How about this. SO is a conglomerate of volunteering peers, who do not work for you, do not work with (and sometimes compete with) each other, and agree to meet as honest professionals to solve common problems and clarify interesting issues. This is why the presentation of the question is so important.
It is not a tutorial site, a help desk, or a source of free labor. It’s denigrating to treat it that way.
If you’ve got a stupid question, that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that, we all have them now and then. But if it is not conducive to the field, we much prefer you throw it on a web bot like GPT first, and return to SO for reflection if you need it.
How about this. SO is a conglomerate of volunteering peers, who do not work for you (…)
And that’s fine. Ignore the question and move on with your life.
As you’ve said, you are only a volunteer. You don’t own the service nor do you get to dictate what other people’s doubts are worthy or not. If you want to help others them share whatever you can share. Otherwise go find a better use of your time without getting in the way of every other volunteer.
It is not a tutorial site, a help desk, or a source of free labor. It’s denigrating to treat it that way.
Stack Overflow states quite clearly in its home page that it is “A community-based space to find and contribute answers to technical challenges”.
Call it “help desk” or whatever. Stack Overflow is by design a place to ask questions to technical challenges.
You do not get to dictate what other people find challenging. You do not get to abuse services to abuse people by denigrating them.
With your help, we’re working together to build a library of detailed, high-quality answers to every question about programming.
There’s a call out to quality of answers… which has implications for the quality of the questions.
Focus on questions about an actual problem you have faced. Include details about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.
Make note of the use “exactly what you are trying to do”. When people are asking about what are you trying to do and the nature of the question… that’s part of it.
Not all questions work well in our format. Avoid questions that are primarily opinion-based, or that are likely to generate discussion rather than answers.
Not everything is suited for the Q&A format that Stack Overflow uses. It isn’t a help desk - it’s a Q&A site that is trying to build a repository of information.
In March 2010, we rebalanced our reputation system to favor answers. While we value good questions (and asking a great question is absolutely an art), we want to explicitly encourage people to provide the best possible answers. Without people interested in providing good answers, the questions are moot. We know that answers have more intrinsic…
…
That’s why we’re determined to keep question quality high, even at the cost of refusing a little sand. It’s true that you can’t have Q&A; without questions, but having the wrong sorts of questions is far more dangerous. The fastest way to kill any Q&A; site is to flood it with low-quality questions. I think Mark Trapp summed it up best in this meta answer:
It is by programmers, for programmers, with the ultimate intent of collectively increasing the sum total of good programming knowledge in the world. No matter what programming language you use, or what operating system you call home. Better programming is our goal.
The emphasis on “good” is in the original too.
It may be that your question isn’t one that fits the site format well. That should be ok - there are many other places to ask questions. Stack Overflow is poorly designed for many types of questions in an effort to optimize its utility for being a repository of knowledge for people to search and find answers without having to ever ask a question.
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That doesn’t clarify anything at all, and in fact reflects a desire do denigrate people for asking honest questions.
How about this. SO is a conglomerate of volunteering peers, who do not work for you, do not work with (and sometimes compete with) each other, and agree to meet as honest professionals to solve common problems and clarify interesting issues. This is why the presentation of the question is so important.
It is not a tutorial site, a help desk, or a source of free labor. It’s denigrating to treat it that way.
If you’ve got a stupid question, that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that, we all have them now and then. But if it is not conducive to the field, we much prefer you throw it on a web bot like GPT first, and return to SO for reflection if you need it.
And that’s fine. Ignore the question and move on with your life.
As you’ve said, you are only a volunteer. You don’t own the service nor do you get to dictate what other people’s doubts are worthy or not. If you want to help others them share whatever you can share. Otherwise go find a better use of your time without getting in the way of every other volunteer.
Stack Overflow states quite clearly in its home page that it is “A community-based space to find and contribute answers to technical challenges”.
Call it “help desk” or whatever. Stack Overflow is by design a place to ask questions to technical challenges.
You do not get to dictate what other people find challenging. You do not get to abuse services to abuse people by denigrating them.
https://stackoverflow.com/tour
There’s a call out to quality of answers… which has implications for the quality of the questions.
Make note of the use “exactly what you are trying to do”. When people are asking about what are you trying to do and the nature of the question… that’s part of it.
Not everything is suited for the Q&A format that Stack Overflow uses. It isn’t a help desk - it’s a Q&A site that is trying to build a repository of information.
Further reading: https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/06/13/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand/
And an announcement of Stack Overflow: https://blog.codinghorror.com/introducing-stackoverflow-com/
The emphasis on “good” is in the original too.
It may be that your question isn’t one that fits the site format well. That should be ok - there are many other places to ask questions. Stack Overflow is poorly designed for many types of questions in an effort to optimize its utility for being a repository of knowledge for people to search and find answers without having to ever ask a question.