Timeline for What about the community is "toxic" to new users?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
42 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 26, 2023 at 8:12 | comment | added | Karl Knechtel | @Rubiksmoose "Actually, that's not quite right, duplicates are designed to be used to link identical questions, not to link a related answer from a different question." - that is not, in fact, the policy on Stack Overflow, and trying to use a definition like you propose would be highly counterproductive. The point of marking duplicates is so that as many people as possible can be routed directly to the best answers when they use a search engine, and to avoid duplicating the effort of answering. | |
| Nov 24, 2023 at 9:06 | comment | added | Karl Knechtel | "A common complaint I've seen is that the place is filled with "tech-bros". Everything is written and considered from a male perspective, including stuff like offensive nicknames for regexes and the like. The constant usage of "dude" and "bro". The ever-present "sir"." - I almost never see "dude", and "bro" is overwhelmingly used in the exact context of complaining about "tech bros" while providing no evidence for their existence. As for "sir", that shows up because it is normal in Indian culture / Indian English to address others that way. The complaints are actually culturally insensitive. | |
| Nov 21, 2022 at 18:07 | comment | added | starball | Stack Exchange is currently asking for ideas, discussion, and feedback on future changes to improve new user onboarding, with goals that seem very much aligned to the need-statement made here. To anyone reading this, if you haven't already, go read, vote, and perhaps post your own ideas! | |
| Jul 27, 2022 at 2:03 | comment | added | Adrian M. | Maybe the site just needs more structure, so that people who want to help foster young learners and those getting started with new technologies can benefit from a mentor-like environment, where veterans and highly-skilled engineers can focus on their interests. Putting everything in one queue is a recipe for chaos. | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 13:23 | history | edited | Random Person | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Improved indentation
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| Jan 5, 2022 at 5:26 | comment | added | Chris Vilches | @Mithical "If you arrive from Reddit or Quora, you're going to encounter a massive culture shock." what do you mean by "culture" here? Do you mean the site rules? or the "culture" that some random users invented? If it's the later, it'd be great if they just simply go get rekt, because the site has rules, and that's literally the only thing that matters. If It's the former, then OK, but I wouldn't call it "culture" anyway. | |
| Sep 24, 2020 at 18:51 | history | bounty ended | 202324 | ||
| Sep 17, 2020 at 18:45 | history | bounty ended | 202324 | ||
| Jul 16, 2020 at 22:45 | comment | added | Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog | A perfect example where many of your bullets happened exactly as you noted. | |
| S Jul 5, 2020 at 22:32 | history | suggested | pppery | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Don't automatically link to the duplicate target if you haven't joined scifi
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| Jul 5, 2020 at 21:40 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jul 5, 2020 at 22:32 | |||||
| Jun 14, 2020 at 17:26 | comment | added | Mithical | @Zera - seems like that'd be just frustrating for most people. | |
| Jun 14, 2020 at 17:26 | comment | added | Daemon Beast | What if a quiz was added to the tour, so that a user can evaluate how well they understand the site. A quiz is easy, quick and fun (to an extent). | |
| Feb 24, 2020 at 6:57 | comment | added | tkruse | I would add wrong expectations and lack of a welcome wagon to the list. In other online forums, it is common to be met on the first post with "Howdy, nice avatar! So nice of you to visit! Where are you from?". Even on tech support help sites, it is common to make a topic personal "I need help, I am blocked - Don't worry, let's figure this thing out together". Or to get comforting answers, like "Oh dear, I remember I had the same issue last year, I totally freaked out.". The mere lack of that stuff here may be seen as "unwelcoming", in addition to the reasons listed in the answer. | |
| Feb 3, 2020 at 9:55 | comment | added | Shiny | "Everything is written and considered from a male perspective, including stuff like offensive nicknames for regexes and the like." - I'm drawing a blank on what this could be talking about, could someone explain / provide an example? | |
| Jan 31, 2020 at 7:20 | history | bounty ended | gnat | ||
| Jan 30, 2020 at 16:20 | comment | added | gnat | ...so far, it looks like timely closure of inappropriate or incomplete questions at SO decreased negativity for both site regulars and newcomers. In addition, I observe that compared to how it was prior to 3CV change, corrected questions are reopened faster and more frequently (since reopen votes also dropped from 5 to 3) which makes quite a positive impression overall. In fact, comparing to how it works now I would say that reopen system prior to 3CV change was completely broken and probably made quite a solid contribution into perceiving SO as hostile | |
| Jan 30, 2020 at 16:20 | comment | added | gnat | your description of how quick moderation at SO works doesn't match my observations - as far as I could see it is rather that tensions increase when moderation isn't quick enough. Specifically, comparing how things worked prior and after 3CV change I've got a distinct feeling that negativity dropped quite a bit (and recent CEO blog mentioning "cut the number of negative comments nearly in half" suggests that there may be some real ground for that feeling).. | |
| Jan 24, 2020 at 16:10 | comment | added | Gimby | @TylerH love it, it fits neatly into the existing framework where abilities on the site are gradually opened up to you based on your reputation score. So sounds like a plan... that the company will never accept. | |
| Jan 24, 2020 at 15:10 | comment | added | TylerH | Of course, the problem with a lack of guidance for new users is that no one wants to endure a training course to post their question or begin participating in the community. It's almost like the way to fix all this would be to prevent users from asking questions would be to wait until they have some level of rep and positively-reviewed contributions to the site already. IOW, making asking the community a question and getting answers an earned privilege, not a default ability. | |
| Jan 24, 2020 at 9:22 | history | edited | Mithical | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
typo
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| Jan 24, 2020 at 9:09 | comment | added | Sinatr | I disagree with elitism point. I didn't suffer myself from it and if I ever vote-closed easy question as duplicate, then sorry, this is how site works. This was lack of research. Unless I see what OP lacks knowledges to find duplicate themself (e.g. he doesn't know term or concept). | |
