Branching from the lmgtfy-question, I'm curious if sarcastic responses in general should be tolerated on Stack Overflow. This is the nasty cousin of the LMGTFY responses.
I'm afraid these types of responses (which aren't few or far between) will forum-ify the Q&A-style flow of Stack Overflow. To clarify, I'm referring to items that are more sarcasm than substance.
Should we report these?
Personally, I'd rather just vote down a response that seems to be a bit unhelpful. A little sarcasm probably isn't that bad, it shows some personality. But not at the expense of being completely unhelpful to the OP's question.
So I'd say vote it down, and flag it if it seems a bit beyond what you are comfortable with.
Oh yeah. Sarcasm is totally acceptable.
Also good: insulting the OP's mother.
Sarcasm, unfortunately, is something that does not translate well, and may be easily misunderstood in text. While sarcasm is a form of communication, it's simply not a very good one because it relies on common assumptions and is underpinned by emotions. You can't easy convey emotions in text, and you can't assume anything about a random reader's background when they reach the site from Google.
Few things can be said sarcastically that can't also be said in a clear way and thus reach more people.
On a technical website sarcasm should be used sparingly, if ever, and only when the intent and joke is blatantly obvious to people of all backgrounds. Sarcasm should not be used to convey important technical information - even the most blatant sarcasm is often opaque to a speaker new to English.
If sarcasm appears on a question or answer, call it out in the comments, edit it (sarcasm tags work well), etc, if only for the benefit of those poor sarcastically impaired folk.
Also consider donating your excess rep to the sarcasm therapy foundation, where thousands of people are helped each day to understand, and more importantly integrate, sarcasm into their daily use of English. Just 3 rep a day can help boys like little Bartholomeus here come to terms with the subtleties of English as she is spoke:
I think if we're going to allow humor (which I hope it's already established that we are) a little bit of sarcasm is okay too. I think it's more important that questions get answered than how, in general. I think it's important to remember, as both a writer and a reader, that sarcasm is sometimes difficult to detect in writing. As a reader, you may be registering a false positive on your snark-o-meter.
As a moderator, I do have to draw a line somewhere, and I draw it at people directly insulting or otherwise attacking other users, personally. Short of this, as long as a question gets answered, I think we can all take a little bit of good-natured sarcasm.
Quoting Jeff: "Good lord, people! Use your common sense!".
If somebody is heavily sarcastic without adding any content, downvote and consider flagging offensive.
If somebody is funnily sarcastic while adding good content, even an upvote may be warranted.
Also the target of the sarcastic comment should be considered. If it's aimed at, say, the Tooth Fairy, one shouldn't probably mark it offensive, even if it may win a downvote for lack of usefulness.
<sarcasm>There should be no sarcasm.</sarcasm>
This is getting dangerously close to saying that questions and answers shouldn't contain any 'personality'.
Arrgh, I hate interacting with other humans.
See, sarcasm ;b
And yes, I know that there is a difference between 'humour/sarcasm/personality' and 'offensiveness'.
And yes, I know SO isn't a 'social' site.
That's what the moderators are for.
As seen (for real) on one of those blind date tv shows:
Q - Why would you wear metal underwear?
A - To hold back all that personality that I've got!
I think this falls under 'offensive' as being a personal attack against someone.
Perhaps we could code a sarcasm detection machine and prevent the user from posting if it's detected
uhhh... A sarcasm detector - that’s a real useful invention!
I think we need some way to blow off steam for those 'wall-of-shame' type questions. How about a checkbox for my answers that makes them only show up for people who also want to see hilarious answers to stupid questions? Learning from others' mistakes, so to speak. Maybe make it only available to users with a certain minimum rep?
Sarcasm tends to be valued as a positive trait in the American culture. If you do not want Stack Overflow to be America-centric, then certainly do reevaluate this biased view.
Here's a more balanced perspective on sarcasm:
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. [...] Just as sarcasm is designed to make the recipient feel ridiculed, irony is designed to make the recipient feel rueful. They are thus both pathetic wit, by definition. As the word ‘pathetic’ is derived from the root ‘pathos’ – which indicates sorrow – then the giver of either sarcasm or irony wishes the recipient to feel the incipient sorrow that is endemic among humans. Sorrow is a sickness that can lead, in extreme cases, to depression and suicide ... which I would not wish upon anyone. Thus sarcasm and irony are not what I, for one, consider fun. [...] It is a subtle form of verbal abuse.
It would be greatly ironic for Stack Overflow to sanction sarcasms while enforcing forced-speech on the use of pronouns.
