Comment by nanis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nanis | Hacker News Reader

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Here's something she complains about (she posted a screenshot of a comment): "If the error says line 49, it tells you exactly where the problem lies. If you post 7 lines of code here, we clearly cannot tell you what the problem is in line 49." [1]

I see nothing wrong with that.

As luck would have it, today some random stranger recognized me from my Stackoverflow profile at a Panera and asked me to help him debug his Django app. It was straightforward to fix because the error message described the problem exactly, but, for whatever reason, it wasn't apparent to him. I pointed this out, explained the problem, and showed him how to look for additional information based on the error message. Maybe this sounds softer in person, but there is nothing wrong with reminding people to pay attention to error messages, and the importance of giving people adequate amounts of information when you ask for their help.

Now, as a person who's answered many a question on Stackoverflow, I've had people threatening physical harm to me and my loved ones, as well as setting up Twitter accounts to harass me. To their credit, Stackoverflow admins always take swift action when actual harassment occurs. However, Twitter and Facebook seemed rather uninterested.

[1]: https://twitter.com/aprilwensel/status/974859164747931650

Here’s a slightly different response that is hopefully more welcoming.

“The error message says the problem is on line 49 but you haven’t shown that line in your example code. Can you please show the code referred to on line 49 and the surrounding code for context?”

I think power users on SO are frustrated by newer users not learning the rules and not helping themselves. But if you respond with kindness you’re teaching somebody (and that’s what answerers are there to do!) how to better contribute in future.

Make a Deep Learning bot inserting whatever ornamentation of sentences you like. You can choose multiple styles and personalize for whatever makes you feel good. Why require one single standard from everyone? The answer that was "offensive" was just a standard dry answer like you hear at any top university everywhere; I found "(brutal) exercise is left to the reader" way more offensive.

No one claimed the answer was offensive. It's unnecessarily condescending though. If you, as a senior developer, spoke to a junior developer on their first day at a new job in the same way, they'd be very unlikely to come to you for help in the future.

Learning how to interpret error messages and extract the important information is a skill. What may seem obvious to you may not be obvious to someone with barely any experience.

> was just a standard dry answer like you hear at any top university everywhere

Which makes it OK? If university lecturers are speaking to new students trying to learn in this way, they shouldn't be teaching new students.

I had gazillion encounters when senior engineers/managers were unbelievably condescending, especially when they saw a capable competitor in you. The keyword is resilience, are you going to gain this virtue, or are you going to complain everywhere and cry on all available shoulders, and then once you get what you wanted, start backstabbing anyone that helped you to keep them down and forget about what put you there? I was one of those "useful idiots" that was helping to my utmost capacity others, wasting time I could have spent working on bigger projects helping humanity. Every single case when those people got what they wanted stopped recognizing me and called me only when they needed something. I am no longer than person.

If you really want something, work on it to the full extent of your own capabilities, get ready to be beaten from left and right and figure out how to move forward. Don't expect help from around you. When somebody shows generosity to you, treat it as a wonderful bonus you try to return somehow someday, not a requirement.

> If you really want something, work on it to the full extent of your own capabilities, get ready to be beaten from left and right and figure out how to move forward. Don't expect help from around you.

This should not be an expectation of the world, and I'm sorry you've had the experiences you've had to see it as such. This is exactly what people are complaining about when they say tech is hostile. It's not just hostile to minorities, it can be hostile to everybody.

We can choose to do unto others, or we can choose to break that cycle and be more welcoming. If you're unable to do this on stackoverflow, then may I suggest you don't participate.

Frankly, resilience is necessity. The better you are, the more you are eclipsing the others, the stronger averse reaction you get everywhere. People could be your best friends until you escape their crab bucket, then you are suddenly a well-known enemy and rumors start spreading. I am no longer going out of my way to help those people; I believe they deserve where they are as they chose to stay in the bucket of their own loathing. But I am not going to be nasty to them at all. Their kids still have potential, so those are treated without indifference.

> Can you please show the code referred to on line 49 and the surrounding code for context?”

If you are paying me my hourly, I'll pretty please you to no end. Otherwise, I am not sure why I am expected to beg for people to give information that would help me help them.

Then move on and don't respond at all. Leave the begging to the users that want to help new users get better. There's a genuine complaint that responses to new users are often harsher than required. "I shouldn't have to beg for information" is not a valid response to that criticism.

