In my opinion, the problem is mostly the answerers
And .. I downvoted you. I hope it will sting. People giving up free time to add value to your thing and you blame them for the site problems? Then the site design is really failing, if the problem is all the people being engaged with it.
Whereas on stackoverflow when I downvote it’s for “this question shows no research effort” which is the downvote button tooltip, but a single downvote is felt as a personal attack on character.
Stackoverflow is for programmers - people whose character traits are tainted to be nitpicky about small details - yet the bad experience angry posts call answers traffic cops and Martinets - exactly the kind of people who could help get your code past the compiler or browser or api or whatever.
“Neutral” responses feel like negative ones (see: “what have you tried?”).
As an answerer more than an asker, if I help someone understand then I feel good, if it seems someone asks from a sense of “help me” I’m endeared to the question and if they ask from a sense of “solve my business problem” I feel more abused (personally or site-being-abused) and resentful.
No amount of Jon Skeet blog posting about the classic usenet popup “this reply will be sent to thousands of people who will have to spend time and money on it, are you sure?” seems to work on the modern web.
If it were me reworking it, I’d get rid of the low quality question idea, let answered be the judge of that and google sort the wheat from chaff.
Then get rid of downvotes and close votes and “neutral” comments.
Leave only room for feedback buttons that in some way communicate “I tried to answer your question but couldn’t, Your question might be more answerable if ..”
Forget being a repository of high quality questions and answers in the same way software has forgotten about big design up front and perfect quality goals and turned into “put an MVP on GitHub and let the issue tracker be the driving force”.
The goal of “stop duplicates, everything that can be questioned and answered has been questioned and answered” forgets that there are 150,000 new humans every day, and thousands more existing people learning to code - a goal of turning everyone away with “that’s already finished nothing for you to do here” is .. daft.
Questions and answers are, if nothing else, practise. A good way to learn is to try explaining it to someone else - SO churn has that room.
But not on stack overflow, where following the site plan for downvotes and closevotes makes everyone feel shitty.
I even doubt it is “high quality questions” that are supported but a combination of “this question feels like the asker is like me” combined with “and they’re asking about a thing I like and feel positively about rather than an edge case of the tool I feel bad about and wish the asker would politely overlook it like the rest of “us” all do”.
You've repeatedly crossed into incivility in this thread, degrading the discussion noticeably in several places.
Please (re-)read the site guidelines and follow them if you want to keep commenting here. That means, among other things, posting with scrupulous respect for others and eschewing jabs and swipes.
I can't see whether I was downvoted but I see that the net result is very positive. But I'll take your word on that.
Perhaps your view is not shared as widely?
> People giving up free time to add value to your thing and you blame them for the site problems?
Do read my original post. My problem is people who don't actually contribute but nitpick on how the questions are worded. How does kicking me out or ignoring my question at best help me resolve my issue?
I would prefer them to keep the free time they dedicated to harassing me to themselves.
I do find your suggestions on design sensible though.
It was intended to be a contrast of what downvoting is vs should be.
"That site you try to contribute to is horrible and the problem is the people" - well ouch. Retaliate hurt with hurt. Or comment with downvote.
Do read my original post. My problem is people who don't actually contribute but nitpick on how the questions are worded.
But I do both.
I pick on details until I feel the question is sufficiently clear and scoped that I can answer it, and then I try to answer it. Sometimes it never gets answered so my comments are left as just nitpicks and sometimes it's answered by somebody cleverer or with different experiences before I can understand it and it looks like I nitpicked while someone else answered and I should have answered instead or shut up.
But unless you only want the best people answering you get whoever is about and willing to engage.
And aren't we then back to the open source model - it's shitty but it's free, who are "you" to expect or demand better?
And .. I downvoted you. I hope it will sting. People giving up free time to add value to your thing and you blame them for the site problems? Then the site design is really failing, if the problem is all the people being engaged with it.
Whereas on stackoverflow when I downvote it’s for “this question shows no research effort” which is the downvote button tooltip, but a single downvote is felt as a personal attack on character.
Stackoverflow is for programmers - people whose character traits are tainted to be nitpicky about small details - yet the bad experience angry posts call answers traffic cops and Martinets - exactly the kind of people who could help get your code past the compiler or browser or api or whatever.
“Neutral” responses feel like negative ones (see: “what have you tried?”).
As an answerer more than an asker, if I help someone understand then I feel good, if it seems someone asks from a sense of “help me” I’m endeared to the question and if they ask from a sense of “solve my business problem” I feel more abused (personally or site-being-abused) and resentful.
No amount of Jon Skeet blog posting about the classic usenet popup “this reply will be sent to thousands of people who will have to spend time and money on it, are you sure?” seems to work on the modern web.
If it were me reworking it, I’d get rid of the low quality question idea, let answered be the judge of that and google sort the wheat from chaff.
Then get rid of downvotes and close votes and “neutral” comments.
Leave only room for feedback buttons that in some way communicate “I tried to answer your question but couldn’t, Your question might be more answerable if ..”
Forget being a repository of high quality questions and answers in the same way software has forgotten about big design up front and perfect quality goals and turned into “put an MVP on GitHub and let the issue tracker be the driving force”.
The goal of “stop duplicates, everything that can be questioned and answered has been questioned and answered” forgets that there are 150,000 new humans every day, and thousands more existing people learning to code - a goal of turning everyone away with “that’s already finished nothing for you to do here” is .. daft.
Questions and answers are, if nothing else, practise. A good way to learn is to try explaining it to someone else - SO churn has that room.
But not on stack overflow, where following the site plan for downvotes and closevotes makes everyone feel shitty.
I even doubt it is “high quality questions” that are supported but a combination of “this question feels like the asker is like me” combined with “and they’re asking about a thing I like and feel positively about rather than an edge case of the tool I feel bad about and wish the asker would politely overlook it like the rest of “us” all do”.