early_riser1d ago

Why is stack overflow so horrible?

https://lemmy.world/post/45176647

Why is stack overflow so horrible? - Lemmy.World

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.

Show threadExtremeUnicorn

Why do they hate people asking questions on this site specifically about asking questions?

This is literally what I thought multiple times now after posting questions there.

I have to say that each of the stack-network sites feels a little different. I think it heavily depends on the mods themselves and how they manage it.

For example, I found the AskUbuntu site very accepting, even to broader questions on Linux and hypothetical issues surrounding it.

The Electronics Stackexchange I’ve had mixed experiences. Some were very helpful, but others seemingly demanded that I measure every single component with an oscialltor and give them the readings, even listing manufacturer specs wasn’t enough, question closed as “not enough info”.

That’s when I got frustrated, because, why not just leave it open, maybe someone would still be willing to chime in?

This feels weird to me, because I will not use this site as a scientific researcher with a nerwork of equally educated colleagues, but as a hobbyist, I simply don’t have all the means/knowledge some people expect, so who is the expected userbase?

12:48pmWeb
Show threadearly_riser11h ago

I’ve done some research after posting the OP, by which I mean watching a few YT videos of people who have looked into the matter. It seems the founder was insistent that the site not become another Yahoo answers, so the process of asking a question was made to be high friction in order to improve the signal to noise ratio for people looking up answers later, such as with google.

While they succeeded in not becoming another Yahoo Answers, they’ve instead become so impenetrable as to be useless. It got to the point I’d avoid clicking on SO when it came up in search results because I figured the question wouldn’t be answered anyway, so they ended up not making the experience better for future googlers after all.