Stackoverflow needs to be circumvented. rant + ramble
30 02 Aug 2016 08:28 by u/Anson
stackoverflow needs to be circumvented... they block a large chunk of everything posted, and it gets buried so fast the only way you'll see it is if you're linked to it; and where are you going to find a compilation of links for blocked stackoverflow posts? Nowhere.
Then if you look into it you'll see something called "stackoverflow careers". Now this in combination with having seen a person on stackoverflow with over 100k rep writing extremely newbish questions that generated a ton of traffic, therefore gaining him more rep, I thought to look up what was really going on on that website. I mean, they were blocking so many posts of mine I couldn't fucking do anything on the site, and it was so rife with that behavior I knew something was up. In my searching I found this article about the decline of stackoverflow. I think everyone who uses the site will find that a fantastic read, and I can personally confirm all but one of the claims made in the article.
I'm sick of these people learning about computer science and using their knowledge for selfish and evil gain; I'm referring to performing the expensive task (for a human) of spending linear to quadratic time to search through posts to have a look at what the high rep users have been censoring on the site - IF these posts can even be seen after they've been "put on hold" or "marked as duplicate" or whatever other excuse they have to block the question from letting a user gain rep.
If anyone here has posted on that site and had something marked as a duplicate you probably noticed that your post wasn't a duplicate. I think what those people on the site are doing is pretending to have researched your question thoroughly and have verified that similar question titles are exactly equal to the question you wrote (without even clicking to so much as glance at the content of the similar questions, let alone comprehensively analyze what how the questions are different). I'd move further to also claim that I believe the high rep users are trying to implicitly convey that they've fully comprehensively analyzed your question with the similar questions and you're simply wrong, and "if you weren't wrong, how did I mark your question as a duplicate?"
TLDR; stackoverflow is gamed by the webmasters for programmers to put on their stackoverflow account on their resumes to get jobs. They're creating artificially scarce high rep users by blocking competing users from gaining rep.
33 comments
9 u/NorBdelta 02 Aug 2016 10:09
Sounds like a similar manifestation of Wikipedias flaws and issues, a few people get into very high positions and then start to institute their rein over the entire site.
7 u/texan11moore 02 Aug 2016 11:49
The irony it is the same type of people who keep on complaining how the 1% is the devil.
4 u/iamrage 02 Aug 2016 14:41
Stackoverflow has its ups and downs.
What you need to understand about SO is it's primarily aimed at finding solutions to obscure problems rather than stuff you can easily find via SO or Google search. Moreover, you need to provide clear cut info on what the issue is, and most importantly, what you have tried. This shows to the people there that you've taken some initiative to solving the problem and that you're not looking for a handout.
Simply put, don't ask questions which answers can be found easily and dont just post "i need a script that does XY. K. Thx. Bye". SO community is for the most part quite toxic and nasty, but if you remember the above you should be fine.
0 u/Anson [OP] 03 Aug 2016 00:57
I wasn't disputing this, and I did happen to specify in my OP that there are high rep users posting easy to answer questions. And they were very clearly getting away with doing this (and I presumed that meant it was appropriate) because they had a TON of them. And as you said, they answers were easily found in like the freaking android changelog ffs. They were questions that were so easily answered by using common sense to find the document that has always been the source for that sort of thing. This user was posting this stuff because they knew someone might simply google the question they used as the title for their post and so they'd get rep for traffic and upvotes for the post.
0 u/iamrage 03 Aug 2016 03:04
I was just laying it out in one neat post. That's all.
If you need actual help I'd recommend forums such as phpfreaks, etc. The people there are much more inviting.
2 u/im_the_dude_man 03 Aug 2016 01:13
I've honestly only had negative experiences on that site. Even when providing code, researched links, other failed code, and similar questions on SO that do not address my specific problem. I only ever used SO as a last resort due to their toxic nature. Usually I was insulted thoroughly, question marked as duplicate while referencing the links I had provided, and I learned nothing and only gained a great detest for the site.
1 u/iamrage 03 Aug 2016 03:01
There's an easy way to deal with rude or unhelpful people on SO -- flag 'em!
I flag a tonne of people who have absolutely nothing to contribute than their disgusting attitude. Almost all of my flags are taken care of within a few minutes.
Feel free to call them out on their rubbish as well, because most times their community "eats their own" (if you catch my drift).
