How Trolls Captured Your Favorite Programming Q & A

Site The Stack Overflow site was created in 2008 by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky as a more open alternative to similar sites that arose earlier, such as, for example, Experts-Exchange . The name for the site was chosen by a vote in April 2008 by readers of the popular Coding Horror programming blog hosted by Atwood.

For many years, the Stack Overflow site has been one of the most popular resources for programmers trying to solve a problem. Since the questions posted on Stack Overflow often turned out to be among the first ones that Google gave out in any search related to programming, users massively came to the site and started asking their own questions.

As of July 2015, Stack Overflow had over 4 million registered users and nearly 10 million questions (excluding remote users and questions). However, a 2013 study found that 77% of users asked only one question, 65% answered only one question, and only 8% of users answered more than 5 questions.. In this article, I would like to consider the possible causes of such an extremely low percentage.


Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood at the 2009 MIX09 Conference

Stack Overflow hates new users

New users are particularly uncomfortable logging on to Stack Overflow. To quote Ion Bishop :

Stack Overflow has always been above the average for finding answers to programming questions. In particular, on this site I found many useful answers to really difficult questions, many of which helped me to overcome problems at work or with software projects that I worked on “for the soul”. So I decided to register on the site to see if I could be of any use. Never before has a single site made me the worst first impression.

To keep this community as “clean" and organized as possible, new users from the very beginning have very few rights. By design, this, of course, is a good idea. In practice, this makes it difficult to somehow develop for new users. I read a few questions today and would like to write some comments for the original post. Unfortunately, I am not able to leave my comments, because new users are not allowed to comment on not their own articles (the user must earn a “reputation” in order to obtain such a right). Placing my comment as an “answer” to the original question does not seem to me to be a very suitable form, so I do not.

After wandering around the site, I found several questions that I think I could answer. As soon as I entered to answer these questions, someone else burst in (in some cases, several people) and just beat me. I had no opportunity to give a useful answer. Not only should you know the subject under discussion very well, but you must also be very quick in providing the answer given. In the end, I answered the question, but realized that my approach would not work. Before I could take action and correct my answer, my note was already bombarded by several people, some of whom left stinging remarks. Well, a very warm welcome to a new user! I subsequently deleted my answer.
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Newbie questions are taken very unkindly

Stack Overflow also hates most of its other users.

Not only new users experience a sense of hostility on the site. Someone at Hacker News expressed the general feeling that many programmers (experienced or not) received when trying to participate in Stack Overflow activity.

When I just started programming, I could use SO without asking questions, because what I wanted to find out was pretty simple. This was wonderful because many of the answers helped me understand more about the “vast universe” of problems that I might encounter during development, and these answers prompted me to study the language more deeply.

After I started asking questions, I tried to respond to comments, noted and added the best answers. I wanted to be a good member of this community. And reciprocity was part of it: in the end, I decided that I myself could answer questions; I remember how wonderful it was when I first saw +25 in my profile because someone accepted my answer.

Nowadays, if I ask a question, it is because I spent a lot of time searching for an answer and could not find it myself. What happens when I ask a question on SO:

1. I ask a question, post the code and the received error message.
2. The question is under discussion.
3. I respond to the comment, which says that my question was already earlier (this is not the case, which I explain in order to avoid the situation “removed as a repeat”).
4. I reply to the comment about the missing semicolon that was deleted when I cut / pasted / formatted my code. (Although the error message clearly shows that the problem is not the missing semicolon).
5. The question has a like.
6. The answer! It is written that I should read the documentation, and a link is given to a section that is not relevant to the topic of the question (of course, I already read the documentation).
7. Finally, a useful answer! It looks pretty good; I am testing it, and - the problem is solved. I accept and like the answer.
8. I notice that less than 1 minute after my answer I received a duplicate. Its author expresses dissatisfaction, saying that his entry was posted earlier. I refer to a timestamp indicating that the other sender was the first, and I get the answer that this is a timezone related bug.
9. Later, I recheck and notice the message: "The question is removed as inaccurate, an answer to it is impossible."
10. I double-check again and see that someone has blundered my question.
11. I am sending a letter to the moderator to remove the negative.
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Stephen C. Hicks pointed out 8 reasons why he felt unable to participate in this community anymore after being a very active user for quite some time:

- The eternal problem in September. Many new Stack Overflow [SO] users rarely follow community guidelines. I don’t know how to solve this problem, but it’s annoying to see questions that sound like a message of help. SO positions itself as a site with very concise questions and answers. It is not a discussion forum. [He is rather support and a gift]. Another problem is that there are replays over and over again, despite angry moderators struggling with this. One example is where to find free stock quotes.

