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https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20521733/c-create-a-simple-gui-class-using-windows-h/20525081?noredirect=1#comment30686809_20525081

There are 2 deleted answers. I don't get why they were hated so much.

When it was posted the OP didn't make it clear it was an assignment and was confined to the windows API - infact he stated he was following a tutorial, and clearly knows no differently (better) than the windows API.

Additionally I don't like how moderators can say stuff like this:

Only if you stop posting. And programming. – Cat Plus Plus 18 mins ago

I accept:

Seriously, reposting the answer is not a proper action. I suggest you just drop this topic. – animuson♦ 3

Because he has no horse in the race, it is unbiased and third party, but I don't like the idea of things being closed/deleted from someone who obviously doesn't like me.

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  • 32
    Cat Plus Plus is no moderator.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Dec 11, 2013 at 16:58
  • @MartijnPieters then why: deleted by Cat Plus Plus, sehe, animuson♦ 10 mins ago
    – Alec Teal
    Dec 11, 2013 at 16:59
  • 4
    Why did you repost the answer after deletion? That obviously didn't go down very well..
    – Martijn Pieters
    Dec 11, 2013 at 16:59
  • 8
    @AlecTeal Because he voted to delete it, which any user with 10k reputation can do. animuson is a moderator.
    – Servy
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:00
  • Regular users with enough reputation can vote to delete an answer, once it has a negative score.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:00
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    Cat++ even stated he was voting to delete: Yes, continue to feed incorrect information to people, it's not confusing anyone at all. Also delvote, because it doesn't answer the question, is not accurate, and is just a rant.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:01
  • @Pëkka, I'm cleaning up the comments here because they've gone off on multiple tangents; if you'd care to post an answer regarding the choice to delete (vs just down-vote) I don't think that would be out of place.
    – Shog9
    Dec 11, 2013 at 18:36
  • Alec, I'm leaving a few clarifying comments for the moment, but perhaps you could work these into your question?
    – Shog9
    Dec 11, 2013 at 18:37
  • @Shog9 I'm not sure, I really just want to let this die, it's been embarrassing at best.
    – Alec Teal
    Dec 11, 2013 at 18:44
  • Fair enough; just don't want anything lost if it's still in debate. Don't hesitate to raise another question if you think something is still unresolved.
    – Shog9
    Dec 11, 2013 at 18:46
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    @Shog9 if downvotes are bad because reputation is good this question was not a good experience, it has 7 downvotes. If you want people not to hesitate with questions like this don't drag them through this when they ask.
    – Alec Teal
    Dec 11, 2013 at 18:55
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    Not all learning experiences are pleasant; the important thing is that something is learned.
    – Shog9
    Dec 11, 2013 at 19:23

3 Answers 3

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Just for the record, and in the interest of full disclosure I'll just copy my "thoughts" and decision making process out here verbatim. There's more in the chat that's less relevant to your question here, so here's the gist:

About the quoted comment by CatPlusPlus:

⬝**sehe** Flagged as rude. It's funny, alright     [ https://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/10?m=13464908#13464908]

I mean, I reckon it was one of those spur-of-the-moment things to say, but that doesn't make it right, so I didn't hesitate 2 seconds before flagging that as rude/offensive. I suppose Cat forgot that he wasn't in a chat with people who know him.

⬝**sehe** @BartekBanachewicz I did the most conflicted thing: I upvoted and voted to delete :)     [ https://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/10?m=13464923#13464923]
⬝**Bartek** @sehe why would you upvote it :cringes:
⬝**sehe** @BartekBanachewicz It's informative, he spent diligent effort. Just downvote for not being helpful would be fine. Downvoting it to China is not very useful

Finally, I flagged the reposted answer for moderator attention with these words:

repost on contentious answer is only going to fuel more discussion. The answer itself was too much flame bait from the get-go. I don't think it's worthless but the reposting... well. It's not about Q&A any more.      [ https://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/10?m=13465192#13465192]

So there you have it. Had you just cleaned up your post (or be so smart as not to actively solicit the criticisms you were getting), I'd never have voted-to-delete. If you had reposted a version without the subjective/inflammatory bits, I'd certainly have endeavoured to keep your answer: I thought it was informative, and deserved attention, if not upvotes, even if it wasn't a good match for the OP. Personally, I love when an answer demonstrates mastery of a tool and comes with working code.

(Finally, there was some valid criticism in the comments. I'm not sure whether memory management was well-done in the example. These things could be left as an exercise to the reader, but I suppose you'd do well to make such things clear).

