opinions on Stack Overflow

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jeeswg
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opinions on Stack Overflow

24 Dec 2016, 08:29

I would be interested in anything anyone has to say about Stack Overflow, other Stack Exchanges, or similar sites.
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jeeswg
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

27 Dec 2016, 15:35

I've had a torrid time at the Stack Overflow forum.
People seem to want to *challenge* rather than answer the questions.
'If they don't know the answer, they don't like the question.'
I've had some entertaining exchanges there, I've only been there
for about 4/5 days, and I've learnt about a whole new world
where the culture is:

'Windows 7's default image viewer can't even handle animated gifs.'
'Animation has never been a standard feature for GIF images. It's a non-standard extension, and an application that decides to support standard features only isn't broken.'
That exchange was from:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4131 ... 7_41312249

I think *here* at AutoHotkey, we have the perfect combination of people with techy skills,
but a normal mindset.

Raymond Chen even popped into one of my forum questions,
to make one comment #FeelingBlessed.
This one:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4132 ... 3_41326834

One comment I posted:
The moment I became a programmer was when I couldn't do ctrl+s on Internet Explorer,
and I said 'that's enough' and added it in myself, true story.

Anyway my questions are here:
http://stackoverflow.com/users/6437863/ ... =questions

Please let me know if I'm in the wrong, or in the right, or a bit of both.
Also tell me what you think of some of the people responding to me.

Oh yes, the moderators already came knocking, saying my questions had low ratings of -1.
If anyone actually likes my questions, and wants to upvote, I would love a bit of moral support,
it's been horrible there.

When I get my GUI function library finished, to do all GUIs via DllCall and not make use of the GUI commands (which will be similar to Gdip.ahk, and not use objects),
I will carry on with Functional Windows, my shell folder replacement.
I hear now that Windows 10 has weird issues to do with icons. I'm on 7, and I daren't look into the future.
I like a lot of things about Windows though, and I love how Winapi, Acc (MSAA) and COM allow you to correct all the mistakes,
well most of them. I'll be doing a website in the next few months, I've already done Hello World with it.

Anyway I've only been on this forum a short time, and it's been a real pleasure,
especially to interact with some of my favourite AutoHotkey users!
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joedf
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

27 Dec 2016, 22:31

yeah... SO can be little over the top sometimes... :p
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

28 Dec 2016, 11:56

jeeswg wrote: Please let me know if I'm in the wrong, or in the right, or a bit of both.
Also tell me what you think of some of the people responding to me.
i think you should start listening and trying to understand what those responders are saying to you.
jeeswg wrote: Oh yes, the moderators already came knocking, saying my questions had low ratings of -1.
If anyone actually likes my questions, and wants to upvote, I would love a bit of moral support,
it's been horrible there.
thats the whole point of the site. crowdsourced moderation. no one moderator determines whether or not your question is good or your answer is good. the community decides

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jeeswg
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

29 Dec 2016, 03:09

Re: 'i think you should start listening', yes, I think the only
constructive thing they've told me is check out UI Automation,
which I will do eventually. I think by their standards
almost every script we write in AutoHotkey is unacceptable in some way,
which is somewhat of a problem. I will probably look over their comments
again but they are generally unfriendly and unhelpful.

Re: 'no one moderator determines whether or not your question is good or your answer is good'.
No-one on that site cares about my questions because they are
not the low-hanging fruit questions that stroke the egos of the moderators.
So for each question my best hope is for a 0 rating, 'please don't downvote, please don't downvote'.
That the moderators spoke to me is neutral, it's just the system's policy,
but what's individualistic is the moderators' mentality,
it was 4 of them at me at the same time, same vitriol, same mindset.
Worse, an odd friendly comment might have been welcome,
you can downvote me AND be nice. Btw I was even being told
to change how I think, that I was thinking wrong.

Nobody should ever use a Windows XP computer
because it's been deprecated by Windows 10.

Nobody should use a computer because there was a bug in
the first OR gate, so any computer that uses an OR gate
is now deprecated.

Other of my SO question areas, they left alone. But their area of expertise,
let's find a reason to give an immediate -1, let's not 'warn and wait'.
Only one of *those* questions is on 0 because of an upvote.

You can only draw a '1' with a hat and a tail, no other form is allowed.

