I love SO. I've learned a ton here, and I feel like I'm contributing. I like to help.

But lately, it feels a lot like a grind. The questions come at a rapid pace from users who clearly haven't bothered to read the docs, and I find myself spending 90% of my time either voting to close (duplicates or hopeless questions) or else "coaching" the asker with things like "please include your code" and the like.

I want to be sure I'm not "elitist" or difficult - and I did quite appreciated Robert Harvey's answer to a lower-rep user's post with the opposing view.

Maybe I'm emoting, but I'm wondering what - other than just sucking it up and adjusting my attitude - can be done to help educate these new users before their question makes it into the queue?

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    what can be done to help educate these new users before their question makes it into the queue? In the vast majority of cases, nothing. It seems like that's the lesson that you need to learn. Yes, there will be occasional people who are actually willing to accept constructive criticism, are willing to be coached, and could end up with a good question as a result. But the vast majority simply have no interest in getting anything but code that they can copy-paste to solve their problem. You need to learn to better identify people who are worth the time, and when to give up on a lost cause. – Servy Jan 30 '16 at 1:10
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    I'm "giving up" fairly fast, so that's not an issue. I tend not to "dig in" and try and push a user, but I'll typically either vote to close (duplicates, hopeless questions), or leave a single comment and move on. It's becoming a treat to see a well-constructed question these days! – random_user_name Jan 30 '16 at 1:13
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    I've found that taking breaks from SO is very beneficial. It does not solve anything on the site but sometimes you've just got to take care of yourself. – Louis Jan 30 '16 at 1:25
  • @Louis - that's sound advice. I'd been considering it, it may be time! (I guess I'm never gonna earn the Fanatic badge). – random_user_name Jan 30 '16 at 1:28
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    Hmya, 5 crap posts in a row makes everybody reach the 90% threshold and start looking for something better to do. You didn't DV any of them, you very rarely DV. We can't have nice things if you don't do that. – Hans Passant Jan 30 '16 at 2:06
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    @HansPassant - true, I rarely DV. I guess I like to "give people chance". However, if I left a comment with a DV, that is giving them a chance, I suppose. Excellent feedback, thank you. – random_user_name Jan 30 '16 at 2:09
  • Thank you for commenting on your DVs. I have a few DVs and no idea why, because there weren't any comments to go with them. – Narfanator Jan 30 '16 at 2:49
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    Vote on content, and comment on content, but please don't comment on your votes. That inevitably leads to problems. You should also downvote questions that don't show research effort, are unclear, or are not useful, whether you comment or not. The opposite with upvotes. You can always reverse your vote if the question is edited to void your reason for voting. Downvotes signal to other users that a question should not be answered, therefore avoiding FGITW answers. – user4639281 Jan 30 '16 at 3:18
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    ...but you ARE elitist - you actually care. Ths puts you in a minority group of elitist conrtibutors. Get used to being labelled as a hostile, unfriendly, uncaring, elitist snob, (and much worse on a bad day), for telling posters that their trash questions are trash with your downvotes. – Martin James Jan 30 '16 at 10:09
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    It's much the same on any other programming help site and has been this way for as long as there have been programming help sites and as long as there will be. If you can accept its existence and help contribute to separate the chaff from the wheat, you'll be OK with this, and this site will be the better for your efforts. – Hovercraft Full Of Eels Jan 30 '16 at 16:04
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    @DJDavid98: Hum. Isn't that basically badge fraud? – Lightness Races in Orbit Jan 30 '16 at 17:19
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    @DJDavid98: It seems self-evident that the badge is intended to reward those who actually use the site every day for 100 days. Not those who know how to set an "alarm clock" to ping the front page when they're not even using SO because they're on a "break". – Lightness Races in Orbit Jan 30 '16 at 23:46
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    @DJDavid98: That doesn't sound like a break from SO, which is the scenario we were discussing. – Lightness Races in Orbit Jan 31 '16 at 3:12
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    @cale_b: You could think of DV as a way to provide input for the mythical Bayesian filter (mentioned on the Stack Overflow podcast) - a way of saying "I do not want to see this kind of content on Stack Overflow". That solution would be much more scalable than trying to convince individual users. – Peter Mortensen Jan 31 '16 at 14:05
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    Why not just choose to not answer questions that don't meet your standards? I suspect others will happily answers those which you reject for the rep. – Andrew Grimm Feb 1 '16 at 3:36

What can be done about it? As has been discussed on meta many, many, many times over:

Sadly, nothing.

