Asterix - House That Sends You Mad - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHRGjfEQpy4
The Twelve Tasks of Asterix - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelv ... of_Asterix
The problem with Stack Overflow is not the people but the bureaucratic system. There isn't any other forum I use where I risk losing reputation points and where I risk losing the ability to ask a question for 6 months, simply for asking a modest/good/excellent question that is in full accordance with the rules.Find Permit A-38 in "The Place That Sends You Mad". A mind-numbing multi-storey building founded on bureaucracy and staffed by clinically unhelpful people who direct all their clients to other similarly unhelpful people elsewhere in the building.
To an extent it's OK to hide some aspects of the algorithms/weighting systems, so that people can't game the system to bend the rules but avoid being banned. However, Stack Overflow has got the balance here wrong many a time, furthermore, if they were explicitly clear and transparent about the rules, they might actually get the behaviour they wanted.
I might take a look at The Art of War for any relevant quotes. I don't remember any stand-out quotes from it, so it will be interesting to look at it again. Perhaps there was one, something like: if you know yourself and your enemy you needn't fear the outcome of so-many battles. I see it as relating more to competitive relationships, and not educational relationships, but dealing with the unknown links both.
If you were to consider the people angle, it's about the relationship between the master and the apprentice. To which I've just invented a little phrase. Be shrewd, leave the master if he's rude.