Why there are so many "aggressive" people on WPSE

Question

And by the way am not the only one talking about it... Look at other Meta Questions and you will see am not the only one thinking like that.

Yes many people brought it up before today... But I think it has to be done again.

My first interaction in WPSE was so bad... That I have a hard time trying to come back... But it is still a great place to find answers...

My first interaction:

1 - After seeing what's happening on WPSE I was almost surprised that this question was not "Closed" by some "Closing" people as "off-topic" because it's not directly WordPress development material it's mostly PHPStorm issue...

2 - I posted links for simple reasons:

• The procedure to make PHPStorm working with WordPress development is extremely long... Which makes it a bit stupid to copy paste information that already exist on the internet...

• Yes internet is easy and fun you can add lots of information everywhere... But why making the servers bigger and bigger when the information is already out there? And take more space on the Stack Exchange servers? As developers you should start to be aware of that.

• I will not copy information that already exist only to get points and having my "Reputation" up... This is not a game, your life will not get better if you have higher reputation... When I try to answer a question I try to do it to best of my knowledge to help others, not to show the world I am so great!!! I got "downvoted" for trying to help ... Under pretext that it's not an answer... The information I gave was exactly what he was looking for...

Answers should be more than links. Answers should not rely on links. Links die, killing answers. Dead answers are useless to future users. Please file an edit an post all relevant info from the links and keep the links only as referrence. Than you

• The person that "downvoted" my answer said that... This question was related to a "Software" a "Software changes versions... So the answer will die anyway one day... Same thing with old question on WPSE at some point the question will not be good anymore because the WordPress team will change things again and again so things will die to... The reason given is completely irrelevant. I even posted 2 links... Not only 1 ... 2 links... I am fairly sure that when BOTH Links are dead... PHPStorm will have changed his versions many times and this question will not be good anymore...

I think the link to wordpress.stackexchange.com should have been named wordpressdev and not wordpress and here is why...

I just looked at the "On Topic" for this site... And it kinda make no sense:

WordPress Stack Exchange is for WordPress developers and administrators to ask questions about:

• theme and plugin development
• development and management best practices
• server configuration for WordPress

This is ... Kinda clear what you can ask and what you cannot... Development... Development... And Little bit of SERVER administration... ON THE SERVER SIDE... Nothing to do with "WordPress Administrators" that has no clue how a server works...

WordPress administrator could be someone that has NO clue how HTML or PHP or CSS is... A WordPress Administrator could be someone that has NO CLUE what a server is... So I am fairly sure that if a WordPress Administrator would come ask a simple question here, his question would either be ignored... or closed... or overlooked...

But let's keep going on the On Topic...

What's not on topic now:

• recovering from hacks and server issues

I don't understand this one... Well I kinda do... BUT not at the same time... Hacks fair enough... Same thing if you by an iPhone Jail Break it and then ask Apple to give you support... BUT if administrators can come here... Why they couldn't ask about Server Issues... If he ask about Hardware Issues fair enough not the place... But if they talk about problems recovering data... Or Broken links after transfer... I think it should be answered (at least it is answered I have seen answers on question like that... but the On Topic is way too Vague to know if you could ask certain questions or not)...

regarding WordPress.com support issues

• setup, feature, account, and other user support issues - try WordPress.com support

If you look at the first part I pasted from the On Topic... I BOLDED the part where it said "Management Best Practices"... But here you kinda say the other way around...

Once again way too Vague... I understand that wordpress.com should be the place to ask the questions for "main" support... But as other people brought in their own question on Meta... Not a lot of people are as knowledgeable as you guys...

YOU ARE GOOD AT WHAT YOU ARE DOING heheheheheheh...

This is not a question about "bitching" this is really to bring to your attention:

• That your ON-TOPIC might need an overhaul
• That you should stop being so aggressive if someone doesn't "Answer" the way YOU want... Take time to read the answer and think if it was relevant or not to post links (in my case)
• You should not "Down Vote" for no apparent reasons... A down vote should be used when someone answer wrongly... Or when the answer is not "clean" (bad codes or codes that doesn't follow some standards... etc.) my answer was exactly what the person was looking for be because I was downvoted now most people will just ignore my answer...