If it's starting to get to you, it's probably time to take a break. That's all you can do.

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    The above is basically how I'd answer the question too. However, I'll point out that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. "Pace yourself" is a variation of "take a break" that works as well. For example, in my own case, I've found that simply ignoring questions that have at least one answer, not looking at the first page of "newest" questions in a tag, and only looking at the first 10 pages of questions, significantly reduces my time spent with SO, which in turn reduces my frustration with all the lazy people out there. – Peter Duniho Jan 31 '16 at 4:59
  • Yes, I still spend most of my time on moderation activities (down/close-voting, editing, commenting to request improvements/clarifications/etc.). But I completely avoid even seeing, never mind getting upset about, questions that are obvious dupes but which still get answered (lazy questioners and answerers), and when I do find a good question to answer, I feel better about it, since it's one that got overlooked for some reason and which might otherwise have gotten lost. – Peter Duniho Jan 31 '16 at 4:59
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    TL;DR: spend less time on the site, and you can still add value without getting burned out, and without having to avoid the site completely. – Peter Duniho Jan 31 '16 at 4:59
  • @PeterDuniho: Depends on the person. For some it's pretty much an all or nothing proposition. But yeah you can read "a break" however you wish. – Lightness Races in Orbit Jan 31 '16 at 16:39
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    Not responding to questions immediately, a variation of taking a break, can also be mighty beneficial. Chances are that when you give it say 15 minutes to half an hour, someone else has your back and it doesn't need to be you that -yet again- has to point out the oblivious ("Can we has the errorz?" ... sigh). Knowing you're not alone takes away a lot of the initial frustration. – Gimby Feb 1 '16 at 10:52

I will say what I've said to many people in many walks of life - if it's not fun, put it down and walk away for a while. Either you'll remember why, or you'll find something else.

Stack Overflow is no exception - you don't have an obligation to pay whack-a-mole, just like you don't have to answer - unless Duty Calls:

XCKD: Duty Calls: What do you want me to do? LEAVE? And they'll keep on being wrong!

But seriously. Take a break, do something else for a bit. Clear you head. When you return, it'll be fun again, and for bonus points - you'll 'do it better' when you don't feel frustrated with the torrent.


I don't know if it's in the official guide lines, but participating in Stack Overflow should be fun, interesting, illuminating, and any other positive experience. Even Close Voting is a positive contribution; it should make you feel good at helping to maintain a High Standard at SO. It should definitively not be a chore, a pain, or something to fret about at night.

You can trust your fellow responsible members to take up the slack when you take a deserved break from close-voting and directing the clueless masses to help/how-to-ask, help/on-topic, and the inescapable READ EVERYTHING WE ARE ABOUT TO TELL YOU.

If you indeed see this whenever you close your eyes

enter image description here

then, yes, it seems time to take a break.

Image courtesy of Pëkka, https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/211493


I think that probably for most of us, answering questions is the most interesting and gratifying part of participating here. Problem solving is fun; if we weren't interested in that, we probably wouldn't be here in the first place. And it's great to find a question that's a good fit for you as an answerer; one with a clearly defined problem whose solution is within your area of expertise. Unfortunately, a lot of questions aren't like that, and aren't going to be like that.

I don't think it is a matter of educating users, because I think most of the people who are asking the questions you are frustrated with would not be interested in learning how to ask better questions. As difficult as it is to believe, a lot of people really don't have much interest in learning anything. They are not interested in whether or not their question is of any use to anyone who might see it later, they just want it to be answered. They may not even care whether or not they understand why the answer works as long as it does.

I think most people who would be interested in a blog post about Writing the Perfect Question and actually take the time to read it are thoughtful enough people that they already aren't going to ask terrible questions, and vice versa, most people who show up with a terrible question will have no interest in reading that article, or even "How to Ask."

