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Stack Overflow Admits It Hasn't Been Welcoming To 'Newer Coders, Women, People of Color, and Others'; Outlines How It Plans To Change That (stackoverflow.blog)
Paul Fernhout writes: Jay Hanlon, executive vice president of culture and experience at Stack Overflow, penned a column on the company's blog last week in which he admitted the "painful truth" that "too many people experience Stack Overflow as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups." Hanlon, added, "our employees and community have cared about this for a long time, but we've struggled to talk about it publicly or to sufficiently prioritize it in recent years. And results matter more than intentions." The post adds: "Now, that's not because most Stack Overflow contributors are hostile jerks. The majority of them are generous and kind. Sure, a few are... just generous, I guess? But our active users regularly express their frustration that we haven't done more to make outsiders feel more welcome. The real problem isn't the community -- it's us:
We trained users to tell other users what they're doing wrong, but we didn't provide new folks with the necessary guidance to do it right. We failed to give our regular users decent tools to review content and easily find what they're looking for. We sent mixed messages over the years about whether we're a site for "experts" or for anyone who codes."
We trained users to tell other users what they're doing wrong, but we didn't provide new folks with the necessary guidance to do it right. We failed to give our regular users decent tools to review content and easily find what they're looking for. We sent mixed messages over the years about whether we're a site for "experts" or for anyone who codes."
"Now, that's not because most Stack Overflow contributors are hostile jerks.
But they are.
turn 360 degrees
sit down and turn on the computer. :D
"too many people experience Stack Overflow as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups."
New coders maybe, but are there people creating handle like "chick coder", "black overflow", "wheelchair windows", and other such names that tell everyone that they are a woman, person of color, or in some marginalized group?
This just sounds like more pc bullshit. It reminds me of the NY Times headline for the apocalypse "World ends tomorrow. Women, children, & minorities hit hardest."
How do you know what race or gender anyone is on StackOverflow? Do you have to submit a DNA test? How do they know their demographics? Are they spying on their users somehow?
It's like that for everyone. You don't get to be special from behind your keyboard.
Flip this on its head. Do you think (just as an example) a white male coder asking a question is coddled and treated with respect?
Maybe the culture of elitism / hostility should change, but let's not try to look at this as some SJW cause...
How am I supposed to determine a person's race and gender from their stackoverflow posts? In that context why does any of it matter?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Maybe his 360 identifies as 180. Did you ever think of THAT, you geometrist?!?!?!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
when you can't even answer a question or append a comment without already having a "reputation", yet you can't get a reputation without having answered questions, then the site is blatantly restricting it to those who know how to game the system for reputation points rather than actual knowledge on a particular topic.
I'll still use it, but I've given up trying to figure out what the hell it takes to get them to let me comment on something.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
How do you know someone is black, a woman or in any other "marginalized group" on the internet UNLESS of course the person says so?
Which doesn't even tell you whether the person actually is in one such group, only that they claim to be. Because... hell, how would you determine that?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I agree that most of the stuff I read on Stack Overflow is pretty high quality. Although it does tend towards the curt. That in itself is no bad thing: when I want an answer, I just want an answer - what buttons to press, I don't want to be lectured on principles, alternatives, the respondent's preferred alternative or what is in vogue that month.
But there are many people who reply, who seem to be mostly concerned with displaying their own talents for creating complexity out of simplicity, (imagined) superiority and opinions-as-fact. Few of them actually contribute anything worthwhile, but they do create a toxic environment that I can see, would deter people less thick-skinned from coming back.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Too many people experience Stack Overflow as a hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders, women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups.
While I can readily believe it might be a hostile place to newbies, if it is experienced as a hostile place by "women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups" I guess that has nothing to do with Stack Overflow and everything with these people. Why do I believe that? Because gender and skin color are usually not obvious or even visible. Therefore they cannot influence how people treat members of these groups. Some people do use their real names, but due to the international character of Stack Overflow, even for many of these, it is not clear whether they're names for boys or girls.
Also, I can imagine the culture on Stack Overflow to be heavily influenced by Software Engineers - people that are used to giving and receiving no-nonsense feedback by the shipload; you cannot do code reviews if you're going to make a politically correct story out of them. Others may find this direct to-the-point approach to be "hostile". They just cannot handle the truth. Now I happen to be Dutch and apparently we're the most direct people in the world and I feel quite at home on Stack Overflow. I do NOT feel at home with people and cultures where "you are wrong" is considered an insult when in fact it is just a fact. Deal with it, people. It's efficient. Stack Overflow is meant to help your neocortex, not to comfort your cerebellum.
Now that I've RTFA, apparently that's exactly what's going on.
0x or or snor perron?!
I've used StackOverflow since it was created. It's definitely hostile to people who don't do any amount of effort before posting a question (maybe that's newcomers?) You can't be a contributor on that site for long without getting frustrated at seeing people post homework questions again-and-again. It's even fairly hostile to people who do their own research before posting - if you can't figure something out and you post your question you'll definitely get a "you're doing it wrong" answer, and you'll often get an, "if you'd architected your software completely differently you'd never even have a problem like this" kind of answer.
