StackOverflowReviews 76

I used to use this website and got banned for reasons that still elude me... the people on this site will downvote your question for doing almost anything even if it was an honest mistake and the people in stack overflow expect you to know everything. Every time I search for an answer to a question there, all the questions that pop up are all downvoted and have salty toxic comments. I do NOT recommend this site unless you are a complete professional and know pretty much everything already. Even though they offer a tutorial on how to ask good questions, people still find ways to downvote or get mad at something you did. The one redeeming quality is that the people that answer your questions at least know what they are talking about.

So, I asked as a start Go developer a interesting question about a possible problem with the source code, and I've put code examples, and enough information about the memory leak I might have found, and tried to solve this, with no solution available, and thus I tried Stack Overflow for the first time.
Sadly, it was immediately responded with a non-answer that didn't help at all, and other people who seem to be "staff", have ridiculed my question, and when I "answered" on a existing question that was linked to from my original question, I was slammed down with downvotes. This platform is not social, people are pretty anti-social when it comes to new people, and I finally found a better response on Reddit. Too bad, I used Stack Overflow for my beginnings on GoLang, but with this experience, the site didn't help much.

I submitted a functional answer and a 'moderator' deleted it for no reason. I shared my experience with the support team and they came with "New answers are expected to contribute something substantial not already covered in previous answers, which yours does not. Therefore, it has been deleted."

This obviously didn't make any sense because the same thread has new answers that "don't contribute something substantial not already covered".

StackOverflow is not a welcoming community for new devs to contribute and grow in, the community is hostile and the moderators are essentially dictators who can do whatever they want knowing that the support team at StackOverflow will do nothing about it.

If you are looking to hire devs using StackOverflow, expect someone to bring in the same hostile culture into your company.

If you just want answers, StackOverflow can be brilliant. Go on and browse until your heart is content.

However, if you want to be part of the community, get your battle gear on because this place is incredibly nasty! The trolls on here are not like those on Facebook or other social media platforms (and whether SO like it or not, they have enabled the site to become a glorified social media site for techy trolls). What seems to be a sizable portion of Users are really horrible, angry people, who are set off by the most trivial of things. They are akin to that a'hole in the bar who starts squaring up to you with "are you looking at me?!". This is SatckOverflow!

However, as with all a'holes they take their lead from somewhere, and that lead is from SO themselves. Throughout the site you can see high levels of obnoxiousness and arrogance. All in all one could strongly argue that the problem with SO is that the people who own and operate it are total a'holes themselves.

You don't even need to take my word for it, here's an article from SO themselves. The fact that it's over two years old and obviously had no impact says all you need to know about StackOverflow: https://stackoverflow.blog/2018/04/26/stack-overflow-isnt-very-welcoming-its-time-for-that-to-change/

After searching and searching for a solution i found a snippet that solved my problem. The issue here at first was that the snippet was not working and to one that provided the snippet never responded to the people asking what was wrong with the snippet.

So i thought let me contribute back and told them there was a small mistake in the code that caused the snippet/solution from working and posted it then with the code that works.

Not even 30 minutes later a $#*!ed moderator came bye and deleted my post. That i should have responded on the thread instead of a new reaction what is not even possible of the stupid blocks and restrictions you have.

The idea of stackoverflow is great but the fact of those restrictions and those dump $#*! moderators it makes a place that you don't want to contribute at!

I am a senior lead developer, many years of developing in different languages and platform. I am also part time teacher in computer science and development.
Till a few years ago I loved this website. People were helpful, friendly, and respectful. Now it became the Facebook of programming. I posted a few posts about Python and WordPress. Two things I don't really know and want to learn. The posts are simple, I am not demanding (like some, more liked, questions are), within the rules of this 'website'. Not even 5 minutes later the posts are removed. Reasons; not inside the rules of stack overflow and it is not a programming question. How can a question about 'Running a query from MySql in PHP gives error' (with all explanations, errors and codes) not be a programming question?

Other example; I am building this application for my company. It holds sensitive information and the code-style and functions/methods cannot be placed outside the company. I had a problem and no-one in the company (a 2600+ employee-company) could help me out. So I placed a question, with sufficient information and code examples, so called snippets (which you also get from answers from these other 'developers' on stackoverflow), and I get 30 replies. I was happy, but 29 of the replies was about the fact the examples aren't sufficient and people need to see the whole codebase. The example code I gave works fine and showed my problems.

I removed my account and I am trying to warn others. Google works way better and if you have questions and want answers of REAL developers and engineers; go to Reddit. I have way more success there.

StackOverflow is history if it was up to me. The moderators think they are God/Allah, or whatever god you believe in.

I had tried to ask two questions 3 times. Two first times I got an answer which had answered my question, though not fully. Yet, all times my question was closed upon made up reasons and nobody in community could pin point the reason for it. Instead I got a lot of condescending, combative, entitled comments. Some of them coming even from top 0,01% people! Instead of answering a simple question, their egos get bruised that they can't gather points for an easy answer and abuse report function in order to close down your question. Automatic system will lock your question putting on hold. You edit it, but nobody will unlock your question.

This site is completely broken and doesn't work when asking any IT software related question which is at all complicated to answer. Stay away from this site at all costs, there are plenty of better alternatives to ask your questions. Community there is absolutely deluded and every time I go there I come out frustrated with no answers or helpful suggestions, only toxic jerks insulting me.

I think this us the best place to learn anything about web development. For years it has been a one stop for developers alike. Kudos!

Some complain because they don't know the first thing about software development and ask something stupid like "how do I write a website"? This is not a place for people who need handholding- it is for professionals. If you know what you're doing and want to ask a technical question (how do you do X with Y technology)- people here are eager to help. That said, it is all user-contributed, so don't expect a prompt reply. It's best when you search and find your question has already been asked and answered.