| Jan 24, 2020 at 8:41 | comment | added | Tensibai | Clearly agree with the root cause, which has been the same on github for quite long, hence my proposal 36 months ago: meta.stackoverflow.com/a/370270/3627607 , seems even a boilerplate in the question/answer box is too much to ask from SO :( | |
| Jan 24, 2020 at 4:34 | comment | added | Rubiksmoose | @MaximusMinimus Actually, that's not quite right, duplicates are designed to be used to link identical questions, not to link a related answer from a different question. This of course stands in contrast to how they are actually used in different places on the site, but it is how they were designed to be used. | |
| Jan 24, 2020 at 3:49 | comment | added | tmpearce | Fantastic answer. Fantastic understanding of the dynamics of the interactions between the established community and new members. | |
| Jan 24, 2020 at 3:33 | comment | added | Maximus Minimus | Closure as duplicate is severely misunderstood; it's not a slap-down, it's a way of saying "hey, the answer you want is over there". In other words, it's a way of answering a question. But with that said, it's easy to understand why people don't see it that way, but I'm not sure what the solution is. More and better information is always suggested, but in my experience people never read the readme. | |
| Jan 24, 2020 at 0:52 | comment | added | Marco13 | The last bulletpoint seems to be the most important one. Some people are doing quite well. They grok the spirit of the site, invest time and effort in research, and only whe absolutely necessary they invest time and effort into a well-formulated question. The question is: Why should we be "welcoming" to people who do not do this? I don't. I'm out of this game. | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 23:38 | comment | added | This_is_NOT_a_forum | Re "a lack of guidance for new users": Yes, user expectations are poorly managed. The question interface now does a little bit, but on the whole it fuels the forum expectation (time scale of days or even weeks, when the attention on Stack Overflow only lasts minutes and perhaps hours). E.g. there is nothing about staying around to promptly respond to any comments. | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 23:33 | comment | added | This_is_NOT_a_forum | I don't understand this word, elitism. Or rather how it is used ("Elitism is the belief or attitude that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people with an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be constructive to society as a whole, and therefore deserve influence or authority greater than that of others."). Isn't snobbery a better fit? (I am culturally challenged - is this particular use a US-only thing?) | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 22:44 | comment | added | ColleenV | @Script47 I see it now, but I don’t think that statement helps. It asks for detail, not for people to look for an answer first. The comment I used was (paraphrased) “What did you search for and why didn’t that help answer your question?” Regardless, I don’t think the tour I’ve been referring new users to all this time really helps them be successful. | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 21:44 | comment | added | Script47 | @ColleenVpartedways it also states: 'Get answers to practical, detailed questions' and 'Focus on questions about an actual problem you have faced. Include details about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.' and other pieces of information help the poster. Maybe it needs to be higher up? But, either way, folks aren't going to be reading it. They have problem -> SO -> Bad reception -> SO toxic. | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 21:33 | comment | added | ColleenV | The tour actually encourages a misunderstanding of the purpose of the SE network. “Ask questions, get answers, no distractions”. “This site is about getting answers”, but the first step in the tour is not looking for an existing answer, it’s asking your question. The only mention of searching is finding interesting questions, not seeing if your question has already been answered. It also ignores that often the best way for someone to get help is to visit the site’s chat room. The community starts out in a bad position due to mismanaged expectations. | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 21:26 | comment | added | hkotsubo | I totally agree with the conclusion, the problem really is the lack of guidance. But SE insists on relying on veteran users to provide this guidance, instead of making the site itself do this | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 15:37 | comment | added | Raedwald | Can we be more welcoming by managing expectations? | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 15:29 | comment | added | Raedwald | Are we being “elitist”? Is there something wrong with that? | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 15:06 | comment | added | Script47 | @Mithical the tour seems perfect and outlines the basic dos and don'ts yet still we have issues because kscherrer is right. People want to simply have their issues fixed, not integrate into the idea of building an archive of quality Q&As hence a the support desk mentality. | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 14:55 | vote | accept | MechMK1 | ||
| Jan 23, 2020 at 14:42 | comment | added | Senior Wrangler | To be fair, after checking the question you linked in sci-fi, it does seem like a duplicate to me. The other question asks exactly the same thing. I agree with you that the way duplicate-perception based closures can seem harsh to newcomers, but I find that the example is not proper. | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 13:44 | comment | added | Mithical | @kscherrer - The help center also isn't exactly designed to be easy to read-through. It's written more as a reference than as a tutorial. That, and it's not linked to in the UI nearly often enough. | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 13:43 | comment | added | kscherrer | The thing is, that the help page - which exists exactly for this - is just ignored by most new users. Even if the help page was perfect and teached the user everything he really needs to know, it would lead to nowhere as it is not being read by the new users before they post their first question. Just like many programmers don't read documentation and then get angry because their code doesn't work. | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 13:30 | comment | added | MechMK1 | A lack of guidance for new users is what I personally think is the actual culprit. I would like SE, Inc to frame the problem much more like "How can we help new users to contribute high-quality content?" and less like "How can we prevent the community from disliking low-quality content?" | |
| Jan 23, 2020 at 13:25 | history | answered | Mithical | CC BY-SA 4.0 |