HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why are people afraid to answer a Stack Overflow question?

8 points by hgezim ↗ HN
I've been seeing this as of late. The answer to my question will be spot on but the author posts it as a comment.

Is SO doing something to discourage answering questions outright?

22 comments

[ 1.3 ms ] story [ 54.9 ms ] thread
chromano
You can't down vote a comment, that might be a reason.
hgezim
Are upvotes in a comment worth the same as upvotes of an answer?!
viraptor
Upvotes show up on the side of the comment, but you don't get any rep for it.
hgezim
Ah, ok. There is very little incentive to commenting. Are people that afraid of criticism on SO when there is no upside to commenting?!
chromano
It seems like it is worth nothing but a badge, as documented here: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/17364/how-does-comme...

    "No reputation of any kind is earned or lost from comment votes, though the Commentator badge is awarded for leaving 10 comments, and the Pundit badge is awarded to those who left 10 comments, each with a score of 5 or more."
sydneyliu
This is from what I've heard. I use SO all the time but don't really post, so don't quote me on this.

The community can be fairly tough on people who are wrong or missing part of the answer. People who aren't extremely experienced sometimes feel scared that their answer may not be the best for whatever reason and feel a lot of heat. This is also true for "stupid" questions. If you ask a bad question on SO you can feel the heat as well.

hgezim
I guess the kicker is that there is no answer to my question yet!

Here's an example. I posted this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32051503/upgrader-process... .

Got the comment and it's solves my problem. Days later I got write a detailed response and answer my own question.

viraptor
Thanks for doing that, it's great that you added an example and explanation. Either way, the system works for the next person to find this question :)
Jeremy1026
That is why. Putting a 1-line answer isn't really kosher there. Maybe the commenter didn't have time to provide the extra resources in a full answer. So instead offered their solution as a comment.
loumf
This happens to me a lot too. Next time -- it's nice to ask the commenter to make an answer when they are correct.

You give them the check and up-vote and you can always elaborate on their answer.

hadeharian
This. I can't believe how arrogant the community is, especially against first time posters. 9/10's of the time, you will get some part of their policy wrong prior to posting. Also, they flag things as repeats very often for being related but not the same. I have never desired to post there ever again after the sny comments I've received from the management.
viraptor
SO doesn't do anything to make this a better option really. I mean, you can always delete your answer if it goes negative. You can even get a badge for it. (http://stackoverflow.com/help/badges/38/peer-pressure)

This is annoying for people answering the questions too: what should I do when I know the answer but it's already in the comments? Duplicate and rake the points for it? Leave it be and leave the question as unanswered?

hgezim
I was about to flag a comment (hoping that I could choose to pick "this is an answer") but didn't know if that was an option once you flag something. The tooltip on the flag icon says "Flag this comment for serious problems..."
viraptor
You get options to choose from, but there's no "this is an answer" option. It's not something mods can fix anyway. (you can't force someone to post an answer)
loumf
I ask people to turn their comments into answers. They usually do.
chromano
Interesting, I didn't know that... I think I will start answering more now. Let these words be heard!
Someone1234
Because the SO community is so toxic I try to avoid posting answers OR questions as much as possible.

Comments are safer, since you won't wind up with -3 and a bunch of comments about some irrelevant detail (like coding style). Comments cannot even be downvoted and most people won't flag them unless they're legitimately abusive/trolling.

ljk
same experience here, but some communities don't even allow comments from users with less than 50 reps, so newer users like myself are basically in the read-only phase
brudgers
If there's an answer to your question in the comments, type it up, make it better, and answer your own question if it will make the internet better. That's the point. The gamification is just a good way of encouraging the desired behaviors.

The goal is to help people, and nobody is going to beat Jon Skeet anyway.

bbcbasic
Jon Skeet answering my first SO question in a few minutes left me with a lasting impression that SO is awesome. That must have been 7 years ago or something.
imauld
I answer questions almost everyday on SO. The only time I leave an answer as a comment is if I'm not really sure if it'll work and it's a shot in the dark. I'll also do it if I'm not sure of the experience level of the OP or what they have tried.

For example I would leave the comment "Have you tried some_method()?" if I think that might solve the problem if it hasn't been tried and it's not immediately clear if it has been tried or not. If it works I'll post it as answer if it doesn't I'll use that info to further debug.

There are also times I leave the answer as a comment when I shouldn't. If it's a dupe or I'm going to close it based on it being a typo or missing closing bracket or some other on sense typo. I'll point out their mistake and vote to close.

samfisher83
SO used to be useful and good for reference, but its full of assholes now.