- Issues related to software development, which, in fact, are not technical, are often blown away and / or removed. An example would be the question of a specific dataset [for training / development], which was removed because it “does not fit the community”. Although there is a StackExchange site related to datasets where this question could be redirected, the question itself undoubtedly relates to software development. By writing “the StackExchange site, ... where this question could be redirected to”, I had in mind a fully functioning site, and not the one that is currently “developed” / at Zone 51. Removing the question as “irrelevant” does not help either the author , nor to those people who are looking for a similar dataset.

- Negative as a means to resolve the issue. A user must have 250 reputation points in order to be eligible to vote to resolve a question. If you participate in a community, then their accumulation does not require much time. Minus one should be a way to note that there is erroneous, disorienting, or useless information. If the user believes that the question should be withdrawn, but his reputation is not enough for this, then you should write a comment and give arguments for the withdrawal.

- Minus the correct, but different from the usual answers. A problem arises when questions can have multiple answers. Example: The usual answer to the question of optimizing a Java application is to use a more efficient algorithm. Most likely, the majority will vote for this answer. However, another correct answer is the proposal to rewrite the process in a lower level language and connect it via the program channel [Socket, inproc, JNI, etc.] to the main application. Such a proposal is better applicable for rather unusual situations, but it is still correct and feasible. From my experience, I can say that this second answer will be minus in spite of the fact that it gives the correct information. I discussed the situation with one moderator [Shog9], and, in his opinion,

- Time-shifted / repeated responses. Since I stopped my activity in the community, I can’t say how often this happens. However, when a question arises, an avalanche of answers often arises. After some time, someone places a repeat of the answer and receives more votes for him than for the original answer. This is harder to detect, but it happens and is very annoying.

- The reputation is incorrectly attributed to the answers: if there are other answers that help you in answering the question, then please quote those other authors. This is a manifestation of courtesy and truthfulness. [Also, those whom you quote should be noted for their response].

- Here's another one of the weird cases on Stack Overflow. Some of the issues referred to in Exact Repeats are, in fact, not repetitions due to small but important differences. I cannot give an example now, but commentators often quickly decide without a thorough check that an exact repetition is taking place. Sometimes such an accusation is not supported by any evidence. References to other questions are considered sufficient evidence.

- The value of reputation: after a global recount, the creators of the site made a decisive statement that participation is not evaluated on the site. The recount discounted the questions, and the new policy was applied retrospectively. This led to a loss of reputation. The creators of the site said that “the reputation was worthless”, which contradicted their previous wording, that the reputation is “an indicator of how much the community trusts you.” Based on the previous statement, it could be argued that a user with 500 reputation points is rated as John Skeet [a well-known community user and author of many technical books].

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Is it any wonder now that many programmers who have been registered with Stack Overflow for many years are increasingly leaving the platform?

Domination of privileged trolls

On an Michael's Techbox blog, an anonymous commentator made the following remark:

Stack Exchange sites have been declared a “free and open” exchange of information, but in reality they are captured by a small number of participants who are simply trying to get grades, badges and moderator status, wanting to act as “experts” and apply for remote work.
For example, look at the activity of this user, which instead of issuing useful technical answers consists solely of condemning the answers of other people:

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A similar view was expressed on The Programming Works blog

I once spoke in this post: “If you have a programming question, then Stack Overflow is probably the best place to ask your question.” That was when SO started a few years ago; now there is no.
Now your chances of getting a useful answer to your question on SO are close to zero. Instead, you will get a bunch of comments stating that your question, for example, is not SO compliant or incorrectly worded or something else - and nothing useful.
SO is now another zoo for trolls and aggressively self-confident beginners.

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Both materials illustrate, in my opinion, the root issue of Stack Overflow. There are a number of democratically elected moderators who are supposed to be obliged to follow some fairly well-formulated guidelines on how to be good moderators. The site also has a very large number of users with privileges:

• 39,000 users with a reputation of 2,000 or more have the ability to edit other people's questions.
• 26,000 users with a reputation of 3,000 or more have the ability to remove questions. Five votes for withdrawal translate the issue into a “locked” state.
• 6,900 users with a reputation of 10,000 or more have the ability to delete questions.

Of these thousands of privileged users, many rule their virtual estates as the smallest Fuhrer, imposing extremely arbitrary and poorly documented rules on their unsuspecting serfs, unleashing curses and torments on those who act not in accordance with their irrational, ignorant notions that they consider a good question / answer. And this is often even without reading the whole question / answer or without any experience in the field relating to the question in question.


Laughing nervously - how else to react to this?

While I'm writing this article, Jason Sachs (also known as Jason S) is located at No. 503 in the list of users with the highest reputation of all time - 70,688 points. He is also one of the most respected Stack Overflow users who have decided to stop wasting his energy on this site. Recalling the 1995 release of the Seinfeld series , he calls these little Fuhrer "soup fans":

Fans of the series Seinfeld remember his November 1995 release, “Soup Fan,” in which the hero finds out about a restaurant that prepares fantastic soups. The restaurant is driven by an extravagant person who has extremely strict requirements for his customers; if the client does not withstand the proper ritual and prayer, the owner shouts: “There will be no soup for you!” - and a bowl of soup is quickly taken away from you before you can object.

