Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming. It’s Time for That to Change | Hacker News Reader

Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming. It’s Time for That to Change

stackoverflow.blog

28 pointsn-izem23 comments

That's weird. This was discussed here a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16934942

Previously discussed a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16934942

If StackOverflow isn't welcoming the owners should look squarely in the mirror before blaming anyone else.

In 2017, Joel made very clear that the only views permissible on StackOverflow were his - https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/342440/time-to-take...

Regardless of where you lived, or what your political stance, if you didn't support "open immigration" you were "morally repugnant and frankly stupid and counterproductive". And then the moderators defended him, and kept his post open.

Not only did they paint 50% of the US population as unwelcome on StackOverflow, they basically forced the rest of the globe to accept his politics or risk being removed from the platform. As surprising as this is to people in the US, but the rest of the world has a wide variety of political opinions that may not align with the now broadly exported Democrat/Republican duopoly.

Why not introduce aging into the answers? I think SO has a bigger problem, how to invalidate answers that are for obsolete versions of software? Maybe if the answers would slowly age (say lose one point per month), then the old guard wouldn't be so protective of them, and the problem would solve itself.

Seems the "?cb=1" in URL let this link be passed through HN duplicated link checking.

Hey everyone! Ive read a lot about users complaining about the cultural change in Stack Overflow. Maybe you're even also annoyed by that change? Im trying to find the causes for this change as part of my Master Thesis. Help me by sharing your opinion on this matter. Lets work to together on this to keep the unique community spirit of SO alive!:) I would appreciate your help! https://erasmusuniversity.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9YvdQ...

I think one of the reasons for the hostility is that people don't give a f#*@ to write proper questions, they don't even bother to RTFM. Grammar issues, no error logs, no links or snippets of code... I think the over sensitivity trend also adds up to this "problem".

What is this 'over sensitivity trend'?

In another thread related to SO, many high ranked users said they feel demotivated, when other high ranked users comment their answer saying they shouldn't answer this question and so on. They never log in again or answer questions in fear of facing same situation again. You answered someone, some jerk didn't like it, so what? My comment got downvoted on HN, so what? Should I be afraid of commenting again, feel oppressed? No, do what you do, correct someone if you think they're making a mistake, be bold sometimes if needed. Post a link to some self help blog or "how to make friends" next time when some elitist or some hostile jerk dislikes your SO answers instead of feeling bad about toxicity. I think Bill Burr stand ups have some good highlights about the over sensitivity in society in general.

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