I'm glad to see that I'm not imagining things. "Mr Burns" released the hounds on me on StackOverflow last week. I asked a question that was deemed to be a "duplicate" by some zealot. Without going into details, I found a question similar to mine with an Answer that can best be described as a "shorthand" answer, where I would prefer an answer in a more explicitly written "longhand" format. So I asked a question asking for help "translating" the "shorthand" to an equivalent "longhand". If I had had the option to add #explainlikeimfive I would have gladly used it as I was completely new to the topic.
So our zealous friend who shall remain anonymous chose to flag my question as a duplicate, and I posted some comments asking for clarification but no help was forthcoming and his or her responses got increasingly curt and arrogant.
BUT I took their comments to heart; while this "back and forth" was going on I spent some time figuring it out for myself, and I eventually worked it out. But this is where it got petty.
I accepted that my original question was poorly worded and not entirely clear. So I had no problem with them flagging it for deletion. But now I had gotten my head around it, I decided to re-post the question as a much clearer request explaining the difference between the "shorthand" and the "longhand", AND I stated that I was posting the question because I wanted to present my own solution to the problem for the benefit of other users trying to do a similar thing.
The question got immediately closed and flagged for deletion by the same zealous user.
I made the mistake of then going to their "meta" site to ask why this was happening. This is when they all ganged up on me, and they all descended on my questions, downvoting them and flagging them for deletion. Quite hilarious, actually.
Finally I decided this wasn't worth the fight. So I flagged my own questions for deletion. But I still thought my "longhand" solution to the problem was worth knowing about. So I went to the question in which I found the "shorthand" solution, and posted my "longhand" solution as an alternative answer.
Today I find this answer "downvoted" and marked for deletion, and my account banned from "asking more questions".
It's pathetic, really :-)
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I'm glad to see that I'm not imagining things. "Mr Burns" released the hounds on me on StackOverflow last week. I asked a question that was deemed to be a "duplicate" by some zealot. Without going into details, I found a question similar to mine with an Answer that can best be described as a "shorthand" answer, where I would prefer an answer in a more explicitly written "longhand" format. So I asked a question asking for help "translating" the "shorthand" to an equivalent "longhand". If I had had the option to add #explainlikeimfive I would have gladly used it as I was completely new to the topic.
So our zealous friend who shall remain anonymous chose to flag my question as a duplicate, and I posted some comments asking for clarification but no help was forthcoming and his or her responses got increasingly curt and arrogant.
BUT I took their comments to heart; while this "back and forth" was going on I spent some time figuring it out for myself, and I eventually worked it out. But this is where it got petty.
I accepted that my original question was poorly worded and not entirely clear. So I had no problem with them flagging it for deletion. But now I had gotten my head around it, I decided to re-post the question as a much clearer request explaining the difference between the "shorthand" and the "longhand", AND I stated that I was posting the question because I wanted to present my own solution to the problem for the benefit of other users trying to do a similar thing.
The question got immediately closed and flagged for deletion by the same zealous user.
I made the mistake of then going to their "meta" site to ask why this was happening. This is when they all ganged up on me, and they all descended on my questions, downvoting them and flagging them for deletion. Quite hilarious, actually.
Finally I decided this wasn't worth the fight. So I flagged my own questions for deletion. But I still thought my "longhand" solution to the problem was worth knowing about. So I went to the question in which I found the "shorthand" solution, and posted my "longhand" solution as an alternative answer.
Today I find this answer "downvoted" and marked for deletion, and my account banned from "asking more questions".
It's pathetic, really :-)