I have been in other StackExchange... And I have never had an experience like this here... some questions are close in an instant... Sometime people downvote without giving reason (Which is stupid...) I think I will try to see where I can send an idea to stackexchange when someone downvote they should be forced to explain WHY they do... And if the reason is not good enough downvote can be removed...

Answer 1

Yes many people brought it up before today

First, lets us focus on your experience please. I could retort with “many people are extremely friendly at WPSE” but it would just be trying to boost my opinion with vagueness of “many others too”. It is productive to discuss specific situations, not generics.

because it's not directly WordPress development material it's mostly PHPStorm issue

WordPress–specific server setup is considered on topic here. OP essentially had issue of running WP on development machine. It is often in scope, although sometimes it's hard to draw a clear line on such questions.

The procedure to make PHPStorm working with WordPress development is extremely long

Summarize. It is important skill in SE system and often essential quality aspect of an answer.

But even more importantly answer should cover how it addresses the question. OP had very specific issue with very clear error message. Your answer was sending them on a wild chase to find “some step” they might or might not have missed, as you worded yourself.

But why making the servers bigger and bigger when the information is already out there?

Let SE worry about their disks. :) The mission of SE system is knowledge collection. Storing and curating information in answers is how they do it.

When I try to answer a question I try to do it to best of my knowledge to help others, not to show the world I am so great!!! I got "downvoted" for trying to help ... Under pretext that it's not an answer... The information I gave was exactly what he was looking for...

No one ever gets downvoted for trying to help here.

Your answer presented information in a way that is explicitly recommended against by rules, as problematic. It wasn't “exactly” what OP was looking for either, because you worded it as ambiguous “might” yourself.

So the answer will die anyway one day...

The universe will end one day. Meanwhile we will keep trying to produce quality answers and from years of SE history link–only answers are considered sub–par.

I think the link to wordpress.stackexchange.com should have been named wordpressdev and not wordpress and here is why...

Not a bad point actually, but bulky. Please note that name of the site is now officially “WordPress development” indeed.

WordPress administrator could be someone that has NO clue how HTML or PHP or CSS is...

I am not following how this connects to the rest of your question here.

Running self–hosted WordPress site is a technical task by definition, even though people do it with pretty minimal technical chops. There are some questions that aren't precisely development but nevertheless are relevant to things like WP architecture, data organization, and so on.

I don't understand this one... Well I kinda do... BUT not at the same time...

If you take a look at its parent list item — “require professional hands–on involvement”. This is the precise reason there. You cannot walk someone through recovering from hack. Trying to do so would be dangerously irresponsible, since system would very likely remain highly insecure without real cleanup.

Just like that dealing with issue of specific server out there is better dealt with someone with access, like company hosting the server.

But here you kinda say the other way around...

That item is about WordPress .com hosted product, which is essentially different from WordPress .org self–hosted software, despite sharing a brand.

That your ON-TOPIC might need an overhaul

We have adjusted it in the past and probably will in the future. It is ongoing process. Feel free to suggest on meta specific refinements to scope and wording. Do remember that suggesting doesn't necessarily mean that community will agree to adopt it. :)

That you should stop being so aggressive if someone doesn't "Answer" the way YOU want... Take time to read the answer and think if it was relevant or not to post links (in my case)

There was no aggression whatsoever aimed at your answer, in my opinion. The only issue anyone ever had with it is quality and not following rules in regards to link–only answers.

You should not "Down Vote" for no apparent reasons... A down vote should be used when someone answer wrongly... Or when the answer is not "clean" (bad codes or codes that doesn't follow some standards... etc.)

The downvotes are meant to indicate answers that community doesn't find useful. The specific issues why your answer was considered as such were pointed out.

You won't get much luck trying to frame how downvotes “should” be used, because they have already been used for a long time and there is pretty established understanding of its semantic meaning.

Sometime people downvote without giving reason (Which is stupid...) I think I will try to see where I can send an idea to stackexchange when someone downvote they should be forced to explain WHY they do... And if the reason is not good enough downvote can be removed...