I think there are more bad questions than good questions because there are more people who just want the answer than there are people who really want to understand. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, it's just the way things are. Looking for a good question to answer reminds me of looking for seashells on the beach as a kid. You find more broken bits and pieces than whole shells, and a lot of the whole ones you find are fairly similar and nondescript. That's just the way it is, so if you can't accept that fact, then you probably won't enjoy that pastime.

If you're feeling frustrated, maybe you're focusing too much on your role as an answerer and on your relationships with the askers. If you think of your work here in terms of being part of a team of volunteers who try to keep this a good place, then voting, coaching (to a reasonable extent), editing, and reviewing are just as worthwhile as answering questions. Part of making this a good place, full of useful questions and answers, is sorting through the debris.

I love SO too, and I'm glad to have an opportunity to try to contribute when I have time to. I wish I had more time. But I think it's like taking care of anything else you care about. It may be rewarding in the big picture, but sometimes it does feels like work, and that's OK.


Personally, I feel like the community does a decent job of providing feedback. I'm relatively new here as a member, but I've seen Stack Overflow pop up in my searches occasionally for a couple of years.

I partially agree with the answer from Lightness Races in Orbit:


Where I disagree is that you're not left with the option of doing nothing. Coaching people to include code helps. Being consistent with guidance on how to improve bad questions helps. Pointing to the "How to Ask" helps.

People don't always understand how to interact with others on Stack Overflow(or anywhere, really) without guidance. Instantly down voting and closing questions/answers can be helpful, but suggesting corrective action and giving the poster a bit of time to respond is probably more helpful. I've seen plenty of questions where you see guidance given in comments and the down votes only came a day later after giving the OP a chance to edit. If it's clear that the OP will never improve the question/answer, proceed with the appropriate vote.

TL/DR version: Keep giving helpful guidance where you can, unless you're getting burned out. Take a break. When you get back, we'd appreciate your help getting things whipped into shape.


We could ask them simple questions about where to find apis and how to generally debug before creating an account. We could also prompt them with general automated suggestions if their posts lack quality and improve feedback. Eg. currently you don't see if your post gets flagged for anything and the reasons why things are closed can sometimes be so unspecific that not getting an explaination would have been better. Comments can be very scarce, unspecific or subjectively written in a non-constructive style.

But in general people will always be under pressure (eg. having homework and honestly not beeing able to figure out an error or beeing pressured by your boss) and search for help in a resource they know well.

SO is pretty much the only platform for programming that everyone knows, and if they ask a coworker or costudent, they will likely be pointed to SO, even if a better place for them might be a Java-forum or something. We could try to redirect programming beginners to a special SE site (which was already tried and failed because of a low amount of answered questios) or we could point to already established Java, c++, python, forums sites, that also welcome beginners.


I guess this will turn into confession/whining thread ;) - but for me Stack Overflow lately feels like a grind because there are just too many great developers around.

When you look at the incoming question queue it's quite likely that most questions are already answered in a span of minutes.

And it's natural that with so many great developers around to answer questions on a regular basis it's quite likely that you'll get your share of "bad questions". Simply, instead of spending hours reading tutorials, people see that there is large group of people willing to answer questions - so they post. And someone who is just starting learning a certain language/technology obviously won't ask some advanced questions. He'll ask the most basic questions he could've find the answer to if he read ANY beginner's book on the subject.

So, as others are saying - I doubt there is anything you or moderators can do... We all need to suck it up and keep dealing with "bad questions" the best we can. Ironically, my last answer is on a question that can be considered bad:


But, on the other hand, looking back at my own personal journey of learning to code, I would be thrilled if Stack Overflow existed and if there were people willing to answer questions. I was actually quite frustrated with "close phase" of Stack Overflow few years back - I remember moderators/voters closing what felt like 50%+ of questions (found this thread from 2013... "my feels like 50%+" was 20%+ instead)

In that light, I think we all should look at new users and their questions with a little compassion - when you see a user who is new / has reputation under 100 - give him a chance. Let him post a question or two that is "bad". And as he is posting questions people will nudge him in a right way - in a sense welcome him to the community and give him a chance to learn how to properly ask questions.

