A rant about StackOverflow.com

I've never been happy with the website stackoverflow.com. I know this is the Unity boards, I just wanted to rant.

That one can be perma-banned for not asking "good questions" is asinine. TBH I don't care for StackOverflow's community. Worse people than I exist there, and actively troll new users. I don't care to maintain the community. I really don't. I just want some effing help with programming problems.

The notion of a "good question" actually makes me a little angry. Saying anything of the sort implies there's such thing as a "bad" question. Its as if the people who run the site have never heard the common phrase "There's no such thing as a bad question". Its a ridiculous claim to say that there is anything like a good question.

I've really tried to ask "good" questions but StackOverflows ridiculous standards and rep trolls make that impossible.

Can I hear someone voice something similar or am I alone here???

Stackoverflow, go f*%& yourself.

 

Well there really is a such thing as a bad question. Questions that could have easily been answered with a google search.

Q: "How do I move my player forward, please help me I don't know how."
A: "Google.com"
What to type "How to move player forward in Unity3D?"
Google Answer: "transform.Translate(Vector3.forward * 10 * Time.deltaTime);

I don't mind questions that haven't been answered a bazillion times, but something that has could have been answered quicker and not wasting peoples times with a quick google search, get's really annoying. I don't mind once in awhile to run into a question like that. But going to assume, they get these types of questions nearly 24/7, so they get fed up feeding the same answer "google.com".

 

Some context would be helpful here. What was the actual question?

I've never bothered to create an account and based on the statements made by @neginfinity about the community based on those sites I don't believe I ever will.

 

https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/741.php
https://hackernoon.com/the-decline-of-stack-overflow-7cb69faa575d#.pxy606nue

//opinion
I quit the site (19k reputation on account) couple of years ago due to community being insane.

I would recommend to forget that stackoverflow exists and avoid participating. Meaning, if you find info on stackoverflow via google search, use it, but do not participate.

The site was good back in 2008, but then community went toxic due to flaw in reputation system. Basically, the rep system rewards quantity and popularity of a question, and not quality or difficulty. Meaning couple of people with lots of time on their hands farmed enough reputation to become admins.

Right now the sole purpose of stackoverflow is enforcing the rules of stackoverflow while feeling proud about it. basically, plenty of people let rules and reputation get into their head.

In my opinion, if you have a brain and decent programming skill, you'll do fine without relying on communities - using reference documentation and google search.

You can still have positive experience on stackoverflow if you ask questions about obscure, rare, uncommon and unpopular languages, like prolog, common lisp, etc. Those topics have small number of users, and therefore smaller number of nutcases.

 

Basically, if anything my experience with stackoverflow taught me that basic "people skills" are part of programmers job, and someone who doesn't have them wouldn't make a good programmer, no matter how good they're at writing code. That's because in the end you'll be interacting with other people a lot. Your boss, your clients, your co-workers, and some of those will be asking "dumb" questions... at the same time while being responsible for your salary.

 

I would agree @neginfinity

My most popular questions are: "How do I give arguments to a command line program" (with over 1,000+ votes) and another one about how to dual boot Linux (10,000 views). Basic as hell but apparently they deserved so much attention.

A bit more information about my situation. I have not asked a question in over a month. I went on there looking to ask one simple, "good" question only to discover that I've been banned. My last question over a month ago was completely pointless. I was in a state of complete confusion when I posted it, and ended up answering it myself (it was a syntax question though I didn't know it due to stupid compiler error messages which were as esoteric as they were technical).

My question received no up votes, no down votes, nothing. Even a month after I answered it. I have not even interacted with the site during this time and in that time I somehow got banned. Yet when I need it the most I can't use it.

It is most confusing when you hate such a crappy place, and know nobody else in your personal life who uses it, nor anyone online who knows of it and you have to wonder if you're alone in this. In retrospect how could I NOT be.

 

I guess things went downhill since the last time I participated.

Forget that the site exists and move on. Books, google searches and your brain/knowledge should be enough to program.

 

Just post your questions here or on another applicable forum. Reddit communities generally seem friendly too.

 

This thread is locked because it's in violation of our rules. I know you all wanted a bit of popcorn but we can't really have too much salt with it.