This has been raised multiple times. So far it has been rejected by SE since, guess what, it tends to spawn people going on a sizable rants, trying to prove everyone that they are right and other community members are wrong. ;)

Answer 2

As we (as a community) try to constantly improve the site and the experience for new users, I'm trying to add my 2 cents on top of what was explained by colleague @Rarst already as I agree with what he has written.

My first interaction in WPSE was so bad... That I have a hard time trying to come back... [...]

Sadly you didn't provide any link to that experience. I read through all of your 5 questions (which were answered - incl helpful and friendly comments), your 5 answers and your comments to find that "interaction" that made your experience that bad. As I couldn't find even the most minor point where someone was unfriendly or harsh, I assume that you are talking about Pieter Goosens comment about the link only answer.

It's easy to understand that you are taking Pieters comments and the anonymous downvotes as hostile actions targeted at you as person. Let me help you to understand why this is not the case. You are now a user for a month and the SE/SO system takes its time to get into.

First, the answers or questions everybody provides are licensed under the CC-BY-SA 3.0. You can read the following in the footer:

user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

and that means that any interaction you perform on this site is not your property as soon as you post it. Every other registered user can file edits to your question or answer. And people do that. They do it to help you, but their main goal is to make the whole system better. And the systems idea is to provide an answer to every possible question. As it's hard to read through hundreds or thousands of questions and answers that pop up as search results, the system provides us with the ability to vote. And the idea of voting is to allow humans to help later humans with the same problem to easily select what is quality content worth their attention. Summed up:

Voting is peer selection on top of machine generated search results

Humans are just much better at crafting the final decision if something is good content and answers the question or presents an interesting topic well researched - or not. So please don't take it personal. It's nothing aimed as you as person. StackExchange just is no forum and you are (at the first level) always interacting with content. If someone decides to downvote your answer, it is just a hint that there is room for improvement of your question or answer. When you accept that fact and react on downvotes by filing edits, you will see that dowvotes mostly get removed. Or instead become upvotes. And when you have filed your first edits for improvements of other users answers or questions, you will maybe even find yourself to become proud of being part of the system and the community around it. It's just a community trying to be objective - which is very tough for us humans.

When you are on the site as long as some of our power users are (years), then you will find them even using tools for text snippets (pretty sure Pieter uses one too) to have carefully crafted comments available for new users to help them getting better. So again: Please don't say "you", when it's already "we" as you are a user and part of the community. Maybe take a step back, take some deep breaths, and try to view all that from a different angle: Someone tried to help you to help us (again: that includes you) to build a better internet (or at least make one little corner a little bit better).

To not only leave you with meta explanations, here's a link for some in depth explanation on answering and another quick link that explains a bit what makes an answer a good answer and probably receives most upvotes.

Hope that helps. If you have further questions, pleas leave a comment.

Answer 3

I really don't see why you would call my comment "aggressive" in any way, and I apologize if my comment offended you in any way

Answers should be more than links. Answers should not rely on links. Links die, killing answers. Dead answers are useless to future users. Please file an edit an post all relevant info from the links and keep the links only as referrence. Than you

I think the other two answers explain the rest of your concerns well.

On the side, I would like to add a few things:

We are not here to fight, but here to help others, and that was my whole point offering my time to comment on your answer and pointed out that your answer isn't really up to scratch. Link only answers get punished by all communities and gets removed on some SE sites.

I do review low quality posts on SO, and believe you me, link only answers get hammered and get removed by the community. IMHO, link only answers are useless and deserves to be downvoted (and get removed) as such.

I have already flagged quite a lot of link only answers, some with a lot of upvotes and accepted answers because the links died.

I think one thing that many forgets is, your answer should not just be a reference to the OP, but to any one in future that finds your answer through search engines

To be really honest, downvotes doesn't have to be explained. The explanation given by the down arrow should be enough. Link only answers, totally incorrect or misleading answers and anything that I don't find useful to me and the community will win my downvote. Please don't take this as rude or offensive, this is my honest opinion and should be treated as such

Just to close, remember, downvotes can be removed with a proper edit of the answer. I have always removed a downvote where the person posting the answer has made the appropriate edit, and in most cases upvoted the answer if the new info is helpful and correct.

I hope you have read this in the context it was written in, and don't take it as a personal attack, because it is not. And I do apologise once again if you find this inappropriate