> > > In many ways Stack Overflow’s specific rules for what is permitted and what is not are obstacles, but an even bigger problem is rudeness, snark, or condescension that newcomers often see.[0]
I would contend that the rudeness and snark are a symptom of failed moderation tools.
On USENET, if there was a user who was bothersome to you - you could kill file them. Plonk and they're gone from what you can see.
On Reddit, you can block a user and you won't see their comments again. Similarly on Twitter you can mute or block a user. And again on GitHub. On HN you can click hide and collapse threads from people you don't want to see.
With all of these, you can make an annoying person not annoy you.
On Stack Overflow, you can't block questions from a user showing up when you look at a tag. You can't ignore answers that they have given on posts that otherwise invoke Duty Calls https://xkcd.com/386/ . You can't prevent a user from commenting on your posts. You can't filter questions to those who have had some criteria.
The combination of all of this means that on Stack Overflow, there are only three ways to handle a user.
You can flag their comments or posts and have a diamond mod step in (note that asking poor questions again and again isn't diamond mod worthy) and note that that sometimes can take days or weeks to get resolved.
You can take your ball and go home. Quit stack overflow and go cold turkey. There are more than a few who have decided that the hassle of dealing with users there isn't worth the headaches.
You can make it uncomfortable for them to stay. Snark, veiled (and unveiled) rudeness, and similar comments. Not that this is an excuse for rudeness - but rather an explanation.
One of the things to lower the temperature and reduce the amount of rudeness is to increase the ability for a user to see what they want and be able to avoid interactions with people who they don't want to interact with.
If the python tag is getting too many new programmer questions in September asking to make a circle with a for loop, the experienced programmer can either close questions (note that some people regard that as being rude) until they run out of close votes, down vote (again, some people regard that as being rude) until they run out of regular votes, and then either ask "have you read the documentation for for loop" or leave.
Rudeness is often an established user running out of moderation tools.
I would contend that the rudeness and snark are a symptom of failed moderation tools.
On USENET, if there was a user who was bothersome to you - you could kill file them. Plonk and they're gone from what you can see.
On Reddit, you can block a user and you won't see their comments again. Similarly on Twitter you can mute or block a user. And again on GitHub. On HN you can click hide and collapse threads from people you don't want to see.
With all of these, you can make an annoying person not annoy you.
On Stack Overflow, you can't block questions from a user showing up when you look at a tag. You can't ignore answers that they have given on posts that otherwise invoke Duty Calls https://xkcd.com/386/ . You can't prevent a user from commenting on your posts. You can't filter questions to those who have had some criteria.
The combination of all of this means that on Stack Overflow, there are only three ways to handle a user.
You can flag their comments or posts and have a diamond mod step in (note that asking poor questions again and again isn't diamond mod worthy) and note that that sometimes can take days or weeks to get resolved.
You can take your ball and go home. Quit stack overflow and go cold turkey. There are more than a few who have decided that the hassle of dealing with users there isn't worth the headaches.
You can make it uncomfortable for them to stay. Snark, veiled (and unveiled) rudeness, and similar comments. Not that this is an excuse for rudeness - but rather an explanation.
One of the things to lower the temperature and reduce the amount of rudeness is to increase the ability for a user to see what they want and be able to avoid interactions with people who they don't want to interact with.
If the python tag is getting too many new programmer questions in September asking to make a circle with a for loop, the experienced programmer can either close questions (note that some people regard that as being rude) until they run out of close votes, down vote (again, some people regard that as being rude) until they run out of regular votes, and then either ask "have you read the documentation for for loop" or leave.
Rudeness is often an established user running out of moderation tools.