Timeline for Why the hostility?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
42 events
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:14 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://serverfault.com/ with https://serverfault.com/
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| Jul 11, 2013 at 10:54 | comment | added | JamesRyan | If sales people came to stackoverflow asking for a step by step of how to write a program saying that 'hiring a developer is not an option' people would also laugh in their face. Everyone agrees that clear cut spoonfeeding is not welcome but there needs to be a balance so that doesn't stop help to people who are new to the field and simply trying to learn. | |
| Apr 19, 2013 at 13:12 | vote | accept | ewwhite | ||
| Apr 10, 2013 at 16:45 | answer | added | ChatGPT | timeline score: 4 | |
| Apr 10, 2013 at 11:33 | history | edited | ewwhite | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 12 characters in body
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| Apr 8, 2013 at 23:45 | comment | added | HopelessN00b | @Iain I've never been one to let a little thing like having lost knock the fight out of me, though. May as well tilt at windmills a little while longer. | |
| Apr 8, 2013 at 21:06 | comment | added | user9517 Mod | @HopelessN00b: There is no need to give up - we've lost. I have been straw polling the newest questions and >60% are from people who have more rep on another (and generally SO) SE site which makes them amateurs and SF a place to ask pro sysadmins et al questions rather than a place for pro sysadmins et al to ask because thy just plain don't. | |
| Apr 8, 2013 at 13:18 | comment | added | Jenny D | @Amicable - I'd say that is turning it the wrong way around. You shouldn't be setting up a dev environment to mirror a work environment; you should set up a secure and production-ready environment to develop on and then copy that environment into production. Both jobs require that you understand the scope and risks inherent in systems administrations on the internet. Setting up dev for a startup without the skills to setup production is a huge risk and will haunt them for years to come - if they survive that long. | |
| Apr 8, 2013 at 12:19 | comment | added | user9517 Mod | @Amicable: It absolutely would be a professional IT job but you wouldn't believe the number of grannys/granddads/school kids/amateurs in general who try to do it, screw it up entirely then come asking crappy questions here about it. | |
| Apr 8, 2013 at 11:00 | comment | added | Amicable | Wow. Well, this certainly discourages me from ever posting on this SE site. I had no idea setting up a development environment mirroring one deployed in a real work environment is not a profession IT job. I guess anyone can do it then, maybe I should phone my Grandma for technical advice - she took an IT course at the community centre after all. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 19:38 | answer | added | Andrew B | timeline score: 16 | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 19:16 | comment | added | Andrew B | As a relatively new user, I can see both sides of this problem. This site would not nearly be as useful to me without the "IT professionals" slant. Simultaneously, I can see the overzealous attempts to police in action, and have even allowed them to model my own behavior incorrectly in some places. (@EEAA had to straighten me out once) tl;dr, I think there is a great deal of value in trying to maintain the balance. I disagree with "giving up", I disagree with being "too welcoming", I disagree with "being outright rude". Just because a balance is tough does not mean it lacks merit. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 14:36 | comment | added | gWaldo | @HopelessN00b Yes, there is a lot of crap out in the world. Yes, it's frustrating to say the same things repeatedly. Yes, they should read the FAQ. But the fact that you even think of them as "lusers" illustrates contempt and hostility, where a Q/A site should fundamentally be about helping people. You yourself have done a fine job of earning a high reputation in the short amount of time that you've been a part of the site. But you demonstrate an amazing amount of scorn for the people who most need your expertise. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 13:54 | answer | added | Kenny Evitt | timeline score: 12 | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 13:44 | comment | added | HopelessN00b | @gWaldo At present, there are 146,265 undeleted questions on ServerFault. (I can't tell how many deleted ones there are, but the moderator tools show 21 deletions in the last 24 hours.) If we took the time to help every off topic question and clueless luser who doesn't belong here, that's all we'd get done. I have better things to do with my life, and don't think that it's fair or productive to allow good questions from good users to suffer because we're all too busy telling the 18,000th 1 rep user what's in the FAQ he should have read before posting anyway. