Double-edged sword of too strict community based website [closed]

Question

I am being honest. This is how it goes. If you are banned, you use Tor or some other way to ask the similar question, because you need the answer.

If the rules for banning people are too strict, instead of building a community, people start to become one time visitors.

In my opinion this way you will create a lot of temporary users using Tor instead of a community.

Why try to abandon users so quickly? Why remain so strict, if this strategy is community-disruptive in the long run?.

I, and probably others, can see the analogy to the "war on drugs"; now we see that it's ineffective and isolating people from the community.

We can disagree here, but the fact is that after you give a user ban, you are just telling him to use Tor, because he needs the answer no matter what.

Again, this is how it is and I think the users, moderators and people in charge should think about this double-edged sword.

Answer 1

While it is true that too strict of standards can and do have a very negative impact on community, what you are talking about is not strict standards, but rather subjective ones. The problem is that having a community like Stack Exchange isn't possible without a degree of subjectivity in the standards. That is why the system is primarily based around the community voting and taking actions on things and moderators, in principal, only stepping in during cases where it is clear and non-subjectively a poor fit to what the community wants.

I think you have gotten yourself worked up on this and have lost track of your original concern, which, as near as I can tell, is that you feel your answer on a question was removed for not being sufficiently sourced while you believe that it was sufficiently sourced. I don't know which community this was on, but some communities are more academic in nature and thus hold to more rigorous requirements for answers. This is likely the case for your situation.

As for your commentary on suspensions, while I do understand that people want their question answered, it doesn't mean that any one website is the correct place for it. If I asked for french toast recipes on StackOverflow, my question is rightfully going to be closed as nobody wants to answer there. Sure I still have a question, but no matter how many times I ask it, it still is going to get the same response.

The point of suspending someone isn't to hurt them or punish them, it is supposed to be to show them that they need to learn how to be a constructive member of the community if they want to get answers. It is also to protect the community that is acting within the guidelines from unproductive disruptions. If 95% of questions on stack overflow were about cooking recipes, then how would you sort through them all to find programing questions that you are interested in answering or learning from?

The goal is always that people will become productive members of the site, but the community also needs to protect itself from disruption. As you say, it is something that needs to be carefully balanced, but I'm not seeing how it is out of balance in the cases you've mentioned.

Answer 2

why remain so strict

To keep quality up. It is needed, as multiple forums and Q&A sites that don't have quality controls in place have shown time and time again.

if this strategy is community-disruptive in a long run

Where did you get that idea?

The "strategy" is to create high-quality Q&A sites, repositories of knowledge.

Answer 3

I and probably others can an analogy to a war on drugs but now we see that it's ineffective and putting people out of community.

Probably because you fail to grasp why the "war on drugs" has been so ineffective...

Imagine that, instead of a "war on drugs" we had a "war on people who hurt others". Actually, forget "war" - imagine we just took them out of society before they could continue hurting. Bust your wife's jaw open? You go to jail - doesn't matter if you're on drugs or not.

Doesn't that make more sense than locking up the druggies regardless of behavior? I think so.

And that's what we have here. I don't care if you ask all of your questions while high as a kite - all I care about is whether or not the questions are on-topic, clearly-written, and relevant to at least a few other people.

If you repeatedly ask questions that are impossible to answer or even understand, are off-topic or offensive... Then we're gonna ask you to stop, blocking you if necessary.

Even if you're stone cold sober while writing them.

Answer 4

So, the question is why remain so strict, if this strategy is community- disruptive in a long run.

Because unicorns.

Source: I am a unicorn.

Answer 5

Let me see if I follow the thought process you're talking about here.

1) User posts low quality or otherwise unwanted questions or answers.

2) If user doesn't respond to feedback asking them not to do this, user is suspended.

3) Users who want answers to their bad questions anyway come back, and repost the bad question we don't want, because they really want their answers.

I think there are a few other steps that follow after these:

4) Moderators either notice that the user has circumvented their suspension, or the community sees the same bad questions they didn't want before and flag them again... Either way the same user's new account ends up getting suspended again.

5) Steps 3 and 4 keep repeating until the user gives up. No one ever answers their question because it wasn't the kind of question we wanted in the first place.

6) Someone else steps up asking bad questions and the whole process starts all over again... The end result is a huge waste of effort for the users who persist in asking bad questions, and a minor annoyance for the people who have to flag/suspend them. In the end, the site maintains the high standards we want.

The only con I'm seeing on our side is possible minor frustration after repeat offenses... So what exactly is your argument for change? How does change benefit the site as a whole? We seem to be handling it pretty well at the moment, as far as I can tell.

Answer 6

If the rules of banning people are too strict, instead of building a community, people start to change into one time visitors.

My question is, why try to abandon users so quickly?

There are certain users who want a community where a given type of "low-quality" participation isn't allowed. This site was designed and is mainted precisely and exclusively for those people. If you do not want to adhere to existing community standards, then you are not welcome to participate.

You might perhaps call it "unfair" or "censorship"; We call it "maintaining a high-quality site."

If you would prefer a site that doesn't have such restrictive standards and expectations, such places exist. You can try, for example, Yahoo Answers where you can ask almost any question and get amost any answer. You may object and say that not good enough because the quality of answer you get there is consistently lower than what you can expect here, to which I would reply: "That's exactly the point."

The highly-restrictive rules on participation and willingness to immediately ban anyone who won't uphold them is the primary difference between this site and that one. Everything else is an outgrowth of that.

Answer 7

Let's review some facts:

• Stack Overflow is the most successful Q&A site in existence today. Trust me, I checked.
• Stack Exchange is where all the experts hang out, because it's fun for them.
• It's fun for them, because there's generally high quality content here.

You misunderstand the goal of Stack Exchange. Stack Exchange's goal is to create a collection of high quality information. It is not Help users with their problems. Helping users with their genuine problems, after all research and trial and error, generates that high quality information for the OP and the rest of the world (via search engines) to enjoy.

Damn right we're strict to users. If we wouldn't be, the quality level of content will drop. If it drops, the experts will leave and if the experts leave, what does the rest of the community have left? A lot of users asking not-so-good answers and getting some not-so-good answers leading to a collection of no-so-good information.

Here's the hard cold truth: We prefer high quality over being nice to users. Some people will twist it or rephrase it, but all of the policy and rules that Stack Exchange have are to make sure high quality content gets to shine, and low quality content gets filtered away.

As for your prediction of users opening new account via Tor or whatever proxy service they find. Sure, do it. Unless you change the quality of your questions, you'll get blocked again and again. It isn't personal. Your question does not meed to quality standards.

Answer 8

There is no double-edged sword, where the implication would be it cuts both ways. Removing a defined set of behavior which is counter productive to building quality content may negatively affect the users exhibiting that behavior, but not the content. The goal is to build high quality content, not slander it.

If you are banned you use Tor or some other way to ask the similar question or something else again, because you need the answer.

There is also a very large problem with the argument made in this OP's post. The sense of entitlement and general belief that experienced users must provide answers to questions because they need them. This is a large problem with most users who end up getting post banned.

No one has an obligation to solve other people's problems, most users do it because they enjoy helping, but not because they are forced to. If there is an issue that presents itself, then that should be researched first. Once it is researched and you have become at least aware of the problem scope then attempt to solve the issue. If, at that point, you encounter issues then share the path you took to reach them and I am positive you will get help from the community.

Everyone is here to build content and help others, but no one is obligated to do work for you.