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Comment by fergie | Hacker News Reader

SO has never quite cracked the "be nice" rule. You can still get some pretty nasty feedback on your questions, and I completely understand why some beginners would be put off.

Its also worth noting that the top result for a software question in Google often takes you to a SO question that is "closed as off-topic" or "marked as duplicate".

I have a lot of sympathy with Joel's view that you should mercilessly enforce standards, but some of the "SO approved" moderation and feedback is not just rude, its actually wrong and unhelpful in the wider scheme of things.

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Hacker News is the same way. Users here are extremely hostile to most questions.

I've seen questions here that are on topic, asked very politely, and in good faith downvoted to all hell. I can only assume that some people here are very upset by "easy" questions or ones that have "obvious" answers and think this place is only for "smart" people who already know everything. I upvote most questions that are asked nicely and in good faith, even if the "obvious" ones aren't grey yet, because they certainly will be soon. I don't believe that people deserve to be punished for asking question, asking questions furthers the discussion and I'm absolutely positive everyone has some "obvious" gap in their knowledge.

If you want a specific example that sticks out in my head someone said "blah blah blah remember 2008?" in a discussion about financial fraud. Someone else replied "What happened in 2008?" and it was downvoted to all hell. There are people on here that were children in 2008, it's entirely reasonable they are only vaguely familiar with a financial crisis that happened when they were 8 years old!! Especially if they live in or grew up in in a non-Western country.

If the question is "marked as duplicate" then there is always a link to the duplicate, where the question is hopefully answered. I think it is a good thing that the same question has answers in a single place. But of course there is a grey zone when it is not exactly the same question.

As for off-topic questions, this is annoying, but I also think it is necessary for any useful site to maintain a focus. For example, StackOverflow does not allow requests for software recommendations even though this a frequent kind of question. But it is not a good fit for the format of the site since you often cannot say a recommendation is the "correct" one.

It often seems that the duplicate is different enough that they should remain separate. Or just as frustrating the duplicate relates to a previous release where the same question begs a different answer.

Can you provide a few links? I can vote to re-open if appropriate.

In my own experience ~7/10 times the duplicate question is something entirely different and I have to spend longer searching because of someone's ignorant pedantry.

Can you provide some examples of duplicates where the "duplicate" is actually something entirely different? Maybe I can help improve the situation.

I don't have a personal list but I'd suggest scraping r/programminghumor for stack overflow links would generate a statistically significant test set.

If it happens 7/10 for you it should be easy to find and link to some blatant examples. Since I have the rep to vote for reopen, we might be able to improve the world together.

For years it happened to me that more often than not when I found something really useful on stack overflow it was closed for some dumb reason.

IIRC this happened while other users seemed to be happily karma farming best-of questions.

I haven't seen so many lately but I've decided to start making bookmarks on them and here is one I found a few days ago: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13202705/what-are-the-us...

Myself I've witnessed first hand a question about networking being shot down on networking because it was between company networks instead of inside company networks.

I asked a specific question about text wrapping in Java SWT a couple months ago. It was quickly closed by a Java gold badge holder as a duplicate of a question asking what the best Java GUI framework is... which had nothing to do with my question. Thankfully, few hours later another Java gold badge holder reopened it, and answered it.

If the linked question does not answer the new question, then it isn't a grey area, and it isn't a duplicate. This seems to happen too often.

In defence of this, one can still vote to reopen a question. If enough people did this maybe it would help with the situation.

Please provide a few links to examples of this. I will vote to reopen if appropriate.

>> SO has never quite cracked the "be nice" rule.

From my experience, the thing with online forums, whether they be about programming, photography, coffee or whatnot is that they seem to be dominated by people who think they are "the smartest guys in the room". Those people tend to be less nice to people who don't think like them. It's even worse when they wield a little power, like the ability to downvote.

HN included. I cringe every time I read some comment here saying something to the effect of “I’m sure almost everybody here was a gifted child, is super smart and makes a half million a year...”.

Literally every forum I’ve been on has some variant of this. Joel’s old forums had the same comments, slashdot, Kuro5hin, everything....

Everybody wants to think they are above average.

Yeah, I always smile bitterly when I see "Any halfway decent programmer shouldn't have trouble landing a new job in 1-2 weeks."

We are also now coming to understand the extent to which text-based forums prevent participants from witnessing the human reactions to their communications, both positive and negative.

Nearly everyone is worse online than in person.

What you're saying is true -- sarcasm, English as a second language, etc. can heavily influence meaning and interpretation of a message.

On the other hand, there are plenty of negative opinionated commentary that is given under the guise of being expert advice that doesn't even attempt to be nuanced.

I'll avoid using an HN example, but on photography forums, it's not unusual for people to say stuff like "If it's not full-frame, it's not a real camera", or "Everyone needs a #mm fast prime" as though they are facts, not opinions.

SO stands out among the other forums on SE. Mathoverflow, math.SE, even Serverfault and UnixLinux.SE are so much friendlier and nicer.

I frequent Super User, another Stack Exchange site. The problem with "unfriendly" or "uncomfortably direct" responses does exist. It cannot be helped though: They're mostly from non-native speakers. They simply don't know better.

Once you realize that, you'll feel offended or put off less frequently.

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