Answerers have no idea about the skill level of the people asking the questions. Their english might not be so good. This might be the first time someone is programming and they don't know which line in a stack trace is particularly important. They Need Help. If you're not willing to help users at that skill level, then don't. But it's totally unfair to criticise them.

> Then move on and don't respond at all.

You misunderstand. If you are paying me, I have no problem letting you spend more of your money by not giving enough information to solve the problem. I will point out once, and if you express the desire that I spend more time validating you, I will gladly do that.

As it stands, you should keep in mind that you don't get to tell me what to do.

Telling someone "we can't figure out what's wrong on line 49 if you don't show us what's on line 49" is not condescending, rude, discriminatory, racist, sexist, etc etc at all. It is a factual statement that is aimed at pointing out exactly what the person who is seeking help needs to do to get said help.

Now, if I point something out like this, and I get a response like yours, I move on. Before moving on, however, I do vote to close the question because 1) there isn't enough information to diagnose the problem; and 2) the OP is unwilling to provide it.

If you think I did something wrong in my response to you, you can flag my response for moderator attention. If that is not resolved to your liking, you can post on Meta.

It is interesting to me that supposedly all these people who just want more niceness are the ones calling high-rep users and moderators assholes, insulting them indiscriminately etc.

As I mentioned before, you can always go on Meta, and suggest ways to improve https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask . If a first time user fails to follow the recommendations therein, it is incumbent upon the people who are trying to help to point it out so the mistake can be corrected. If people persist in not following advice, instead accusing people of all sorts of nasty things, they are unlikely to get the help they want.

Keep in mind that some of these people may be writing the software for your bank or may end up next to you in that open floor plan office of yours. Helping them learn how to most effectively find answers to their questions may help you save time and aggravation later on.

> Telling someone "we can't figure out what's wrong on line 49 if you don't show us what's on line 49" is not condescending

You've edited the quote, leaving out the bits that are condescending. Here it is again:

> "If the error says line 49, it tells you exactly where the problem lies. If you post 7 lines of code here, we clearly cannot tell you what the problem is in line 49."

The second sentence is where the snark starts to creep in. The tone is unnecessary, and the word "clearly" can easily make the asker feel bad. That's where the condescension comes from. It's totally not clear to the person asking, or they wouldn't be asking the question as they are.

> If you think I did something wrong in my response to you, you can flag my response for moderator attention.

I think more of this should be happening, and more tools available to manage unhelpful answerers. I don't know what these tools should look like, but I have some ideas.

> I mentioned before, you can always go on Meta

A lot of these users are new! They don't know about Meta. Their first interaction with the site boils down to "wow you're dumb, can't you read?", and then they're gone for good. Someone brings up on a HN post that SO is elitist and the original asker, who now has some experience under their belt, confirms "yep, it was a horrible toxic place".

> Helping them learn how to most effectively find answers to their questions may help you save time and aggravation later on.

I totally agree. Helping people diagnose their issues and teaching them how to write good questions is fantastic. It can be done with a better tone than what's currently happening.

This also struck me - as far as some of the treatment I've seen and read about on SO, this is downright courteous. She didn't provide enough information to actually answer the question, so literally what the fuck did she want?

> as far as some of the treatment I've seen and read about on SO, this is downright courteous

> so literally what the fuck did she want

Help? Perhaps it was their first time writing a program, and they can't interpret error messages. This is exactly the kind of elitist behaviour people are discussing - and if you're unable to see how the answer might keep people away, then you have no business trying to help new users.

I think you're giving too much weight to the questioner's feelings, and none to the answerer's. Sure, the questioner might feel unwelcome when answers are curt and elitist. But also, the answerers might feel unwelcome when the questioners don't put in at least some effort in their question. Why do you privilege the questioners over the answerers? As a worst case scenario, how do you plan to supply unpaid volunteers who are willing to spend x10 the effort for each questioner? Many of the policies under fire here came out from people criticizing SO for having too many "spam" questions and not retaining experts' interest.

Here's a discussion to the same effect: https://twitter.com/robconery/status/974678531832610816?lang...

The answerer can choose not to engage and move on. That's where the difference is. The answerer is choosing to use language that is unwelcoming. The questioner does not know they are doing anything wrong.

I'm not suggesting the fix is to simply be nicer. There needs to be better incentives and tools to manage poor quality questions.

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