I've provided a bit of feedback which will hopefully help you, and anyone else coming here new and a bit bewildered with the same thoughts you had.
This answer is intended to be helpful and friendly, but primarily about making points and providing info, so please excuse any bluntness and lack of pleasantries :)
Hey I'm new to this site.
Hi :) Welcome to Stack Exchange.
I really like the concept, but I think that it's kinda unfun to use.
The concept is not supposed to be "fun" it's supposed to be "helpful".
There is no place for chit-chat or lengthy discussions, only a strive to achieve the most useful and professional answer to a question.
Fun detracts from answers and help. Like forums can get "chatty" which detracts from everyone just talking about the problem and potential solution.
This is one major part in which Stack differs from what people are used to (me too when I joined).
But the focus being placed only on solid on-topic questions and answers allows really useful and helpful content to come through.
Essentially, one can get a great answer to a question without having to know about what the answerer did at the weekend!
That said, comments can sometimes be "chatty", and can sometimes be a small/mini friendly chat between two people, although more usually that happens on Meta.
And more often than not it's a friendly chin wag about the question or answer.
For example, what's up with having to put two spaces at the end of
each line to get a line break?
Computer systems do not read minds, so you have to somehow provide a symbol or identifier to pass through so the system knows what to do.
So adding two spaces at the end of the line tells the system "I want to go to a new line".
This seems logical and without problem to me, as why else would you want to put two spaces in your text?
Double spaces don't usually render on most online formats, including forums, Twitter, youtube comments, etc, they get stripped and only one space is shown in the output text.
You can also use some HTML in posts, such as <br/> for line breaks, for those who believe double spaces are the devil's <br>.
I've never seen a site where you have to do this before.
Ok, but does your having never seen it make it... good? Or bad?
You should read about markdown.
Markdown allows you to format layout without the need for tags all over it, such as <br>, <i> etc.
This provides control over layout without making it hard to read your post when writing or editing it.
e.g.
For bold and italic and a new line:
HTML (like forums etc) would look like:
I wanted to say this is <b>important</b>, and this is <i>slightly emphasised</i><br/>
Markdown looks like:
I wanted to say this is **important**, and this is *slightly emphasised*
For one sentence it's not "too bad" but when you have a large post full of text, the Markdown is much easier to read, write, and edit.
You can also use shortcut keys, such as highlighting text and clicking CTRL i makes that text italic, CTRL b bold, etc.
The great thing there is it just wraps the text in the relevant markdown, such as * or **, so you can easily see and alter your formatting as if you'd manually entered them.
If you highlight some text, press CTL l, the link dialogue pops up, you can then click CTRL v to paste your previously copied link, and then click return key.
All the necessary functions are auto highlighted so you can do it without the mouse at all, and then are still on your keyboard to continue typing your post once the link is in place.
For user preference, you can also use the mouse buttons to do the same thing, or a combo of mouse and keyboard shortcuts - your choice :)
I find this all very logical and very intuitive, and once learned it's easy - it just isn't for you because you've never used it before ;)
The other formatting options are also kinda unintuitive, though with
the editor, that's okay
So, are they ok.. or not?
Formatting options are always through the editor, so as you said "that's okay" surely then generally speaking, the formatting options are "okay"?
(it ain't there on the mobile version of the site, though).
Feel free to raise a feature-request if you see a possible improvement (searching to see if it's been asked first of course ;)).
Then somehow, when I was posting a comment, even with that double
space method, it didn't format correctly (could be a bug).
No bug, comments are low class citizens around here, so options for comment formatting is kept to a minimum.
Here is a great answer by Robert Cartaino♦ which outlines the general opinion on how comments are used and why there's limited formatting.
We also have chat rooms on each site specific for that site with seasoned users in there. So you can chat at length and discuss things which might not be suitable in a question on the site itself.
Then, when I wanted to add something to my comment, it said that you
can only edit it for 5 minutes after it was posted. The hell?!
Comments are designed to be quick and short "notes" to other users. Like "Can you confirm your XYZ data so I can help you" ... or "This answer is wrong because you haven't set ABC", etc.
You get 5 mins to quickly edit for any typos.
