I think it's about the use-case. The purpose of SO is probably being "The" question&answer resource, with emphasis on correctness and efficiency. Which is different from being a touchy-feely, feel-good place (for which I imagine there are other places). That said, I also am not fan of a*-holes, d*cks, toxicity and faux elitists who mistake means with ends.
"Removing downvoting for good" - I understand Your concerns about downvoting, but I think there is a big use for it - preventing people from grabbing wrong/dangerous code from SO. I mean downvoting answers. Maybe a comment should be required for downvote.
"Putting a limit on the number of daily answers per user" - I don't see any value in this. Sounds like an unnecessary limit. I hear republicans screaming «Get the "government" out of my daily postings, you commies.»
Other stuff I find suboptimal in SO:
comments are not threaded, which leads to hard-to-follow conversations
comments are single-line (hard to put/read code)
Elitism (within reason) has its benefits: more good stuff bubbles to the top, preventing us from having to wade through bad answers or risking to use wrong/bad/dangerous code.
You aren't supposed to have conversations in the comments section or post code in them. They are to allow you to ask a quick clarifying question - if you want to chat use the chat rooms.
You, sir, have already demonstrated yourself to not be not worth the effort. If you really cared to understand the problems, you would have applied yourself to understand them instead of microparsing the concerns of people whose experiences don't match your desired outcomes.
So, although it's a foreign tongue to me, I'll explain it to you in StackOverflowese, which you might find easier to understand: LMGTFY.
Thanks for trying, but I haven't found anything on google that underlines your point. As I said, my experience with Stack Overflow is overwhelmingly positive, which is why I'm asking for specific examples in the first place. If that's more work than you're willing to invest, that's fine, but please don't expect me to change my opinion based on one persons accusations.
A front-end developer from Mar del Plata, Argentina. Passionate about CSS, accessibility, and JS. Currently working on "just a small fix", as I've been doing for the last 15 years.
You can still select the best answers with upvoting alone, letting the good ones rise to the top. That's the reason Twitter, Facebook, DEV and most other systems rely only in positive reinforcement. Everyone is susceptible to negative emotion in varying degrees (it's one of the big 5 personality traits), so it may not be a big deal for you, but it can be crushing for others. But it's not just about a sense of welcoming and feel good place: the lack of negative reinforcement also encourages to write a reply or an alternate answer if you disagree, which should result in constructive exchange of ideas.
Limiting the number of answers is to prevent addiction. Even casinos will kick you out if you spend the whole day in there (at least, in most countries). SO is not doing that, but the exact opposite. It has a reward system in place that very deliberately encourages addiction.
Without getting into names, I can guarantee that for each tag there are three guys there that will race to answer every single question in the fastest way possible. No matter at what time you post the question, they are literally 24/7 overwatching the tag and running the ridiculous editing cycle I described above, desperately trying to get their +20. That's not sane. And they've been hooked on it for years.
One thing is to spend some of your time helping the community, but when it becomes your full-time occupation with zero compensation and prevents you from getting an actual job, it becomes a dangerous addiction and even a form of modern slavery.
Simply putting a limit of answers per day (in a thankful, considerate message) will provide a safety net for those users, while letting others participate in the game. It will only benefit the quality of answers by broadening the actors.
A front-end developer from Mar del Plata, Argentina. Passionate about CSS, accessibility, and JS. Currently working on "just a small fix", as I've been doing for the last 15 years.
Hi! that's a very good point. I'd tend to believe that making a new account won't do it for them as it'd be hard to see that 10 initial reputation, but some may go with it anyway and even find joy in receiving the initial rush of badges too. Guess some effort could be put in preventing that as well.
Honestly I raised that point from my personal experience. I spent about 8 months being an active user on the website, and I was one of those overwatching a tag an racing to get the accepted mark. I got out after I realised it was affecting my personal and professional life. But some of the people I was competing with are still doing it, 2 years later. Their system is very fine tuned to generate addiction.
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Hi.
Nice analysis :).
