Especially in my early days venturing into Python (with which I am still only casually acquainted), I’d google a problem and end up on an SO question outlining my exact problem, only see “closed as duplicate” or a bunch of snarky comments about how the questioner didn’t RTFM or whatever.
Why do they hate people asking questions on this site specifically about asking questions? Part of being a noob is not just about not knowing the bare facts of a thing, but not knowing where to look for answers or even what to ask.
While I’m on this soapbox, I hate it when people say “just google it.” because most of the time I see that phrase it’s because that forum post is the first google result.
If I was a mod here I’d lock this post with “duplicate” as a parody.
SO was good 10-15 years ago, but it has gotten bogged down in a combination of user elitism, mod incentives to do anything, and outdated answers remaining canonical.
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User elitism: You see this anywhere else too. Older users hold power on the site, and this tends to result in walling out those with actual refreshing ideas.
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Mod incentives: The system rewards mod actions, even if those actions aren’t the correct one. For example, closing a question as duplicate, even if it’s not, rewards the closer.
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Due to the above, the “correct” answer to a question never gets updated, and it doesn’t take later versions into account. As such the site becomes a collection of outdated answers to questions that may or may not still be relevant.
Source: Formerly prolific user of multiple stackexchange sites
If it’s gotten worse in the last 15 years - yikes.
I used it a lot my first few years in IT, and it was horrible back then. I mean, as far as the issues described by OP.
Same. Hard to believe that it could have gotten worse from what I remember about it 10-15 years ago.
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The folks who say “just google it” are often unaware of how their own experience allows them to determine good instructions from bad.
For instance, if I told you to flummox the bumdarten by fluxing the foogartner, how would you begin learning what any of those words mean? How will you know if the bumdarten docs you’ve found are even the current version?
But at some point we have all encountered someone who simply asks for help instead of figuring out how to do it. And those people are usually in management.
Used to spend a lot of time reading meta.stackoverflow (looked an awful lot like work at a quick glance). The sentiment from the question answerer side is something like: “I’ve answered this exact question 100s of times, why won’t anyone search”. Then this expands into enough irritation that you get a closing frenzy and similar sounding questions get caught in the cross hairs. And then everyone’s mad. (plus a sprinkle of people who are just assholes on top of that)
I have good experience with all the stack/exchange etc. sites. I once tried to ask a question there, and that was horrible, but for finding solutions it’s good. Of course one actually has to click on links provided, or scroll down to further answers, or even read comments.
It’s a horrible meritocracy for people participating, but for people looking for answers it’s definitely a net positive.
When they attack you and delete your question or lock it because they don’t want “your kind” polluting their forum, that isn’t meritocracy: that is national-narcissism.
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You need to touch some grass
Never understood the issue with “closed as duplicate”, it always links to the original question so you get your answer there. And for most things even the duplicate has a solid accepted answer too. Maybe I visit a different part of the site through my questions?
In my experience the question is either not actually a duplicate or the answer is no longer valid.
What turned me off of SO entirely is when you actually do google it and the results are all SO posts with “closed as duplicate” and no actual answers :(
The snake fully ate itself.
if it was actually a duplicate, that would be perfect but it seems the majority of the time, its just a question similar and in some cases I’ve even seen them link a question that if you knew anything about it, wouldn’t have been even remotely related.
I’ve also usually done OK when i come across these types of answers. I mean when I see it as answer to other people’s questions. I have never needed to actually ask my own question in about 15 years of using it - which is testament to how many answers are already on there somewhere. It’s very much not evidence that I know stuff.
I think sometimes it takes lateral thinking or jargon translation to interpret the old answer in context of the new question - which could make the old answer inaccessible to the new person - however technically applicable it might be.
At some point people forget this didn’t feel easy or intuitive to them either. Then “simple” questions and complaints come off as more annoying or funny.
(For context they are replying to this link https://sherlockproject.xyz/installation)
While this reply might have happened in earnest at some point, it has since gained copypasta meme status. The fact that you found it on new reddit would make such satirical usage most likely.
Sure you’re not thinking of this classic?
https://www.reddit.com/r/github/comments/1at9br4/i_am_new_to_github_and_i_have_lots_to_say
That’s copypasta. This one’s 2 years older:
https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/issues/1999
Might or might not be patient zero.
Is that fucking twitter???
(Accidentally replied instead of editing)
As far as I understand stackoverflow wants to be a wiki based on discussions. The consequences of this is whenever something feels duplicate it gets culled.
Stackoverflow can’t seem to distinguish new content from existing
Toxic-culture won.
Period.
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