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    I'm soooo curious who just downvoted this and why :)
    – sehe
    Mar 25, 2014 at 7:23
50

Your answer was "hated" because the question asked how to "Create a simple GUI class using windows.h" and you wrote a two-page rant culminating in a bit of code for wxwindows.

I don't particularly like writing raw WinAPI GUIs either, but there are reasons for knowing how to write them and if that's what the asker wanted to learn you could have at least respected him enough to answer his question rather than using it as a soapbox.

How would you like it if you asked a question on, say, temporary objects in C++ and got a big quote from the C++FQA as your response, culminating with a big block of Java code? That's effectively what you did to this guy.

Whether it should have been deleted or just heavily down-voted is debatable, but there's no question as to why folks hated the answer - you used it primarily as a channel for your own hatred.

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  • 11
    I definitely meant "FQA", @Travis - google it.
    – Shog9
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:38
  • 3
    Thought you were referring to the c++-faq. Silly me for editing the great Shog's post :P Speaking of rants, it turns out their is a C++FQA page ;)
    – Travis J
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:51
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    Yup, that's the one. An excellent reference for anyone who finds themselves in need of a very wordy explanation for why they're not using C++ anymore.
    – Shog9
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:53
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Your answer had a bit of useful information, but the overall tone was a rant, not an answer. And the rant was invalid.

The Windows API is one of the most elegant I've encountered. None of the others have anything like MsgWaitForMultipleObjectsEx to provide a single event loop for UI, sockets, files, thread completion, usermode APC, and in fact any waitable kernel objects which makes it very extensible.

I do recognize that portability has value, and that's a valid reason for choosing not to code against the Win32 API. But "it's a bitch" is an opinion with no basis in reality, and unless you clean up your answer to eliminate that gratuitous foul language, I agree with the downvotes.

An answer suggesting a crossplatform wrapper would be fine, the example is fine. But try to identify specific advantages of the wrapper, instead of some vague dislike for the platform-provided API.

Related: Several of CatPlusPlus's comments were excessively rude. I can understand that, considering that you weren't listening to polite comments, but still he should clean those up and present his point in a civilized way.

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    While I agree with the downvotes and understand the reasoning, why did the answer have to be deleted?
    – Pekka
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:12
  • 2
    @Pëkka: Because of the foul language, I suppose. That's not welcome here. I would vote to undelete if that were removed, although if the tone were left as a rant, I would also downvote (rants are not helpful).
    – Ben Voigt
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:14
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    the sentence "dealing with it is a total bitch" in a post is NOT a good reason for deleting it.
    – Pekka
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:15
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    While I rather like MsgWaitForMultipleObjectsEx, this may be the first time I've ever seen "elegant" and "Windows API" used together this way.
    – Shog9
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:16
  • @Pëkka: I didn't vote to delete, but I do support the community's right to censor language like that. StackOverflow is supposed to be a resource that's safe for work. The only way to keep it that way is to delete, not merely downvote, NSFW verbiage.
    – Ben Voigt
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:17
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    @Ben that's what the "edit" button is there for. Using it as a pretext for deleting entire posts is ridiculous.
    – Pekka
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:18
  • 2
    @Pëkka: The "edit" button doesn't work particularly well when the poster is willing to engage in an edit war. Heck, this one engaged in a delete war!
    – Ben Voigt
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:19
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    @BenVoigt I was restoring it for precisily this reason and I don't engage in silly edit wars, someone replaced all the "s"s in "realise" with zs once, that was silly and I undid that. (like 7 times)
    – Alec Teal
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:20
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    @Alec: If there's one thing sillier than fixing a minor type in spelling realize, it's editing again to put the wrong spelling back.
    – Ben Voigt
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:21
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    I doubt a Lounge denizen would vote to delete something based on usage of "foul language"
    – R. Martinho Fernandes
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:22
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    @Emracool it's really not! It has an "s" I promise you
    – Alec Teal
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:23
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    @Emracool - UK usually realise
    – chue x
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:25
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    I made total 3 comments, of which only one was 'wude' (also mostly a joke related to "stop giving me notifications"). My first one was totally informative, but was met with nonsense typical to the user in question. So, nah, nothing to clean up.
    – Cat Plus Plus
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:37
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    @Alec: Just because you find someone on the internet who agrees with you doesn't make you right... But thanks for linking that answer so we can (politely!) enlighten another misled soul.
    – Ben Voigt
    Dec 11, 2013 at 17:45
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    @Alec you can spend all day debating whether a certain set of downvotes was justified or not. At the end of the day, everyone is free to vote as they please, and the community consensus seems to be that tone and on-topicness is important. Take it or leave it
    – Pekka
    Dec 11, 2013 at 18:02

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