0 u/im_the_dude_man 03 Aug 2016 07:10
I deleted my account from that site, I've had better results talking to people on Voat and it was a much nicer experience overall.
2 u/citrion 03 Aug 2016 00:01
Just as a general rule, fundamental information exchange services shouldn't be commercial and someone's property.
1 u/Anson [OP] 03 Aug 2016 00:35
Yep, and we know the story with SO.
As a side note, it's the same reason it's so irritating that google is censoring search results right now. Sure, they'll say google is a company and they can do whatever they want with their product, but when it gains that much influence over people's lives they better damn well believe the users of the service (everyone) have a say it what happens with it. There are families and people with serious careers using the service, their livelihood is at stake. Also, Eric Schmidt has been using google as his personal political influence device... he deserves to burn.
1 u/lemon11 02 Aug 2016 09:32
It's appropriate you mention it being gamed.
In games, people lose and win. In a question/answer session, people teach and learn.
1 u/Anson [OP] 02 Aug 2016 10:05
That's not what I'm talking about when I say it's gamed. At all. I'm not even talking about usage of the site in that way. And by that way I mean what was written in the link you sent me
I'm talking about the gaming of obtaining rep on the site. And blocking competition from even using the "game" this is the site.
1 u/lemon11 02 Aug 2016 10:23
Yes, it is. The game is the deletionist-style forum janitorial services, not the content generation.
The former is dull and routine, while the latter people clamor to share info and ask questions in a place where they'll be seen (as we can deduce from SO's original quick success). The benefits of playing the answers-and-comments part correctly is the ability to block other players from both sections of the reputation system.
I think that at some point, if not at the beginning, this became a deliberate decision on the part of the site's developers, which is why I linked to that article.
1 u/Anson [OP] 02 Aug 2016 11:01
If that's part of what they're doing then that's really dumb. It's like buying a game, starting it up, and the game is illogically, inconsistently and arbitrarily difficult with impasses as the developers see fit. And if you come up with an original way to play the game (a new question) they block you, then can publish their own version as if they did it first or any other action after the player has been silenced and censored from speaking on the site...
That's all bad, and it's why I don't use the site anymore. If there are 2 sites in the search results I click the non-SO link.
1 u/SpottyMatt 02 Aug 2016 12:23
I tried to join once, thinking I would maybe be able to answer some questions in my area of expertise. I was disappointed to discover that new users could not really do anything.
0 u/Anson [OP] 03 Aug 2016 01:27
Yeah, and they try their damnedest to stop you from doing even the most basic stuff.
1 u/captbrogers 02 Aug 2016 14:18
I also really hate the attitude towards new users, as if the first thing you do when starting to program is make an account with them so if your account is new you must be new to programming. It also seems to have a perception that there is a constant accumulation of points over time, so if your account is past a certain age you should have a set amount of points or you must be stupid.
I still remember posting once about an SQL question, and while my answer wasn't the best it was one that I was using on a personal site at the time. I knew it worked but I still got the asinine comment of "this is awful and won't work". No explanation as to why it shouldn't work, or how to improve it, just that it was wrong. I sarcastically replied that he should definitely have a sit down with my server then because it was obviously going outside the bounds of it's programming by working for me.
1 u/Anson [OP] 03 Aug 2016 01:38
It's fully their intent to try, and make themselves appear as godly programmers by shaming others and locking them out completely; which I don't even know why they think will work since every user coming in is thinking what you're thinking and yeah... obviously the response isn't helpful.
1 u/Torchhead 02 Aug 2016 16:40
Many websites today, that rely on users to self regulate, are target for exploits. One should be really careful when make these types of sites and ensure that the users can't abuse their power. If websites can be exploited this way, I can only imagine what people do to real life institutions.
2 u/Anson [OP] 03 Aug 2016 00:51
It gets corrupted just the same. I'm doing some stuff with the city council and they're breaking rules that are easily read and understood by any joe shmo off the street and they pretend they're coming to some sort of incomprehensible solution in their behind-the-scenes discussions and simply authoritatively dictate things to people. It's actually really wrecking the city I live in right now. Shockingly though, the state has intervened and told them what they're doing is illegal (on many occasions, and that's just what I know about), and one of their dirties deals has landed them under a corruption investigation by the state.