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 12:55 | comment | added | gWaldo | Yes, the question ewwhite presented was weak, but the way that it was handled could have been much better. Us repeatedly saying "hire a SysAd" when the OP made it clear that it wasn't an option is futile. What to do then? Well, instead of continuing to say "Hire a SysAd", an answer that would actually be helpful is "Managing systems is a significant undertaking, but here are some guides", and provide links to articles and documentation! Y'know, maybe attempt to help. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 12:54 | comment | added | gWaldo | On my long-ago Day 1 of being a Professional SysAd, I didn't know much and had to ask a lot of basic questions. I didn't know much, but I was still a "Professional SysAd", and needed help with questions in "a professional capacity". I'm glad that I wasn't relying on the SF of today back then. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 12:54 | comment | added | gWaldo | It's only natural to want to be around people just like you. But this is a place where people are supposed to be able to get assistance. Yes, we have a narrowly-defined scope where SO and SU are pretty broad, I have long been concerned at our harsh enforcement of "Professional". While I personally have a high standard of people with whom I'd like to work, I'm pretty lenient with regards to people asking questions of me. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 12:53 | comment | added | gWaldo | @HopelessN00b it would be great if people read my carefully-prepared docs, & I hate (HATE!) when people reply to my email asking a Q which I'd already addressed THAT VERY THING. But I don't know anyone who hasn't done that - The best Devs, Sys/Ops folks, and non-tech people have all done it. Even me! Slack should be cut, especially for new people. It used to be harshly responded to if you should answer a (easily google-able) SF question with a LMGTFY link, but even that is a better user experience for the OPs than "READ THE FAQ, N00b!" & "This question isn't professional enough" remarks. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 9:21 | answer | added | TheLQ | timeline score: 52 | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 7:32 | comment | added | Jenny D | Speaking as a relative newbie to SF, I've not found the site unfriendly. But then I'm not a newbie sysadmin - what I find frustrating here are questions like the one linked, where there's no understanding of the scope of the problem and an unwillingness from the OP:s side to accept that this isn't something that can or should be reduced to a pat list of answers off of a web site. | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 23:48 | answer | added | Journeyman Geek | timeline score: 10 | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 22:03 | comment | added | HopelessN00b | @gWaldo Which leaves us with what Iain said about having lost the battle to keep this as a site for professionals. SuperUser for "server stuff," yippie. Is that the type of community you want to be a part of? That's kinda what it seems like (to me), and that kind of community isn't going to retain any expert users at all. In the current state, it already has shed a number of prominent, high-rep users. You want to accelerate that trend and try to replace them with new users who can't even be bothered to read the FAQ? Seriously... think it through and think about what you're asking for. | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 19:06 | comment | added | gWaldo | Thank you for illustrating my point so well, @HopelessN00b - I can't read your text in a tone other than dripping with contempt, scorn, and haughtiness. Here's the thing: a community that isn't growing is at-best stagnant. (In reality it's dying.) If you are unwelcoming to the new people (never mind being hostile), they will not stay. And they'll tell others that it's filled with BOFHs. Simon Travaglia's stories are funny (because they're not true), but nobody wants to work with or be around that guy. | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 18:15 | comment | added | HopelessN00b | @gWaldo Not being helpful to whom? Jackasses who don't bother to even read the FAQ or put any effort into making their questions not suck? Can't say I care about those lusers, and I can't say I've seen this not being helpful thing you speak of to legitimate, topical questions that the asker puts any effort into. Like so much of life, what you get out of something varies greatly depending on what you put into it. | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 17:58 | comment | added | gWaldo | @HopelessN00b - I agree that VTC, downvoting, and comments are useful, but we of the top-percentages of the site are not being