
Ask HN: Why's there a high concentration of assholes on StackExchange - Jugurtha
And don&#x27;t pull that &quot;Hackers are mean&quot; bull crap, I&#x27;ve been a member of forums and mailing lists for frigging years and I&#x27;ve come to notice that it&#x27;s ironically posers who&#x27;ll be sarcastic and mean, thinking that makes them good (same way broke people display money thinking it makes them look well off).<p>What I noticed is this:<p>People on forums and mailing lists I belong to, want to help you solve the <i>problem</i>. They&#x27;re genuinely interested in the technical thing. If you&#x27;re new and you make a mistake, they&#x27;ll point out a better place to ask your question, resources, etc.<p>If it&#x27;s a beginner&#x27;s question, again, resources. And if he&#x27;s looked up stuff, they&#x27;ll help him even more. Pages and pages of awesome people going with complete beginners, not one second making them feel embarrassed to ask even the most trivial of questions.<p>I&#x27;ve almost never had a &quot;smartass&quot; answer (French speaking forums are almost exclusively packed with smartasses, hence me learning English and never been happier).<p>People on StackExchange (a <i>lot</i>) on the other hand, want to look smart and talk in a condescending way.<p>From my experience: There is no such thing as a stupid question. A lot of people assume that a certain answer is <i>probably</i> the right answer, even though it&#x27;s not.. And I admire this ignorant sourced confidence.<p>An answer of mine was edited by someone just to gain some frigging &quot;editor&quot; points or whatever (My answer text was in an image. What did that guy edit beats me, because what can that genius change after all).<p>Any of you have experience of this ? Like the really smart people I met and communicated with have that humble thing going on for them. But I see a lot of cute answers on there.
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sergiotapia
People with no significant accomplishments or recognition in the real world
look desperately to fill the void online. See forum moderators[0]. 49 out of
50 moderators are cretins and know-it-alls.

I still use StackOverflow a lot but I hesitate to ask questions in some tags
because of the losers who pounce at the chance to sound superior.

[0] - [http://i.imgur.com/QW4lN.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/QW4lN.jpg)

~~~
Jugurtha
:D

Heck, well I'd respect if someone were good at one thing.

I have some weak spots because I sort of drifted away to seek pleasures of
life. You get good at what you repeatedly do. Part of me would like to trade
that with being a great coder and bang code at will. The other part kind of
likes banging chicks at will.

Now I decided to get serious and solidify my weak coding skills, networking
stuff. The good benefit is that I know all the concepts, etc. I just didn't
have working code. I can make a simple thing. Never started a "real" project,
for I haven't had something that matters to me.

Now I have. I started doing it. Little by little.

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pearjuice
When a system is gamified some people take this too serious. They see karma,
points, credits - you name it - as something which holds real value and will
do anything to obtain it. Though it might help with generating involvement,
some people cannot resist the urge to play the game at all cost, even if that
requires them to be an asshole.

The problem is the gaming system on the StackExchange-network which some
people take too serious.

~~~
clef
I hear you, I have -2 karma in HN because someone thought one of my answers
was silly or disrespectful, for which I apologise, and I must admit that there
is a part of me that wants to find a way to get into positive karma again,
what for? Even if I had -1000000 karma I could still read HN, I guess we all
want to be important or seem important somewhere and there is a whole range
between null, moderate and extreme need for feeling validated/recognised by
others in order to boost self-esteem. Tragically, being an @$$ to users than
seem less knowledgable is one way of feeling better about yourself.. Isn't it
easier just to be nice and feel happy to help ?

~~~
brudgers
My stock advice, treat downvotes as editorial feedback on the quality of your
writing and edit your post to more clearly express your ideas and
observations. Add background details which explain your rationales. Expand the
content of the thread with links or other references to more information.

If none of those things are applicable, you are probably just expressing a
reactive sentiment, as was the case with your downvoted comment. In that case
consider deleting the post - actually don't wait for a down vote, the comment
is likely to add little.

The long and short of it is take a down vote as feedback which can make you a
better writer. To put it another way, while I agree that focusing on stock
price in the wake of tragic death is crass, calling people out on it with
snark doesn't really contribute to the community.

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asaddhamani
I agree with this 100%. I'd say at least 50% of questions on StackExchange
sites are closed as non-constructive or the like. That number might be way
off, but that's what it feels like to me. Much of the important questions are
closed because the mods consider them useless, even when the users might not.
I've been blocked from 2 StackExchange sites, and I hadn't asked more than 1
question on both of them, and they weren't noob questions either. I've noticed
this that when communities, forums, heck, even IRC channels get too crowded,
know-it-alls and self-proclaimed gods become a major part of the community,
and they don't think twice about calling the newcomer stupid or worthless.
They think this makes them look smart or wise, but really, it only makes them
look like an asshole.