1 u/tribblepuncher 03 Aug 2016 00:13
I don't think the "duplicate" complaint by Stack Overflow is (necessarily) as concerning as the "irrelevant" problem. Now hear me out because I'm not saying that duplicate is bad by any means, and this is only one person's experience.
However, I have found that, whenever I have a programming question, and many times I have a theoretical computing question, I find an answer that is at least somewhat useful is from Stack Overflow on the first page of Google results.
And pushing 80% of the time that question is in some way marked as irrelevant, off-topic, or otherwise stating "this question is low quality and/or beneath us." I get this strange, instinctive feeling that I am, by far, not the only one who experiences this phenomenon.
One thing I have noticed for some web sites on the Internet is an overwhelming zeal to improve their "quality" to the point it strangles the site. This is often in more private venues, but Stack Overflow is a very prominent and public example of this, and it's been like this for several years. They're increasing the "quality" and narrowing the "scope" to the point that, sooner or later, questions are going to be irrelevant.
Also, as a note, lest anyone say "it's been asked before!", just because someone asked it eight years ago does not mean it does not warrant a new explanation. It is unreasonable to ask someone to plunge through the archives of a web site for 12 hours in the vain hope of finding some question that's already been asked. Always has been. It kind of defeats the purpose of asking the question when they could beat their head against the wall for 12 hours while trying to read official documentation and/or textbooks and probably have about the same odds of "getting it." This particular problem is not limited to Stack Overflow, either, but as with "improve quality onto death," it is a prominent example of it.
Thank you for calling them out on their bullshit. I would have considered doing so a long time ago, but this attitude has made me want to only look at the site for questions and not actually participate (and be berated for doing so).
1 u/Anson [OP] 03 Aug 2016 00:30
Omg, so much this. I've been repeating this shit to professors and people on SO for years and they sit there and pretend I'm some sort of mentally retarded person whom they hate for proposing such a thing. I'm going to publicly rip my professors at the university I graduated from a giant new asshole. And then I'm going to rub salt in the skin tears.
Anyways, yeah, if they're trying to "improve" their site they're doing a bad job of it, and I have expressed to them multiple times that there is something wrong with the site. You should have seen that shitstorm. The posts got like 25-30+ downvotes, they must have been sharing the link with their high rep buddies that they know IRL because the flames were massive, the fuckers started doxxing me (this is all on the very first post I made on meta), they went and deleted one of my accounts.. I mean, I think they honestly believe they're doing all this stuff and think people are bowing down to them and submitting without realizing their fuckery. If I didn't know they were completely wrong before, I did then with all that backlash... there IS NO WAY the nail wasn't hit right on the head. Love watching wrong-doers squirm, I'll tell you that.
Also, I have seen the useful posts marked duplicate before or whatever other tag they would like to insult the poster with. Problem is: when it gets marked that people can't post, so I think the answer was given before a rep-whore mod got a chance to intercept the points/block someone from gaining rep. I mean, it's definitely all about rep it's like lemon11 said, it's gamified; and some users have gained an unfair advantage and would like to pretend their number one on the highscore board (that people can see and observe their almighty godliness as world's best programmer - or whatever it is they believe others will believe by looking at that).
1 u/Northvvait 03 Aug 2016 21:54
I don't even understand how duplicates are really a problem. A duplicate question means A) the original question and discussion is missing keywords people might be using to search or understand (a COM newbie might run into COM apartment threading issues and not know how to describe it properly) and B) the original question's answers may be incomplete.
If the search index and tagging system is unable to find the best version of a particular question, that's not the duplicate's problem, that's the site's problem.
0 u/rwbj 03 Aug 2016 14:03
I'm not really seeing your complaint. Stock Overflow is a resource and the question is whether or not it does a good job at that. As I think most any developer could attest to, the answer is yes. I don't really care what high karma, point, or whatever they call their little numbers people are doing. I do know at least some of the very high karma users are very deserving of it. If you program in C#, there's a very high chance Jon Skeet has answered at least one of your questions and he has about a billion magical points, so good for him. If companies are genuinely hiring people because of a SO score without having the intelligence to verify that their content is meritorious then they are probably the last people you'd want to work for anyhow.
0 u/Anson [OP] 03 Aug 2016 20:00
See part about posting to SO. I think you might mean to say you don't care about my point or that you don't post to SO so it doesn't affect you. I see your methodology, and it's been discussed in this about avoiding SO or replacing it.