The presence of strict standards of this type is not in itself “soup fanaticism”; the problem appears when such an attitude spreads and begins to affect the main part of the community.
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Further in this article, Sashs quotes from several users of the site, further illustrating the problem. Take this side:

... at first, most of the questions asked found a positive response: friendly comments and answers, people tried to help no matter how you formulated the question. Recently, there has been a tendency to simply remove or block most of the issues, zamusnovat them, make fun of form or style.
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... or a comment like this:

I see that people usually remove or minus a question immediately if they consider this question at least somehow wrong; it takes only 5 people to recognize your post as incorrect, although more than 20 other users of the site will consider the answer correct. The community does not like this, but there are no explanatory comments unless you request them. Just take off, thanks, and come again.
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... or a comment like this:

Michael Richter did a good job of identifying this trend and its causes in his post “Why I Don't Participate in StackOverflow Work” - he calls site users seeking a very high reputation “a hangout of folded schoolchildren”.
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... or a comment like this:

I think that you are completely right in saying: “This site was designed to provide an exemplary resource that allows programmers to find answers to their questions. Entire books (and very good ones) can be written based on the content of the best questions / answers posted here. ” Unfortunately, they all drowned in a sea of ​​nonsense. The success of the site attracts people with programming questions (there are a lot of such visitors on Google). This reduces the ability of the system to self-regulate. There is a need to have something like an "entrance exam" for those who wish to submit a question.
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On his blog, Jeff Atwood, co-founder of Stack Overflow, explains the meaning of the word trolling:

Classic Troll:

1. Comes to create conflict.
2. He, in fact, does not care about the topic of discussion.
Some trolls may seem to care about the topic, because they express extreme, but views on it and for a long time talk about it in great detail for those who are ready to perceive them. This can go on for days, weeks, months ... But all this is a hoax.

The most striking feature of the worst trolls is that their position on this topic is absolutely “hard stone”, unshakable and they defend it to death, despite any criticism, evidence or considerations.
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Based on this definition, I would suggest an alternative name for “soup fans” or “hanging out schoolboys”: “superprivileged trolls”. Yes, you read it right. Not only does Stack Overflow suffer from fanatical trolls, but it is a community where trolls are, in fact, the main ones. Unsurprisingly, hostility and infantile behavior have become the norm defining interactions on Stack Overflow! It is clear that no one guards the watchmen themselves .


Meta.StackOverflow is a community dedicated to StackOverflow questions. This is the place where, as you are told, you can turn to any complaints about Stack Overflow, but there the problem is, perhaps even worse.


Latin phrase "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" or "Who will guard the watchmen themselves?" is a popular expression in satire and political literature, at least since ancient times. This means that any system easily ceases to fulfill the functions for which it was created, if its custodians have unlimited power.

To further aggravate the situation, the Stack Exchange networking software automatically removes questions that meet the following criteria:

• Filmed more than 9 days ago
• Not filmed as repeat
• Account <= 0
• Not blocked
• No answers with a score> 0
• No accepted answer
• No suspended new open voices
• No editing in the last 9 days

The consequence of this is that many good questions are not only removed before anyone can answer, but also that many of them ultimately disappear after only 9 days.

I think that any question on Stack Overflow can be described as not related to the topic of the site, if it is enough for only privileged trolls to vote to remove it.

Is there any alternative?

Quora may seem like the obvious choice, but this site has many issues similar to those of Stack Overflow, albeit in a less obvious way. For example, zamusnovannye answers skillfully hidden from most users, and it is not uncommon to delete answers without any explanation or notification and / or without visible traces for everyone except the author of the answer. Quora gives some users absolutely anonymous permissions to edit the site as they see fit , but almost no one seems to know about it.

Thus, while Quora may seem like a more democratic and more robust site, this is actually just a superficial impression. Trolling and direct petty authoritarianism of privileged users is no less common on this site. For many of the same reasons that Huxley’s dystopian “Brave New World” seems more scary and troubling than Orwell’s dystopia “1984,” the Quora community is more frightening and worrying than the Stack Overflow site.

At least Stack Overflow does not care about hiding its totalitarian nature from those who are willing to devote more than a few minutes to the internal workings of the site. At least the dictators on Stack Overflow are somehow publicly known and should give an open explanation when they decide to remove some issue. And perhaps even more importantly, Stack Overflow doesn't piss us off with countless wacky questions like: “Did Cheryl Sandberg ever put something off for later?” . Despite all the flaws, his weak attempts to manage the quality control of the community are not as bad as the one on the Quora website.