Struggling to understand Stack Overflow's philosophy [closed]

Question

I'm new here and find the prevailing attitude and tone of the site extremely authoritarian and offensive. It is certainly not encouraging one to participate and share opinions etc.

I have just been banned for "low quality answers" which is hardly a good way to encourage participation by people new to a particular field.

If it were not for the fact that this site comes up so often in Google searches for information, I'd just shake the dust off my sandals and leave you all to your own devices.

So - end result - you have ensured that I will never again attempt to contribute to this site. You are all so clever obviously you don't need my help or opinions. A pity, as my philosophy is usually to try to give (where I can) and not just take help from websites.

I have been looking for help in a couple of areas that I'm very new to (which is what led to my recent discovery of SO). Has it occurred to you that just because I may be new in one or two areas I may actually know something about other areas?

This is one strange place.

PS: Just to rub salt into the wound, you wait until I have spent 20 minutes composing my comment and hit enter to tell me I'm banned. Nice one!

Answer 1

Regarding the downvotes to your this meta question, you should understand that voting on meta is a bit different than on the actual site.

Now, getting to the main question, if you really would like to contribute & be a part of StackOverflow (one of many sites in the Stack Exchange network) you should take a tour of the site first! We at Stack Overflow are a very good professional community, hence, to keep up our standards and quality of the content on our site, have to follow some set guidelines and norms.

You are one of the many people who come to get involved, but for some reason, don't follow the beginner guidelines. As a result, you do face difficulties. I recommend you at least take the tour which will guide to the working of the site. If you have time at your hands, you should also go through all of the Help Section if you are looking forward to be a part of the community.

I can understand your frustration, but that is how the community works! Without a set of rules & active moderation, Stack Overflow would not have been what it is today.

We do like opinions, but they must be professional opinions. For more on that, check out What is On-Topic. You got banned for low-quality answers, so you must take a look at Why you were banned & what it means & also How to write good answers. And, like I said, we are a community of professionals from various fields, we have Our own model for expected Behavior so that no one is offended in the process of participation.

If you are an expert in some areas, your answers (neatly written and useful in the future as a reference) would definitely help others and I highly recommend you to answer them. Since you are new to certain fields, you can always ask your difficulties faced, with proper code and background of the problem being faced (all relevant info) & many in here would gladly help you out.

Finally, I recommend a fresh start at this, mending up your mistakes. Good luck! Hoping to see you in the community!

Answer 2

You appear to have been using answers to ask other questions. DON'T DO THAT!

Also,

... well, I have to say however that message was being expressed, I totally did not understand what was being said.

Umm... not sure how you don't understand this huge animated sliding popup thing:

^{(I just created a dummy account and tried to answer a question)}

You also should have probably noticed when your "answers" kept getting deleted.... If you didn't understand, you could have posted here on meta before being banned too.

Anyway, in order to get out of the answer ban, there are some options:

• Improve your existing answers! (not sure if this is possible from what I've seen) You'll have to get them undeleted first.
• Or, the more likely option - you were asking questions in the answer section. Well, ask them as... an actual question! Make sure they are high-quality questions (you don't want to be q-banned too!) If you contribute in the form of questions, the answer ban can be lifted.

Ah, one more thing: you keep referring to "comments" and "threads." The only "comments" are the ones right under the questions and answers, and there's no such thing as a "thread." Stack Overflow is not a forum.

Answer 3

Information technologists are stereotypically not the most personable folk you'll ever meet. Don't take feedback too personally, but on the other hand, do bear it in mind as it will help you gauge the culture of the site.

However, you'll always do well on SO by (i) asking sensible well-posed questions, (ii) providing good answers and (iii) editing questions and answers to improve them. You'll advance your knowledge in your field: I have.