I think it's about the use-case. The purpose of SO is probably being "The" question&answer resource, with emphasis on correctness and efficiency. Which is different from being a touchy-feely, feel-good place (for which I imagine there are other places). That said, I also am not fan of a*-holes, d*cks, toxicity and faux elitists who mistake means with ends.
"Removing downvoting for good" - I understand Your concerns about downvoting, but I think there is a big use for it - preventing people from grabbing wrong/dangerous code from SO. I mean downvoting answers. Maybe a comment should be required for downvote.
"Putting a limit on the number of daily answers per user" - I don't see any value in this. Sounds like an unnecessary limit. I hear republicans screaming «Get the "government" out of my daily postings, you commies.»
Other stuff I find suboptimal in SO:
Elitism (within reason) has its benefits: more good stuff bubbles to the top, preventing us from having to wade through bad answers or risking to use wrong/bad/dangerous code.
WDYT?
Let's chat.
(Angular, JS, TS dev here)
You aren't supposed to have conversations in the comments section or post code in them. They are to allow you to ask a quick clarifying question - if you want to chat use the chat rooms.
Maybe let's make some petitions and/or support/feature requests for each of those items (I suggest separating the concerns).
Most of them have been floated multiple times...some of them by me...and all of them were knocked down.
StackOverflow is toxic, and from meta conversations I've personally been party to, that's the way the elite like it. And the elite call the shots.
Would you mind linking to some of those threads? I'd like to hear the other side as well on this.
You, sir, have already demonstrated yourself to not be not worth the effort. If you really cared to understand the problems, you would have applied yourself to understand them instead of microparsing the concerns of people whose experiences don't match your desired outcomes.
So, although it's a foreign tongue to me, I'll explain it to you in StackOverflowese, which you might find easier to understand: LMGTFY.
Thanks for trying, but I haven't found anything on google that underlines your point. As I said, my experience with Stack Overflow is overwhelmingly positive, which is why I'm asking for specific examples in the first place. If that's more work than you're willing to invest, that's fine, but please don't expect me to change my opinion based on one persons accusations.
You can still select the best answers with upvoting alone, letting the good ones rise to the top. That's the reason Twitter, Facebook, DEV and most other systems rely only in positive reinforcement. Everyone is susceptible to negative emotion in varying degrees (it's one of the big 5 personality traits), so it may not be a big deal for you, but it can be crushing for others. But it's not just about a sense of welcoming and feel good place: the lack of negative reinforcement also encourages to write a reply or an alternate answer if you disagree, which should result in constructive exchange of ideas.
Limiting the number of answers is to prevent addiction. Even casinos will kick you out if you spend the whole day in there (at least, in most countries). SO is not doing that, but the exact opposite. It has a reward system in place that very deliberately encourages addiction.
Without getting into names, I can guarantee that for each tag there are three guys there that will race to answer every single question in the fastest way possible. No matter at what time you post the question, they are literally 24/7 overwatching the tag and running the ridiculous editing cycle I described above, desperately trying to get their +20. That's not sane. And they've been hooked on it for years.
One thing is to spend some of your time helping the community, but when it becomes your full-time occupation with zero compensation and prevents you from getting an actual job, it becomes a dangerous addiction and even a form of modern slavery.
Simply putting a limit of answers per day (in a thankful, considerate message) will provide a safety net for those users, while letting others participate in the game. It will only benefit the quality of answers by broadening the actors.
But, if they are addicted, how it will prevent them to make fake accounts to continue in the game?
Hi! that's a very good point. I'd tend to believe that making a new account won't do it for them as it'd be hard to see that 10 initial reputation, but some may go with it anyway and even find joy in receiving the initial rush of badges too. Guess some effort could be put in preventing that as well.
Honestly I raised that point from my personal experience. I spent about 8 months being an active user on the website, and I was one of those overwatching a tag an racing to get the accepted mark. I got out after I realised it was affecting my personal and professional life. But some of the people I was competing with are still doing it, 2 years later. Their system is very fine tuned to generate addiction.