This is what kind of represents the entire reason that 99% of all new questions every day in popular tags like [Java] and [JavaScript] are complete and utter noise at best and vandalism as worst. disclaimerAnd for the record, I am trolling the OP and Meta with a sarcastic tone and volume because that is what is apparently effective in a gamification system like this. It works for Buzzfeed so ... ;-)

  1. Who would think that a now deleted that basically says "finish my code that I did not even write and explain it in extreme detail" needs no improvement whatsoever?

  2. Who would think it should at least be downvoted until it is repaired?

  3. Who would think a question like that should be upvoted, thus encouraging new visitors to think that is the standard of questions on the site?

  4. Who would think it should be down voted and close voted as at least too broad not to mention that it is an exact duplicate of many other questions with valid answers?

  5. Who would think a question like that actually improves the site and makes it a better place for future visitors and would encourage them to become valuable community members?

  6. Who would think answeringdeleted already flagged as obviously un-researched duplicates that are highly localized because of the meaningless code dump provided, with what is basically a generic link only answer helps the site and future community members?

  7. Why are relatively high rep members harshly judged if they do not act like they are the Dali Lama and low rep user petulance is rewarded or apologised for as a way of encouraging them to continue to act like overtired entitled teenagers?

  8. Who thinks that selfish users posting useless questions and refusing to even try to improve them are more akin to vandals than community members.

  9. I promised 10 but got distracted and I think I have made my point by this point, or maybe not, one more and I get to 10! Woot!

For those who might not be able to read the edits or the deleted question and answer:

This is the attitude that is being encouraged and rewarded by the community and the current gamification rules regarding reputation.

... so if it could be in extreme detail, that would be AWESOME!

then, after being told to read the help/tour:

I have read the links, and I do believe that my question is legitimate.

then says has an intention of following the guidelines and also refuses to make any more edit attempts. This is what is wrong with SO now. We need too localized back again and we need to discourage this type of vandalism of the site!

This attitude is what makes hard earned rep from providing high quality answers over years, completely diluted now that the requirement for quality questions in the charter has become quantity of questions.

The [Java] and [JavaScript] tags suffer from the broken window syndrome to the point I do not think it is salvageable! I am sure there are other tags I do not frequent that are in just as bad of a shape.


How do we convince the powers that be that a culture of promoting quality over quantity needs to be re-instated.

Really, who do you appeal to and how?

How do we protect the value of the reputation scores of the long time users?

Most of the long time users have earned reputations now that they are constantly being diluted by the selfness of the help vampires and their co-dependant rep whores that are completely diluting the meaning and value that the reputation system once had when quality was the primary measure of questions and answers now that quantity seems to be the only goal.