EDIT: I guess I should brace for downvotes on all my answers ;). Anyway, I've re-read that Robert Harvey's answer you've linked several times and unlike you, I quite disagree with it. For me it is way too assuming and exclusive. I see that problem in general with "hardliners" here on Stack Overflow - they look at whole site kind of like a museum.

On one hand I find that attitude quite helpful - Stack Overflow would end up being another spammy forum if it wasn't for people like Robert. From that POV I am quite grateful for people like him.

But on the other hand, it is a double-edged sword - post unpopular opinion that asks for compassion and goes against "common vision" like I've done here and you'll be greeted with nitpicking and serial downvotes. And, as @Drew points out in his comment - if your personal belief guides you to spend time helping on "bad questions", be prepared to have your answer deleted.

So, in the end, I guess it boils down to - you, I and other people who spend their time trying to answer questions can't do much. It's unrealistic to expect that we can educate ALL new users on posting "great" question that comes anywhere near what Robert wants. Anything that deals with this problem would likely need to come down from site creators - it would probably be an improvement to already existing review queues.

In the meantime, we'll just keep running through this loop as we have done before:

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    A new user always gets the chance to post a few bad questions, no need to put a moratorium on moderation. We need more down- and close-voting, not less. – Deduplicator Jan 30 '16 at 18:05
  • Where in my answer did I ask for "moratorium"? I said "look at new users and their questions with a little compassion" - does that really qualifies as "moratorium" in your eyes? – nikib3ro Jan 30 '16 at 18:24
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    You mean "a little" not "little" right ? – Drew Jan 30 '16 at 18:26
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    Here is how my 30 minutes of "a little" compasion ended a day ago. You will be able to read it with another 1300 rep: stackoverflow.com/q/35076483 – Drew Jan 30 '16 at 18:29
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    @Drew, oh - believe me, I've been there ;). We've all wasted our fair share of time on SO for better or worse. I'm just editing my answer to include more info... guess I'll need to touch on what you are saying too. – nikib3ro Jan 30 '16 at 18:32
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    I'm afraid with 10000+ new questions on SO every day, "let new users ask a question or two that is bad" isn't a winning strategy any more. – Pekka Jan 30 '16 at 19:07
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    I see that problem in general with "hardliners" here on StackOverflow - they look at whole site kinda like a museum. not like a museum - but like something resembling a library, yes, absolutely. That's been the whole point of the site from the start, though - creating artefacts that are useful for future generations, as opposed to a help forum where you focus on being helpful for a single person. It's the reason I joined SO. I spent five years at a help forum and that was more than enough for a lifetime – Pekka Jan 30 '16 at 19:18
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    @Pekka웃 I've used "museum" instead of "library" because from my POV, lots of "hardliners" don't want you to touch/add anything ;). If you want to add anything to the site - better be sure it's a work of art. Anyways, as I am saying in my post - I understand the stance, but I don't agree with it. It comes down to whether you believe "helping others" should come before "keeping site 100% neat and clean". – nikib3ro Jan 30 '16 at 19:23
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    @kape I believe "helping others by having an archive of decent quality, searchable questions and answers" is the primary goal and "helping others with their specific problem" is a welcome side effect but not the primary focus. – Pekka Jan 30 '16 at 19:53
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    "When you look at the incoming question queue it's quite likely that the most questions are already answered in span of minutes." <- That's not a sign of great developers, that's a sign of FGITW. Answering lame questions that could be easily answered in a quick search is the worst way to gain reputation in the long run, helps the least number of people, and is not a very productive use of your time. – cimmanon Jan 30 '16 at 21:23
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    @Pekka웃 I never said that "helping others with their specific problem" is the primary focus of the StackOverflow... But, hey per SO rules: comments are not for extended discussion... so let my "just try not to be too harsh on people new to the site" message be the last thing I post on this subject. – nikib3ro Jan 30 '16 at 21:37
  • just try not to be too harsh on people new to the site oh, I completely agree (as I think you can see from my comment history, and suggestions such as this one) - as long as that means "helping users ask better questions", not "feeding the vampires". But on that we're probably on the same page. – Pekka Jan 31 '16 at 23:39

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