Why you shouldn't be using the pro-forma comments script

Question

There's currently an effort underway to create a repository of useful pro-forma comments.

In the right hands, pro forma comments are a good thing, they fill in the gaps and educate the users about how Stack Overflow works.

Unfortunately, in the hands of thousands (if not more) of users, they create real problems, some of which I've listed below:

They're spam

It doesn't feel like it is, but think of what spammers hope to accomplish. They lower the cost of sending out messages in bulk, knowing that the rate of return on their spam is less than 1%.

Everything that a proficient spammer does to increase revenue is about lowering the cost of getting messages out. The more messages that go out, the greater the return.

Apply that to Stack Overflow. You have thousands of users that might use this script. Collectively, you are all one giant spam bot. I know you have good intentions, you want to educate people (it's why we're all here) and you care about the quality of the content on the site.

But collectively, you're only reaching that less than 1% while introducing tons of noise on the network. You're actually doing more harm than you think you are.

They don't actually solve the problem.

Most of the comments here are actually pretty good. They talk about what not to do on the site, not what not to do in your code.

The ones that do talk about what to do (or not to do) in your code don't actually answer the question.

And if they did, it's a huge indicator that you have greater concerns with that question. It's either too localized (which you can vote to close on, or flag for moderator attention), or you should get your hands dirty and edit.

They evangelize

An extension of the above, the Stack Exchange network is about answering questions, not evangelizing, and yet, that is what most of these comments do.

I love the teaching moment, but the thing is, teaching only comes at a time when the user is open to being taught.

Many of the comments that are about code are just one-way preaching saying "don't do that." Sure, there's a useful link why, but it's not tailored to the problem at hand.

A better solution would be to answer the question as asked, but then go on to indicate why they shouldn't do that, and why the other approach is better. I've found this to be the most effective way to get people to be susceptible to learning new things.

Remember, we're here to answer, not to preach.

You reduce the efficacy of the message

Pro-forma comments make it easier to post the same thing, over and over. You know that dialog box that repeatedly pops up, in that application you use every day? You know how you dismiss it without reading the message because it's just a nag that you know you can ignore?

Then remember that day where you lost that important file because you dismissed the wrong dialog box?

When used excessively (which is what the script enables), you desensitize the user to the message. They see it everywhere and they simply ignore it because it's become background noise.

There's a reason they haven't been baked into the system yet

There have been more than a few calls to bake the pro-forma comments into the system, but they've gone unacknowledged. Perhaps they know that the feature, when released to the majority of users of Stack Overflow, could cause real damage to the site.

Answer 1

I never thought I would advocate countering laziness by being lazy, but that's exactly what I'm going to do here. Here's why:

1. Proforma comments are carefully-worded, carefully worked-out solutions to common problems. There are people who can write these comments better than I can (and by better, I mean friendlier and more informative). Why shouldn't I use their wording instead of mine?

2. You can't always fix people's questions. At some point, you actually encourage the asking of lazy, underspecified questions, because the poster knows that someone will come along and clean up their questions for them.

3. Instructive comments are never rude, as long as you're being civil, even if they are canned comments.

I offer this comment as Exhibit One:

Please, don't use mysql_* functions for new code. They are no longer maintained and the community has begun the deprecation process. See the red box? Instead you should learn about prepared statements and use either PDO or MySQLi. If you can't decide, this article will help to choose. If you care to learn, here is a good PDO tutorial.

Now, my right honorable friend casperOne will counter that the OP may very well have a reason why they are using mysql_* instead of the newer functions. That may very well be true. But look at what has been packed into this little comment: an entire education about how to use MySQL functions properly. If people happen to see that more than once, I'd say that's a good thing.

Answer 2

There have been more than a few calls to bake the pro-forma comments into the system, but they've gone unacknowledged. Perhaps they know that the feature, when released to the majority of users of Stack Overflow, could cause real damage to the site.

Well, I did acknowledge at least one of them:

I think the best example of "canned comments" on Stack Exchange are found in the close reasons: a finite set of explanations for why certain questions must be either fixed or deleted, usable only in one context, and only with the participation of several users. A similar system can be found in the rejection reasons for suggested edits. I would like to expand that into more areas of Stack Overflow, but only when:

• There are a small, fixed number of possible comments.
• There is a specific, easy to identify context for those comments.
• The comments can be written to provide specific, constructive advice.

IMHO, the primary risk for "canned comments" is when the context for their use isn't obvious. I have no problem with Robert's mysql_* example, when it's used as a friendly way to inform someone who has probably learned PHP entirely from example code that they're flirting with disaster and that there is a better way... But when it's used as a prelude to pile-on down-voting, closing and deletion, I'm a fair bit more skeptical of the author's intentions - the message it sends to observers changes from "help in any way possible" to "mysql_* questions are fair game for abuse".

This isn't a technical problem; it's a social one. And so far as I've seen, the vast majority of folks are using that comment exactly as it was intended: to inform and educate. But I wouldn't build it into the system, because the context requires someone reasonably familiar with the subject to interpret - there are hundreds of thousands of posts mentioning various "mysql_*" functions, and I hardly think each and every one of them needs that comment slapped onto it.

I'm reasonably happy with the ones we built in for low-quality review deletion: 12K+ answers deleted with a comment explaining why they were deleted, around 5K still visible with a comment explaining why someone thought they should be deleted, and under 300 canned comments removed as noise, obsolete, etc. But still, that's an awful lot of comments, and as much as we tried to make them clear and specific... There has still been some confusion over a few of them.