I think they're giving me -1 because that's the highest number
you can get in unsigned integers.

I'm still waiting for them to admit that every piece of software
they've ever used or written does something nonstandard
and breaks the rules.

I wonder how they'd feel if they lost 1000 reputation points
every time they made a spelling mistake, every time
they said virtually anything.

It's not coincidence when *everything* you say get's a -1
that's sabotage.

On other stacks, and on other question areas on SO,
where I'm equally non-expert, I'm doing alright,
a person who gets 0 on everything will rethink
just as much as a person who gets -1,
but at least they aren't stress central,
and have the user privileges to post more than 2 urls
per question.

Btw with Acc (MSAA) how much relating to ctrl+left/ctrl+right,
can you actually do, or for keypresses generally. Also can you
right-click a button in the taskbar, i.e. 'DoDefaultAction'
usually left-clicks it, can you do a non-default action.

My prejudice is to think of Acc/UIA in terms of AccViewer only,
passive text retrieval, although use := and you're setting the text instead.
And for my new best friend, UI Automation (thanks SO), what can that do.
Also messages can get all the information from a listview,
but I think via Acc, this is not possible.

Anyway a great philosopher once wrote: you either win or you learn (wtte),
and I'm learning. Since I'm struggling to understand these people,
I'm looking for a go-between to help me out i.e. another perspective. And quite literally to these people
who hate PostMessage/SendMessage, don't shoot the messenger!
I've been 'troubled on every side‚ yet not distressed ...'.
Anyway, thanks Tank these two phrases have been sticking with me,
and the phrase '... but were afraid to ask', has new resonance that it
never had before, ironic for a forum where you ask questions.

It's a bit Faustian, software that works, or software that has approval.
Last edited by jeeswg on 31 Dec 2016, 07:18, edited 2 times in total.
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jeeswg
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

29 Dec 2016, 05:20

@guest3456, not saying that I disagree with you, but I think it's going to be to quite hard to pin down anything I said on the forum that is particularly unreasonable.
Especially compared to what they say, and their hyperbole, and their straw man arguments, or rather haystack monster arguments they are so over-the-top
and such a distortion of the things I had said.
I would welcome any comments to be singled out.

I just had a read through my questions for the first time.
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jeeswg
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

31 Dec 2016, 06:49

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES, come on ... fifty reputation!
I can comment on questions i.e. AutoHotkey questions,
woohoo I am now more helpful.
https://www.google.co.uk/#q=FIFTY+POUND+NOTE
Well look, I'm part of the furniture now,
practically a moderator.
Believe it or not I'm walking on air.
There are talkers and there are doers, talkers talk, doers do.
But Darius hit back and boldly told the producer: “I will have a triple platinum album by the time I am 35. I will succeed.”
23 Dec: first api question, 31 Dec: 54 points and 8 badges.
54 points: '......................................................'.
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jeeswg
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

01 Jan 2017, 20:21

Well I made it to 50 reputation points, I don't think anybody noticed.
OK so I acquired the ability to upvote a bit before that,
and I remembered a post about ComboBoxes.
This had worked in Windows XP but broke on Windows 7,
'Control, Choose' would visually select the item, but the program wasn't being made aware,
unless a keypress was sent.
Cf. TBM_SETPOS / TBM_SETPOSNOTIFY for trackbars (volume controls).

Well I found the post and who should be there but the usual suspects,
criticising the question, making unhelpful comments, possibly downvoting
the most useful article for me on Stack Overflow at the time.
And in the end he fixed the problem by himself.
windows - How to simulate selection change in the "file type" ComboBox in GetSaveFileName dialog from a separate process? - Stack Overflow
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2895 ... vefilename

When time becomes a loop.
Repeat after me, 'history'.

So on its sister website, Super User, my favourite post is the quickest
way to rename an extension when you've not got AutoHotkey to hand,
the trick is to use the ren command and drag-and-drop a file into cmd to get the path.
Efficiently change a single file extension in Windows - Super User
http://superuser.com/questions/248501/e ... in-windows

The post was by Synetech who has a 5-digit rep
and talks about the negativity of the moderators.
User Synetech - Super User
http://superuser.com/users/3279/synetech

Thank you c00000fd & Synetech you first-order geniuses.