helpful. | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 17:57 | comment | added | gWaldo | @Iain - whether jaded, frustrated, or otherwise, this site (I can't even call it a "community" anymore) is not welcoming to new users. It tolerates it's 'own', but nobody else. Which would be fine for a social club (SysDrink is a thing, after all) for mutual commisseration, but encouraging new users to 'suck less or take a hike' (my words) will only ensure that SF withers on the vine. | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 15:43 | comment | added | HopelessN00b | @Iain To hell with that (giving up)... if we do that, we may as well just tell the SE team to merge the site with SuperUser, log off and never return. It's probably a losing battle, but I see nothing wrong with using the VTCs, downvotes and comments "as intended" on the many off-topic, not-constructive and/or just plain crappy questions we see every day. | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 13:29 | answer | added | August | timeline score: 14 | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 7:00 | comment | added | user9517 Mod | @gWaldo: I don't think jaded is quite the right word - frustrated would, I think be better. SF offered so much more but has unfortunately descended to the lowest common denominator and like so many other places is just somewhere else for the clueless, feckless, hapless ... to to ask crappy questions. Most of the regulars have been fighting valiantly to retain the site as a place for professionals. I think it's time to acknowledge that we've lost that battle, remove it from the faq and get on with our lives, SF for professional IT people is dead. | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 1:35 | comment | added | gWaldo | This behavior is a large part of why I haven't been coming by anymore. Unfortunately, it's not only focused on Developers; I've seen the dogpile on what I thought were useful and valuable questions because they didn't fit explicitly within the explicitly-allowed bounds of the FAQ. SF has a toxic feel now, and the only reason that I can see is that too many high-rep users have become jaded. | |
| Apr 2, 2013 at 1:18 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/ServerFault/status/318895268709924864 | ||
| Apr 1, 2013 at 21:33 | comment | added | Sander Steffann | @MichaelHampton I'm sorry but I don't agree with you here. I thought that your comment "DevOps means that you talk to your sysadmins [etc]" was a little rude and that SAFX responded to that. Considering your reputation I'm sure you didn't mean it that way. I guess this is a lesson that the way someone interprets a message can depend more on the mindset/mood of the reader than that of the writer. I had a flaming row with a co-worker once: blaming each other for being rude while neither thought he was. I guess the only solution is to realise it and don't hold a grudge it when it happens :-) | |
| Apr 1, 2013 at 16:01 | comment | added | Michael Hampton | You're also forgetting something important: It was the person who asked the question who was originally hostile. | |
| Apr 1, 2013 at 13:16 | comment | added | HopelessN00b |
He was targeted for being a developer? Interesting theory. What makes you say that? He struck me as just another clueless I can haz teh SA codes? type much more than anything else.
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| Apr 1, 2013 at 12:28 | comment | added | EEAA | I agree, the hostility was unnecessary. I tried, in my comment, to present a reasonable explanation, without casting blame or negativity. Perhaps I could have done better, though. | |
| Apr 1, 2013 at 11:44 | comment | added | ewwhite | The OP was target for being a developer. That dev status was the reason for the hatin'. The question was rightfully closed quickly, but it's comment thread that followed that seemed particularly-nasty. | |
| Apr 1, 2013 at 10:09 | answer | added | user11604 | timeline score: 42 | |
| Apr 1, 2013 at 7:03 | answer | added | HopelessN00b | timeline score: 19 | |
| Apr 1, 2013 at 6:54 | comment | added | Wesley | I don't condone the condescension in that comment thread, but of all the beat-down questions to stick up for, that one? It was not asked by an IT professional that is within scope of the FAQ, it could not be answered because of it's staggering breadth, and even if it could be answered it would likely not be fully grasped because the subject material would not be within the scope of the OP's base of knowledge. So what was the appropriate answer? "Contract a SysAdmin lest you hurt your fledgling business before it even leaves the gates." | |
| Apr 1, 2013 at 6:51 | comment | added | user9517 Mod | We already have an answer to that question serverfault.com/questions/212269/… Given that the RH version of the document you suggest the OP reads is 188 pages then it's way to broad and falls into NARQ/NC territory. | |
| Apr 1, 2013 at 5:33 | history | asked | ewwhite | CC BY-SA 3.0 |