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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.
"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?
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
> 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.