"Duplicates" or "reposts" are a canonical concern of web communities. One issue is that it can lead to rehashing discussions ad nauseam or generally fracture the flow of good information. But a bigger concern to me is that people are such assholes about it. I actually haven't seen any such assholery on dev.to yet, but I want to get ahead of it.
Duplicate discussions are allowed, and if you see a duplicated discussion, feel free to approach it along these lines:
"Hey, there was a really good discussion on this topic here, but we can elaborate on the discussion here, because there's always more to say."
This can lead to a bit of meta discussion on the first post, or come at the topic from a new angle. No discussion is ever "done".
This current guideline may not "scale". Only time will tell. In the mean time, we'll look to improve on technical solutions that help improve the experience for everyone with relation to this issue. Duplicated "articles" are also fine in that a topic can be covered from many angles and a lot of folks' posts are for an outlet for themselves to better understand a topic. If you suspect plagiary, you should report abuse. That link can be found on every post and comment.
On the topic of comments/guidelines
I've been meaning to write another post about Internet comments, but since I haven't gotten around to it, I'll jot some points here:
- It's good to think of the comment section a bit like the Q/A in a conference talk. On the Internet, people often forget there is a human on the other side and this is a model I use personally.
- On that note, I'd love to see more folks ask questions in the comment section of an article. It's a wonderful way for the community to learn and can lead to some of the best content. Authors are usually tremendously receptive to answering questions tightly or loosely related to the topic they are covering in their article.
- It's very encouraged to leave posts like "Great post!" or "Thanks for writing this, I enjoyed it". Some other dev communities discourage these comments and I don't know why, they are so motivating for the author and do not distract meaningfully for any incoming reader. And on that note, these types comments naturally "sink" to the bottom for the most part in our algorithmically-ordered comment system, so they really do not distract at all.
I hope all of this jives, let me know if you see any of this differently.
Top comments (13)
Great post! 😜
But seriously. We've discussed this a lot as as team and I'm glad you took the time to write it down.
Reddit and Hacker News are hard really on dupe content, which is a different case because link submissions are exactly the same, but either way, the general ethos is to be a huge asshole about it. And Stack Overflow's take on things makes a lot of sense sometimes when you're a power user who knows when things show up all the time. As you alluded to, calling some of these places communities might be a stretch, but it's still a very important place for discussion in our field.
One of my biggest annoyances with stack overflow is the somewhat brutal closing of questions which are legitimately different to those you are then forced to read through after the only reason you posted in the first place was because those threads didn't provide the answers you wanted. Development is fast paced and especially in say the JavaScript world where questions and answers go out of date within weeks rather than years (hello python). There is huge validity in allowing a stack of repetition, if anything using a great search engine like Algolia you yield better results as your get a bigger footprint to index and acquire key word knowledge.
I fully understand the closing of a "how do I print to console in language X" but in real life the same questions are asked millions of times, why should we create an alien environment that doesn't mimick real world behaviour. This for me is the key difference between a community and the alternatives which I have now stopped reading.
Thanks for writing this, I enjoyed it! :P
EDIT: I just posted and refreshed the page and found more comments with the same lines haha xD people here are just amazing!!!! <3
Good points all, especially that everybody on here is a human. (I assume)
Great post, thanks for writing this! 🤪
Might it be a good idea to add a reminder around the comment box that there is a human on the other side of this post (and others watching) to both drive this point home but also help it scale beyond this post and other less obvious guidelines?
Yep, we're on the same mindset. This was just sort of like a "we do a lot to encourage this sort of stuff and try to make guides but I sometimes never get around to saying what's on my mind so I'm just gonna make a quick post about it" sort of thing.
We currently have a reminder of sorts folks' first comment, which was added after your first comment. More little things like this as we go.
Thanks for sharing this. Positive feedback and constructive criticism should always be welcomed.
dev.to seems to be such an opposite to Stack Overflow, in such that only SO style posts are the only ones I get upset about. Don't get me wrong I'm very glad they're here but that kind of post seems out of place here to me.
It is very refreshing to see such focus and attention on creating an inclusive, reasonably polite and appreciative community. It takes a lot of energy and time to write articles, and comments and especially questions can be the difference between giving up and producing more content.
One of the important distinctions to me is the approach that people have when interacting with various platforms. On StackOverflow and Reddit, people want to present themselves as "I know better." It is built in the the culture of the community. (Note to self: explore the concept of site/community culture)
Dev.to built a culture of learners, who come here to learn and exchange ideas, not to one-up each other. Healthy disagreement is great, but assholish nitpicking is just demoralizing. Dev.to is able, somehow, to keep the former healthy and the latter at bay. It is a bit like magic.
I couldn't agree more, I've honestly avoided posting on sites like Stack Overflow and various subreddits for just this reason. Though, with that being said, I do think that functionality like what's featured on discuss.atom.io that shows similar posts during composition can be helpful in preventing unintended duplicates.
You're a human! Great post! Reading the first 'meta' on dev.to 😋