I liked a quote here, classic:
c# - VS 2010 Shortcut for debugging a specific project - Stack Overflow
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9375 ... ic-project
Yup. I'd rather spend a night or two coding this kind of feature myself and offer it as public VS plugin than wait for MS'Devs to offer it in "VS 2050" (^^)

We're not all insane you know.

I think my next post will be Stack Overflow: Best of 2016.
The Quotation Collection. 'Don't quote this I never wrote this.'
ManualColdlock signing out.

HAPPY NEW YEAH OVERFLOWERS.
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jeeswg
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

12 Jan 2017, 02:22

I'll be back, like the game show The Apprentice (US version).
In the meantime I would happily welcome any viewpoints on Stack Overflow, to break up my monologue.
Also, please anyone who likes my questions there, upvote, because they have disabled
my question-asking privileges, I didn't realise until today when I was going to ask
a useful question about C++ that would probably get a lot of upvotes. How typically silly of them!
You got my back?

http://stackoverflow.com/users/6437863/ ... t=activity

PS I can't ask my C++ / Maxima CAS (mathematics freeware) questions for SIX MONTHS
unless I get some upvotes!!! Basically because some moderator(s) downvoted all my Winapi questions!
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

21 Jan 2017, 10:51

[I collected my favourite quotes from my mod buddies, to see if I/they/all of us were in the wrong]
[some of the responses to me were quite nice and much better than I was expecting]
[I accidentally posted at Stack *Exchange* Meta instead of Stack *Overflow* Meta, but this was probably for the best]
Anatomy of a Moderator: should moderators (high-rep users) behave like this? - Meta Stack Exchange
http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions ... 893_290085

[I wanted another chance to see what the community was *really* like]
[the way I think they think and communicate is confirmed, doesn't mean that I think they're all monsters though!]
'semi-resolved' status for questions - Meta Stack Overflow
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions ... 077_341786

[link to my questions]
https://stackoverflow.com/users/6437863 ... t=activity

[REMEMBER: if you like my posts or think that they're worth at least a 3,
please upvote them!]
[btw if people upvote my questions,
and I get my question-asking ability back, I can ask questions relevant to:]
key dll issues: calls and structs - Page 2 - AutoHotkey Community
https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic ... 6&start=20

[next up:]
I'll collect some of my favourite quotes by me. Well *favourite* is a strong word, just some quotes that I thought were vaguely amusing.

[btw]
guest3456, for example, do you have an account at SO, it makes a big difference
whether you do/don't on how you might feel about the website,
I'll be more willing to accept your opinions on it if you have indeed participated there,
I'd read from it for years, but only joined one month ago,
the experiences are completely different.

Thanks for reading.
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

21 Jan 2017, 12:42

I wouldn't fight with high rep SO users... They suppress all and don't care. I refrain a little bit from asking questions on SO.
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jeeswg
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

21 Jan 2017, 13:11

'I wouldn't fight with high rep SO users...' - yeah my instinct is not to do this either, but since they in effect stopped me from asking questions, they forced me into a corner, and left me with nothing to lose, they are making it horrible for everyone there, so I thought I'd at least let the voice of the little people like me be heard!

'They suppress all and don't care.' - interesting summary.

'I refrain a little bit from asking questions on SO.' - wow!

I keep wondering about where else I could go for queries. When a question gets through and you get a good answer it is fantastic though, and I've found so much useful information there, and it's nice to help on some of the AHK queries too.

I'd like to know what a jokey stereotypical super-upvoted question would look like.

Hey cheers for your responses here, much appreciated!

[EDIT: Btw joedf if you thought that *I* was out of line at any point do say so.]
Last edited by jeeswg on 21 Jan 2017, 13:34, edited 1 time in total.
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guest3456
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

21 Jan 2017, 13:33

jeeswg wrote: guest3456, for example, do you have an account at SO, it makes a big difference
whether you do/don't on how you might feel about the website,
I'll be more willing to accept your opinions on it if you have indeed participated there,
I'd read from it for years, but only joined one month ago,
the experiences are completely different.
it makes no difference whether or not i have an account there (i dont even think i have a username/pw but somehow they've cookied me and created an acct, but i hardly use it)

i clicked the first 2 links in your last post, and i see your questions are rated -15 and -18. thats absurd. that means 18 people have downvoted you. that is not just one rogue moderator out to get you. that is 18 separate people telling you that you're being stupid.

you can continue to think you know it all, or you can chill out and relax your stubborn stances on everything and start listening.

when you join a new community, instead of blazing your trumpets thinking you know it all, you should instead respect their culture and try to fit in. you are doing what the muslims refugees are doing in europe. they were welcomed, and instead of being grateful, they are rampaging and raping and harassing. and then people wonder why you get reform in the likes of brexit and donald trump.