However, I've never seen racist or sexist content there. Ever. Where did that data come from?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I don't go to stack overflow to be welcomed. I go there to get answers to esoteric library and build errors that make no sense, or to copy pasta code that I could figure out myself but I don't want to.
I don't care in the slightest what the color, gender, or sexual persuasion of the person answering the question is. I don't even much care if they are nice or condescending so long as I get an answer.
Stop "white knighting", Jay Hanlon EVP of Culture and Experience of Stack Overflow. Your rhetoric won't get my questions answered more correctly, will probably lead to a degradation in the overall quality of the site, and your job title sounds made up.
> sit down and turn on the computer
You turn on the computer, but nothing happens.
There is a screwdriver and a blue pencil on the desk. You hear the distant noise of a floor cleaning machine outside the office.
Exits are N, NW, kitchen door, office door.
See https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges
So first, you have to check your privilege?
I'm hurt, the compiler said I was bad.
It _literally_ said 'bad operator' to me, I'm going to cry now.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The SJW issue aside, as I don't think that will ultimately affect the fate of SO. Too many times reasonable debate on a technical topic is squashed or the wrong answers are accepted. The way the site is structured and its policies means it doesn't iterate on finding the best answer. SO was a good experiment, but without a massive correction it's unlikely to be relevant.
People who are active on the site are rewarded and allowed more power and thus able to be even more active. This would be fine if their actions were always positive and valuable. But really any activity even stupid actions or early enforcement of site policy to the detriment of closing the topic is rewarded.
Luckily this is the Internet and a bit of search engine foo can turn up good leads to answer a question. Even a bad SO with a wrong answer can at least have some leads, so it's not totally worthless. But I frequently have to dig up proper papers for new coworkers who erroneously trust the content on SO.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
executive vice president of culture and experience at Stack Overflow
uh huh. Man that sounds like a bullshit title. Well, as a primarily crowdsourcing site, that's actually right up Stack Overflow's alley. But... they made a position for this? They literally hired a guy to say these words. What else do you think he was going to say? You know how business people talk a lot about "best practices", ie, doing what everyone else does? "reaching out" is the current established best practice.
[SO is a] hostile or elitist place, especially newer coders
Yeah, I'd have to agree in part. It comes from being down in the trenches on the front line of customer service. And that's what it is, don't bullshit yourself. You're working a help-desk, for free, for magical internet points. And you're damn right I covet those magical points. I lie awake at night scheming how to get more. Respect and acknowledgement of my peers is right up there on Maslow's heirarchy of needs. Anyway, dealing with clueless idiots who don't even know how to ask a question about what they don't know is a pain in the ass and the typical stance is going to be "too broad, closed", and when they do ask a decent question about why they're fucking it up, it's going to be "don't do it that way, do it this way" and they're not going to like it. It's hard being ignorant. You have to work at fixing that. But there really should be a constant reminder to the contributors of SO that... you know... go easy on the idiots. You were an idiot when you started too.
women, people of color, and others in marginalized groups
Full stop. WHAT? How exactly does that happen when the grand sum of identiy on SO is a username? Sweet jesus, no one even KNOWS if you're a woman, person of color, from a marginalized group, or a fucking DOG. Unless you tell them. In which case you've made an effort to play the race card, marginalized card, dog card. And that's a dick move. Because it shouldn't fucking MATTER.
. . . Wait, through this entire thing he never comments on just exactly HOW this would be happening. Just "they report it as such". ....damn dude, if anything that's a rough sociology lesson that... certain groups complain more than others.
"Now, that's not because most Stack Overflow contributors are hostile jerks. The majority of them are generous and kind. Sure, a few are... just generous, I guess?
Bingo. He nailed that one. You know how people get PAID to work help-desk and put up with people's bullshit? You're not doing that here. You are depended upon people's generosity. You just kinda have to hope they're not assholes. Because you're not paying them to not be assholes. You want to enforce kindness? Fuck you, pay me.
where it’s practically impossible to find a single slur – our community takes them down in minutes. We don’t tolerate our female users being called “sweetie” or getting hit on. But we weren’t listening. Many people, especially those in marginalized groups do feel less welcome. We know because they tell us.
hmmm, he's repeated that a lot. Remember that, just because they tell you something doesn't mean it always reflects reality. There are people out there that will ALWAYS comment that they feel marginalized because they have a victum complex. Not many. But anything as big as SO will attract the long-tail of crazy. At this scale you have to look at percentages as a sociological construct. Assuming the rate of batshit insane in society is 3%, if less than 3% of the user-base are complaining about something, hey, you're beating the curve, congrats.
Users aren’t “too lazy” to search; searching takes less work than posting. (No solution suggested, he's just stating it makes him sad)
Haha, wut? Dude, no, you don't get it. Some people SUCK at readi
Why do you want to make X do Y? Well, because I want that. What does it matter to you?
When people ask for help on a specific task, it's possible that the thing they actually want to do is different from the thing they have asked for help on. Providing context for why they want to do that makes it easier to judge if this is happening, and can potentially save a lot of time and frustration in the future.
http://xyproblem.info/
Ask me about repetitive DNA