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    To the titular question (only skimming over the post) Have them read: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/284236/… or a similar meta post, then walk away. – BradleyDotNET May 8 '15 at 0:36
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    I'm not sure what comment cleanup happened there, but your first comment is more than a bit on the aggressive side. The rest... isn't much better. In fact, the OP responded quite a bit better than you did, other than not understanding how to fix his question IMHO. – BradleyDotNET May 8 '15 at 0:40
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    Wow. I'm actually impressed that the question poster was as polite to you as they were. Your comments were pretty harshly (and rather rudely) phrased; actually, several of them were flag-worthy (and I've done so). – Ken White May 8 '15 at 0:42
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    You mean the guidelines much like not publicly shaming other users – apaul May 8 '15 at 0:46
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    Perhaps the question asker isn't the only one who should review a link: stackoverflow.com/help/be-nice – Ken White May 8 '15 at 0:47
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    @apaul34208 While I agree with the sentiment, posts on Meta are expected to provide links as evidence of the behavior mentioned in the post. This does instigate the Meta effect and can be seen as "public shaming", but is somewhat unavoidable. – BradleyDotNET May 8 '15 at 0:47
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    @apaul34208 If he didn't provide an example, one would reasonably ask "What do you mean by selfish/stubborn? To what degree was the behavior?" By providing an example, he provides us with a context in which to frame a response. Don't get me wrong, this case seems a little... personal; and good meta questions can be without links (for example, the post I linked was actually in response to a comment thread that was (I would like to believe) the reverse of that in the linked post). I just don't have a problem with examples in general. – BradleyDotNET May 8 '15 at 0:52
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    There definitely are examples of users who are selfish and stubborn and refuse to read the rules. I've even seen someone specifically say, "Why should I have to read the rules? This is a community of programmers, programmers don't need rules." There's nothing to say to such a person; if appropriate, you can flag their comment, or downvote or vote to close their question, but arguing with them isn't going to do anyone any good. – abarnert May 8 '15 at 1:09
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is a rant... – apaul May 8 '15 at 1:24
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    I agree with you 100% about the situation you've linked, but I can't cast an honest reopen vote because I have no idea what you're trying to offer for discussion or get an answer to. As far as I can see, this is "q/30113573 sucks, amirite? – jscs May 8 '15 at 2:18
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    I don't think this type of post is productive. It seems very one sided and does not give room for community feedback. Instead, it seems to push a viewpoint without any question. There may be a section labelled in bold "question", but it is in fact just a continuation of the rant and labeling "question" does not change that. – Travis J May 8 '15 at 14:47
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    There's the "rude" word again, the weapon of mass destruction. Instantly terminating a discussion like this one, grossly abused by low rep users to defeat any attempt to improve Q+A. Abuse that's condoned and encouraged by SE, check the comments. – Hans Passant May 8 '15 at 16:13
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    @HansPassant "Ultra low quality posts... damage site image no matter if there are snarky comments there or not... If you worry about snarky comments in posts like that, well the real solution is simply to delete these posts - the sooner the better. Whatever comments are there, will be deleted along the way, making it not an issue." (Programmers.SE and the Summer of Love) – gnat May 8 '15 at 20:29
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    I agree with @HansPassant and in fact, I wish this was never closed because no one actually answered any of the OPs questions. I'll answer them with a comment: 1) You can't appeal to anyone, unless you've created something more attractive than ad revenue money or have enough money to gain enough control to make them listen to you. 2) You can't protect the lost concept of high rep meaning high quality, because the meaning was forever fundamentally changed. You're not a part of the same site you signed up. It looks similar, but it's a different animal altogether. – user562566 Jun 14 '15 at 14:13

This is what is wrong with SO now.

Actually, many would argue that what you've shown here is what's wrong with SO now: high-rep users making rude, pretentious comments that, regardless of the circumstances surrounding them, are unwarranted.

Our job here on Meta is to develop site policies and work, as users of the site ourselves, to make Stack Overflow better. However, lately we have been branded with various titles and grouped into some sort of "destroy everything" coalition aimed at closing and deleting every post in sight until there is nothing left.

That may be a bit dramatic, but it's certainly powerful rhetoric that many of the site's users have embraced. So powerful, in fact, that this year Stack Overflow's users elected a moderator who has publicly stated that he is in favor of reopening and undeleting wrongfully-treated content, as well as preserving content for the future.

Aside from that, I think part of the problem is that both of you are taking this conversation personally (or at least it appears this way). None of this is personal – it's a programming Q&A site that can sometimes be difficult for new users to navigate.

The way to teach them how to use the site is not to start launching personal attacks and assuming hubris where it may or may not be present. I think we can all appreciate what you were trying to do here: get a new user's question up to quality standards.

How you attempted to do so is not ideal; pointing a new user in the direction of the Help Center and offering up some tips for improving questions is certainly a good idea, but if the user has trouble and there is a misunderstanding, don't be aggressive.

The loaded language you used here leads me to believe that you were offended by the user's comments, but the user was being polite, and you should match him in this regard. Offering advice is one thing, but getting into arguments over small misunderstandings is not worth the effort.

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    so all those duplicates should be cluttering up the site? I mean really how many times do we need to answer questions that are dupes of "How to Compare Strings in Java?" The site's original charter was for quality content, that is not a concern anymore for sure. But it does a disgrace to those that were providing quality content to be drowned out by crap now. It completely dissolves the value to ME my rep score and how I got it, by answering high quality answers. – user177800 May 8 '15 at 1:16
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    You can be a selfish person and make sure you are appearing to be polite ( which is called patronizing which is even worse! ), or you can just say what you see and make sure things are out in the open and un-ambiguous and be categorized as harsh, I am harsh, so be it. – user177800 May 8 '15 at 1:19
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    @JarrodRoberson Again, I think the first thing to do is to calm down and think over the situation, but I won't attempt to be "patronizing" to you. – AstroCB May 8 '15 at 1:21
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    Directness is not rudeness, and grovelling is not politeness. You can say "sorry" and "thank you" a thousand times and still be committing a terrible breach of etiquette. – jscs May 8 '15 at 2:14

I completely understand the level of frustration you're experiencing, we all see problematic questions on a regular basis on SO. Sometimes it feels like community moderation isn't keeping up with the ever rising tide of "write this code for me" type questions and that really wears on a person after a while...

