be shrewd, leave the master if he's rude.

[Frosti]

I read many opinions about SO in the last months. It's a reputation system used by companys to find "excellent" employees? I read advices like this: "go for SO, get a good reputation. So you get the best job!"

[joedf]

You need to sneak in a few interesting questions that no one will answer because they are incapable then answer yourself or... put an obvious but interesting answer so they "like" you... slowly you'll gain some reputation and then you may actually ask some questions.

[nameispalmer]

All this stuff of reputation system by no means was made in order to prevent asking the same questions again and again. But it also fights some well-experienced lads, whose posts just don't get a number of upvotes enough to get some reputation, and that's a shame. But there's no improvement without casualties

[Cerberus]

SO and the other large Stack-Exchange sites can indeed be harsh. English.SE is also very harsh, and I can say that as I have been on that site for 8 years. You only need 5 grumpy old high-reps to close a question, and you need only 1 to post a challenging comment. I have a few suggestions:

1. Don't argue. You can't win; all you can do is not spend energy.

2. Go to the chat room of the site you're at, and ask, "do you think the following would make for a valid question on the main site?:", followed by a very short version of your question. You may be ignored. Or you may get advice about how to phrase the question to fit on the main site, and perhaps an up-vote. Or someone might answer your question in chat! Or they might say, this is the wrong SE site for that, ask somewhere else. You might try chatting up to people before asking, to build up some good will.

3. Browse a few other questions that got, say, 10 up-votes and try to copy the format. This could go like "1. This is my problem. 2. This is what I want to achieve. 3. This is what I've tried. 4. This is other relevant context".

P.S. The smaller and newer SE sites are usually a lot more open and friendly. I moderate Latin.SE, for example.

[derz00]

Good points!