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I find myself often wanting to ask a question on StackOverflow (mainly) and then stopping myself for fear of overzealous policing. People seem to feel some sort of pride in down voting, and running off into the proverbial night, with nary a comment to explain their down vote.

Does anyone else feel this fear?

Also, does anyone else feel it's a bit unfair that questions asked in like, 2008, like "How do I add an underline in CSS" have like, 250 upvotes? I feel like the highest reputation users are entrenched in their "class" because all the "easy" questions have been asked, answered and upvoted.

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    Same thing usually happens to me too. I usually get down votes on debugging questions. In terms of duplicate making, people don't duplicate for no reason (like with down votes). Stack Overflow is the most visited SE site (I think) with 1 question a minute, so there tend to be more duplicates too
    – John K
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 16:10
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    @TheBro21 - 1 question a minute? Closer to 5-6 a minute, on average.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 16:19
  • @Oded Depends on the day. One day, it was like that for let's say 1 hour. It is unpredictable.
    – John K
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 16:20
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    @TheBro21 - that's where "on average" comes into play ;)
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 16:21
  • As for the second, unfortunately, not.
    – nicael
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 16:28
  • Shouldn't your focus be getting an answer to your question instead of easy reputation?
    – Simon Klaver
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 16:39
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    The focus isn't getting easy reputation, it's getting an answer without down vote bandits chipping away at the reputation I so painstakingly built!
    – Sean Kendle
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 16:54
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    Do you see what I mean? I already have at least 3 down votes on this exact question... this "community" is extremely frustrating.
    – Sean Kendle
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 20:01
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    Meanwhile the question it's marked as a duplicate of isn't exactly the same. You people disgust me.
    – Sean Kendle
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 20:02
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    Then, you see that the "duplicate" question has a NEGATIVE TWENTY-SEVEN... you've got to be kidding me. So, if he deleted his question, he'd get his rep back, and mine wouldn't be a duplicate anymore. Seriously, I'm holding back on cursing right now.
    – Sean Kendle
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 20:04
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    Message received: Be afraid to ask questions. Be afraid to ask questions about being afraid to ask questions. This is not a community, it's a place where people judge you.
    – Sean Kendle
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 20:18
  • You are currently taking the meta as representative for other sites: Don't. Down-votes are far more common on the meta. Aside from that: The down-votes are to urge you to ask interesting questions, instead of for example just complaining.
    – Simon Klaver
    Commented Dec 25, 2015 at 20:09
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    No, every single time I've posted in SO, with a well-thought-out question, they've all been downvoted with no explanation. Now, everyone is just proving my point.
    – Sean Kendle
    Commented Dec 26, 2015 at 0:43
  • also me i am afraid to ask questions
    – Wolf
    Commented Jun 26, 2021 at 15:21

3 Answers 3

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2008 was when the site started and was still finding its way. Over time, the community discovered that certain questions were not working very well for the Q&A format and therefore those have become off-topic. The example you gave is one such question that when asked was fine, but today, where we are wiser, it isn't.

Does anyone else feel this fear?

Sure, I do. When I do ask a question (doesn't happen often, admittedly), I make sure it is on topic and that I have done everything I can do in order to ensure people who would see it have as much information as I do in order to try and answer it.

This is a good thing. It ensures the questions that are asked have had effort put into them - that they are good questions.

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  • "doesn't happen often, admittedly" key phrase ;P
    – nicael
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 16:24
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    @nicael - well, we are optimizing for pearls, not sand, after all.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 16:25
  • Meanwhile everyone votes down this question, which is about people voting down questions. How is it not valid to question the system? This is such a messed up situation, you people are making me sick.
    – Sean Kendle
    Commented Dec 26, 2015 at 0:44
  • @SeanKendle - you do know how downvotes on meta works, right? People are showing disagreement with the premise/sentiment of the post.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Dec 26, 2015 at 10:21
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There's no need to be afraid of asking, if you just make sure you are matching the quality policies of a site (we're talking about imaginary internet points anyways, so what?).

You should have done some research before asking, and check all of the questions which possibly have answers for your problem. These are already displayed while you're writing the question.

Make your research efforts clear in your question.

Regarding old questions that were highly upvoted. These are often left as signposts, even if they wouldn't fit quality policies that are active nowadays. There's no point complaining about unfairness.

People seem to feel some sort of pride in down voting, and running off into the proverbial night, with nary a comment to explain their down vote.

That's an unconfirmed assumption/impression. There's no need to explain down votes in comments for good reasons, the tooltip appearing when you hover the downvote button usually explains it all.

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  • No need to be afraid to ask questions, huh? My question about downvoting and being marked duplicate has had both things happen to it... amazing.
    – Sean Kendle
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 20:19
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    @SeanKendle Did you read further: if you just make sure ...?
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 20:22
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I have noticed how people generally don't answer your question, at least not initially. Of course there are a few caveats to this rule, but generally, people have their own way of answering questions. Here are the hidden rules to answering someones question on this site.

  1. You must ask them a question about what they are trying to accomplish, regardless of whether or not their question is clear (i.e. Q: How do I become root on OS X? A: Why do you want to become root user?).
  2. You must use snooty language (insult or sarcasm) to point out a flaw in their question
  3. You must assume they have never used Google or searched the site for answers.
  4. You must assume the individual seeking "help" has 5-10 years of experience or the equivalent in college education.

At first I thought this site was for helping people, but it turns out it is just a place where IT people get to treat others how they would really like to.

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    "At first I thought this site was for helping people, .." And that was wrong. The sites here aren't meant as a personal help-desk, but building up Q&A repositories being helpful for anyone in future research.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 17:55
  • My point has been proven.
    – Sean Kendle
    Commented Dec 23, 2015 at 20:19

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