Stack Overflow: Where We Hate Fun
I noticed that the Stack Overflow question Strangest language feature has been closed and reopened several times now. The text of the question is brief:
What is in your opinion the most surprising, weird, strange or really “WTF” language feature you have encountered?
I agree this is not exactly an ideal question for Stack Overflow, per the FAQ:
Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!
I think some members of the community have gotten the idea that Stack Overflow is strictly business — unless your question fits our rules exactly to a T, it is absolutely disallowed. That, here on Stack Overflow, we hate “fun”.
This is not entirely true.
In my mind, there are three broad guidelines that determine whether a question is appropriate for Stack Overflow:
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Does this question match the criteria provided in the Stack Overflow FAQ?
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Is this question accepted by the community, as reflected in upvotes, favorites, views, and answers?
- Does this question teach me anything that could make me better at my job? Can I learn something from it?
How does the “fun” question Strangest language feature fare?
- Does this question match the criteria provided in the Stack Overflow FAQ?
Not really, no.
- Is this question accepted by the community, as reflected in upvotes, views, favorites, and answers?
Yes. Lots of upvotes, views, favorites, and many detailed answers.
- Does this question teach me anything that could make me better at my job? Can I learn something from it?
Yes. These odd language corner cases bite programmers all the time, and the more programmers that are aware of them, the better.
As Meat Loaf once said, two out of three ain’t bad. It’s guideline #3 that ends up being the pivotal decision in most borderline cases.
I should clarify that we absolutely do not want the site overrun with “fun” questions. There’s no way we’re sacrificing our core Q&A; mission to turn into a brainless LOL-fest like Reddit or Digg. But, there is a certain balance we’re trying to achieve. A world without fun is like a world without waffles and ponies. And what kind of monster would want that?
I know that we’re all programmers, so we love thinking of the world in absolute, binary terms — either fun questions must never be allowed, or fun questions must always be allowed. Well, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but the world is more … floating point. We will sometimes allow fun questions that meet the three broad guidelines I outlined above, but even then, only a limited amount.
On Stack Overflow, contrary to popular opinion, we don’t hate fun. But only a certain amount of fun will be tolerated, and always with steely, businesslike frowns. 🙂
3 Comments
I have never asked a question on Stack Overflow because the board is so anal that I never felt I was allowed to ask what I wanted to ask. Then I try to post something and I get a nasty message that says I need “x ‘reputation’ points” to ask the question. How ridiculous is that? The sad thing is that I remember the culture of the early 1990s. In those days you could go to the CompuServe forums, find a programming board (say, a Borland C++ board) and you were welcome to ask anything you wanted. Team members would go out of their way to help you, no matter what you wanted to know. It was a culture of help. Today you just get bitched at because your question
is “subjective”, “too broad”, “not appropriate”, or you don’t have enough “reputation points” to ask it. It’s become a snobs world out there! No wonder there are so many ex-programmers who can’t get jobs, living in their cars. Someday these people will have to answer for it!
Actually you don’t need any reputation to ask questions, or post answers. Only to add comments.
If one wants a good example as to what allowing opinion questions, even if for fun, leads to , spend some time gazing upon the horror show that is Quora where reasonable questions go to *die*. I actually moderated the Quora Physics space for a while and dear lord did I wish they’d let me ban people, but it would probably end ia complete depopulation spiral for the site.
Current hot topic question: “Will the James webb telescope see gods face”.
*shudder*
Thats not fun at all.