Once you have used the sites more, and are more familiar and comfortable with comments, you'll find that it's very rare you wish those 5 mins was longer.
Usually, within those 5 mins comment edit grace period, you've gone on to various other things and left that comment behind.
If after 3-4 weeks you still curse that 5 min window, you are doing it all wrong and using the comments in a way they are not intended.
Heck, delete your comment and write a new one if it's "that" important ;)
"This website is badly coded!"
If you know coding at all, and were familiar with the sites, then you would not say that.
The sites have a vast array of functionality (and I cannot emphasise that enough!).
There is so much going on with not only the basic questions, answers, and comments, but logging them all, allowing voting on them, edits, suggested edits, reviews, review queues, edits and comments and voting within review queues.
And a whole load more, and many of those things interacting with each other, one thing affecting another.
Such as "vote/flag to close" goes in a review queue, then other users review, their decision can make a question on hold, which means answers cannot be given, etc. Unless there is a bounty, or some other parameters at play, etc.
And that's just one single element among many.
There really is a great deal to the sites, and there is a lot to learn at first, so I suggest just taking a few days to get familiar with the basics, then some weeks and maybe months to understand perhaps 30% of the rest of it.
There are some seasoned users around here with massive time and commitment on the sites, who still learn something new about how they work (etc).
Don't come to something which is big, complex, and new to you such as Stack websites and believe you know all about it, as that's naive ;)
"Maybe they're making it a pain to use on purpose, so that only
hard-working people will be willing to put up with it and they will
get less lazy questions and answers."
How would a site difficult to use bring about less lazy questions and answers?
You just type your question or answer and click post, no complexities or difficulties at all!
"Either way, there is no excuse for a modern website to not be easy
and fun to use!"
As outlined, the Stack sites have a great deal of functionality, and with vast functionality brings the requirement for vast amounts of scripts, code, complexities, database systems, etc, and a large task to manage it all.
The Stack sites, any website or system for that matter, simply cannot be both easy to use "from the start" and complex with a lot of functionality and options.
Once you have learned all the different things the sites have to offer, it is easy to use.
Your problem at the moment, as with nearly all new users, is you just don't know how to use it all :)
As for fun, this is where you come to get information, answers, help others with their questions, etc.
Why should this be fun? Forums can be fun, when people natter, and chat about how they did this and that, but how is that getting an answer to your question?
Would you be glad if your online banking was "fun"? Or do you just log in to do practical and non-fun things?
Of course, the latter.
So if you want fun, go to a forum, or youtube, or wherever and seek your fun. When you need an answer to a question, and you come here and receive a professional and well written answer, you will be glad that the fun is kept out and left to other sites ;)
Tbh, I hate writing such negative posts, but when I see something like
this, I cannot hold back.
Look, I'll be blunt here, but I mean this in a friendly way, sincerely.
You have just joined. You know nothing about the sites, how they work - nadda!
Give it 3-4 weeks of using the sites, then come back with your gripes.
The sites are complex beasts, and at first there is a lot to learn even just to use the "basics". But, once learned you will see why they are like this.
That's not to say you won't disagree with some things, or suggest changes still, but at least do it when you understand why they're designed like they are.
All sites have roughly the same functionality, and considering there are millions of users across all the sites, they have to consider so many pros and cons for difference of opinion and different user needs, that scenario never works "perfectly for everyone".
That is simply impossible.
"You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time."
Just trying to post stuff on this site got me pissed off. What were
the people coding this thinking...???
Now you are showing ignorance here. It's like jumping in a formula 1 car, and doing terrible around the race track (as you would do) and saying "this car is shi*t, who the hell designed this, what were they thinking...".
If you have no experience or knowledge of something, how can you possibly pass judgement?
There's a fair bit around the Stack sites which are "different" to other sites, especially forums as many users feel they will be "similar", but they are not.
Does any of this "difference" make the Stack sites "bad" or "worse", or just simply require a "learning curve" and then potentially "better"?
Some further reading of things good for newcomers:
Why is Stack Overflow - and Stack Exchange in general - so scary?
Why do I need 50 reputation to comment? What can I do instead?
And two important links if you care to learn and get a lot back from the sites:
FAQ for Stack Exchange sites
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help