Believe it or not I often see posts that more or less amount to:

I saw this cool gimmick on site/program X, can any one provide example code of how they're doing that?

These really read like blatant "gimme teh codes" questions and I really do get tired of seeing them, and I get even more frustrated when I scroll down and see several answers beneath them.

That said, when I run into these, I usually just vote to close, downvote and/or flag and move on. I find that the less time I spend with a problem post the less irritated it makes me.

On the other hand we all have those days where we see a lot of these posts...

We do our best to vote accordingly, flag where necessary, vote to close when needed, but then the next question we click on is worse than the last and after a few in quick succession we start to get that "Duty Calls" feeling.

When that feeling arises its a pretty sure sign that it is time to take a break.

In reality the poor OP that I'm about to unload on is just a casual user, they just use SO as a resource, they've probably never seen meta, they aren't really aware that some people are personally invested in the site's altruistic goals...

In short they have no idea why anyone would take a website so seriously.

With all of that in mind, it isn't really fair to dump all of my accumulated frustration on them. They didn't write the last 12 posts that got me worked up, they just wrote the last one...

When Duty Calls, your only duty is to use the tools and walk away.

If there is a real problem to be solved here its that so many users leave comments, but fail to VTC, downvote, or flag. How many times have we all seen a poor question with 5 comments berating the OP, but not a single close vote or downvote?

  • Actually, its usually the opposite in my experience. 5 downvotes and an on-hold with no comments. Those are the posts I am concerned about. At the very least, the posts you refer to could have comments by users who can't VTC or downvote yet. – BradleyDotNET May 8 '15 at 16:41

First...calm down.

Let's discuss the question at hand. Having skimmed it, it reads like it could be a potentially usable question; a user wants to be able to draw something on a screen behind the mouse with a noticeable delay.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to ask about.

The problem with this question is that there's no specifics as to what's wrong with their code, or why it doesn't produce the effects that it should. A comment asking for that information (or a flag to close with "why isn't this code working") would suffice here. Nothing more, nothing less.

Be careful when you speak of hubris. While you may have a point about the question being not-quite at quality, it's nowhere near as bad as some of the other questions that make their way through Meta or exist on the site.

Give them the benefit of the doubt.

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    so if it could be in extreme detail, that would be AWESOME! == hubris, they took that out but made no other effort to make the question any better and insisted it was fine, again == hubris. Claim they are going to attempt to bring the question inline and make it better, no attempts made. Benefit of doubt taken away. Plus it is a complete duplicate, but that is another pet peeve of mine. – user177800 May 8 '15 at 1:04
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    Looks like that was edited out to bring it more on-topic and less "gimme teh codez". That's at least an effort. – Makoto May 8 '15 at 1:05
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    Can you look at the question as it reads at this instant and believe that it has a chance to be improved? Or are you seeing just the quality of the old revision? – Makoto May 8 '15 at 1:07
  • 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% effort ... ;-) – user177800 May 8 '15 at 1:07
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    So either take the initiative to help them along or leave it alone. This isn't constructive for anyone involved. Maybe you should take a chill pill. – Makoto May 8 '15 at 1:08
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    Read the comments I explained why and how it needs improvement ... nah its fine, needs no improvement; go away and leave me alone was the gist of the response ... hard to see past that, but then that is my opinion, everyone is entitled to their anonymous votes and what not here right? – user177800 May 8 '15 at 1:09
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    I came here to ask for a more effective approach, is that not effort on my part on top of the obviously failed effort on my part up until I asked here? I was hoping a consensus of you need to edit this up to snuff might be more effective than a single voice, maybe not ... – user177800 May 8 '15 at 1:11
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    The way you came across is pretty intense. I can understand that you're frustrated, but the first step of your approach really should be to cool off and come back to it with a cooler head. – Makoto May 8 '15 at 1:12
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    management and peers use the terms high energy and passionate ... ;-) – user177800 May 8 '15 at 2:08
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    Some call it obnoxious and pushy – user4756884 May 8 '15 at 3:41