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jeeswg
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

21 Jan 2017, 13:45

guest3456, I don't particularly disagree with what you've said about me.
But the maximum downvotes I have at the moment on SO are -4, -2, -2.
The 2 big downvotes were on *Meta* questions, one about allowing moderators
and OPs to set a yellow half-answered status, which I had no idea if they'd like or not,
and one about rogue moderators.

Well done btw to you and joedf you've got good ratings there.

You keep sounding like your saying 'don't have an opinion' on things,
'don't state your case', 'don't make an argument', I'm not particularly
highly-opinionated. Do call out any specific examples of things I've said,
however concerns about AHK v2, and my two experimental meta questions,
are special circumstances.

'think you know it all' - I don't know at all where this idea comes from,
every so often I admit to facepalm 'I didn't know' moments on the forum,
rather than try and pretend I knew all along. You flag up that I didn't know
one thing about variables in AHK v2, the truth is I'd planned a post in 2/3 weeks'
time on the subject but you caught me early before I was 100% ready,
and I started talking about the concerns I had at the time.

Anyway you've argued your points well, and I like to be able to
debate with you like this.
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guest3456
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

21 Jan 2017, 14:02

nothing wrong with having an opinion. but when you get pushback on your opinion, instead of "sticking 100% to it", perhaps take a deep breath and dont immediately try to fire back and prove why you're right. take in the other opinion and see how you may possibly be mistaken or not.

active members are a value to every community, so obviously i think you have value here.

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jeeswg
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

21 Jan 2017, 14:06

Hahaha awh, well look I'm already having a rethink about indentation thanks to you and Helgef. I don't like indentation by spaces, tabs appear too wide in Notepad, so I'm now contemplating the move to another text editor that can set thinner tabs.

Also, you said my forum posts are sometimes unreadable.
Did you mean in part because I cut each line short rather than let the forum word wrap my text? If I get a new text editor I might fix that as well.
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

21 Jan 2017, 14:34

I don't hate SO. I still like it... In the end it's still a great resource. I have ~3k rep... And still I'm careful when I ask questions on there... :b
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

21 Jan 2017, 17:02

jeeswg wrote:Also, you said my forum posts are sometimes unreadable.
Did you mean in part because I cut each line short rather than let the forum word wrap my text?
yes, but maybe its me and others can read them fine. i think some of your posts you didn't break up into paragraphs either.

although as you can see, my habit is to not use capitalization

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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

22 Jan 2017, 16:49

A CALL TO ALL READERS WHO USE STACK OVERFLOW.
I'm thinking of closing most of my questions,
because I want to restore my question-asking privileges,
so that I can ask there about dll calls and structs in C++,
relevant to AUTOHOTKEY and all of the ~1000 FUNCTIONS I'm writing.

My current questions are useful to other people, so if you value them please
upvote soon, or they will all be removed!!!

[EDIT: I asked for people to explain what was wrong with my questions on the Meta,
so that I could learn from them, and people just downvoted them and said nothing,
which was the problem in the first place!
That is so *typically* Stack Overflow! Anyway I know the culture there now,
what an OK question could be by their official definitions, versus the culture and tastes
of the SO mainstream who have voting privileges and read more of the questions.]

[EDIT 2: For the record, my experiences at 3 other stacks, and on some of the Stack Overflow posts were OK, although even when it is OK, the Stack Exchange system itself can make things really stressful. Maybe they should make it so that you only lose points from the 3rd downvote onwards for example!]
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Re: opinions on Stack Overflow

23 Jan 2017, 06:11

Each forum has its own rules for whatever reason. You have to accept them or leave. Don't ask here to help you to overcome the rules.

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