If I understand correctly, OP gave a C++ answer to a C question, and someone asked what would be the best way to remove it as not on topic years later.
To be fair, as far as stackoverflow drama goes, this seems pretty mild, it did not get ugly, personal or anything.
Always good to remind people there are humans on the other side of the wire though.
Maybe I’m biased against SO, but that whole thread just seems a mess.
The meta post states … These kind of wrong language answers are not just wrong and confusing, they are off-topic as they do not attempt to answer the question about a certain programming language.
And yet, the -1 answer does attempt to answer it re: C. It just also mentions a C++ solution. They can’t just edit out the C++ part, if it’s so bad?
The top 2 answers have over +1,000 points (maybe fewer at the time), yet the +13 needs downvotes? To what end? Spite? I don’t get it. It’s still there, if you just scroll down.
The +42 answer is basically the same as the -2 answer. Does that make sense? Not to me. It’s funny, I also think of that piss-drinker from time to time. Comic relief
Btw, I am not the guy with the +65 answer; sorry for scooping the username here.
It’s tempting to forswear argument altogether and refuse to engage, but I have come to believe this is also a mistake. The problem is finding a way to argue productively.
I am reminded of one of my favorite Hegel quotes:
Since the man of common sense makes his appeal to feeling, to an oracle within his breast, he is finished and done with anyone who does not agree; he only has to explain that he has nothing more to say to anyone who does not find and feel the same in himself. In other words, he tramples underfoot the roots of humanity. For it is the nature of humanity to press onward to agreement with others; human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds. The anti-human, the merely animal, consists in staying within the sphere of feelings, and being able to communicate only at that level. (Phenomenology of Spirit, §69)
I agree that some things are worth an argument, but (1) much fewer things than we think are like that and (2) productively and civility are two related but different things
much fewer things [are worth an argument] than we think are like that
The first step to arguing productively: ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish. What does agreement change about the world that disagreement prevents? The point is to change something. Simply honing your own understanding is a worthwhile exercise!
The fellow arguing about Italian food with the pissman is obviously wasting his time, but we often invest energy in debate under much more uncertain circumstances.
productively and civility are two related but different things
Language is frequently used as tools of pure negation against ideas, in a purely formal way disconnected from any truth content or theory of knowledge. This is the most important thing to recognize, because if your interlocutor possesses no theory of knowledge you are not going to get anywhere useful.
It’s tempting to forswear argument altogether and refuse to engage, but I have come to believe this is also a mistake. The problem is finding a way to argue productively.
I try to assume good faith but I’m a comment section veteran and as soon as I smell a non-productive conversation I’m gonezo.
I responded to a comment once that said “what’s so bad about mysql?” like they hadn’t heard of the Oracle acquisition thing and the fork to MariaDB. I responded in good faith and then they started explaining why Oracle is actually a good company and I felt like a huge idiot for engaging.
It’s perfectly reasonable to demand a standard of discourse, and peace out when you encounter bad faith. But you have to engage in the first place to determine which is which.
Also, when debating in a public forum, you have very little perspective on how many people are seeing the exchange. Engaging with a bad-faith interlocutor may be illuminating for others in ways you will never know. I wouldn’t discount that.
But I was just starting out, and if someone wrote that my answer was so bad that “there’s little hope to delete-vote it”, I would probably be super sad.
Why exactly would you be sad? Because, by your own admission, you were wrong. And it’s not like you’ve been called names, nor did anyone say you should’ve been retroactively aborted.
And this is also kinda the most uncharitable reading of the meta statement. It points out that your answer is wrong, and that it should be removed because it’s misleading, then wonders how to do that. There are not personal attacks or anything.
I struggle with not being considered rude kinda often, so, this is a genuine question.
Maybe this is a bit off-topic, but I recently found myself searching for answers to various newbie-level Javascript questions. As we know, JS has changed a LOT over the last decade alone. But whenever you ask Le Goog or The Bings, or Some Duck a JS question, you mostly get a bunch of results from 10-15 years ago that are just FULL of incorrect or outdated information. The best answers, in the rare case that they exist, are buried at the bottom with -1 votes.
Of course, if you ask the same question and specifically mention that the other MUCH older answers are no longer correct, or don’t fit your situation, it WILL get marked as a dupe.
SO has the strongest gate-keeping community I’ve ever seen in 30 years of being on the Internet. By not cleaning up old outdated answers, SO has set the perfect trap for experienced coders trying to get a grip on their new craft.
I am partially confused by the whole situation.
The top answer has thousands of upvotes, only works on static arrays, while the question is about arrays in C in general.
The meta discussion then goes on about an answer which provides the correct answer that it can’t be done in C which additionally provides a C++ answer.
While you could’ve explained why C can’t do it generally like the second most upvoted answer, it’s still not wrong. You could’ve done the second part with a minor struct like
The whole discussion feels like the whole reason I dislike stack overflow. Because people incorrectly answer questions which are accepted and then harp on the correct answer which does a minor perceived slight.
If I understand correctly, OP gave a C++ answer to a C question, and someone asked what would be the best way to remove it as not on topic years later.
To be fair, as far as stackoverflow drama goes, this seems pretty mild, it did not get ugly, personal or anything.
Always good to remind people there are humans on the other side of the wire though.
Maybe I’m biased against SO, but that whole thread just seems a mess.
The meta post states … These kind of wrong language answers are not just wrong and confusing, they are off-topic as they do not attempt to answer the question about a certain programming language.
And yet, the -1 answer does attempt to answer it re: C. It just also mentions a C++ solution. They can’t just edit out the C++ part, if it’s so bad?
The top 2 answers have over +1,000 points (maybe fewer at the time), yet the +13 needs downvotes? To what end? Spite? I don’t get it. It’s still there, if you just scroll down.
The +42 answer is basically the same as the -2 answer. Does that make sense? Not to me. It’s funny, I also think of that piss-drinker from time to time. Comic relief
Btw, I am not the guy with the +65 answer; sorry for scooping the username here.
It’s tempting to forswear argument altogether and refuse to engage, but I have come to believe this is also a mistake. The problem is finding a way to argue productively.
I am reminded of one of my favorite Hegel quotes:
I agree that some things are worth an argument, but (1) much fewer things than we think are like that and (2) productively and civility are two related but different things
The first step to arguing productively: ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish. What does agreement change about the world that disagreement prevents? The point is to change something. Simply honing your own understanding is a worthwhile exercise!
The fellow arguing about Italian food with the pissman is obviously wasting his time, but we often invest energy in debate under much more uncertain circumstances.
Absolutely true, but I think it is far more important to recognize that form and content are also different.
Language is frequently used as tools of pure negation against ideas, in a purely formal way disconnected from any truth content or theory of knowledge. This is the most important thing to recognize, because if your interlocutor possesses no theory of knowledge you are not going to get anywhere useful.
I try to assume good faith but I’m a comment section veteran and as soon as I smell a non-productive conversation I’m gonezo.
I responded to a comment once that said “what’s so bad about mysql?” like they hadn’t heard of the Oracle acquisition thing and the fork to MariaDB. I responded in good faith and then they started explaining why Oracle is actually a good company and I felt like a huge idiot for engaging.
It’s perfectly reasonable to demand a standard of discourse, and peace out when you encounter bad faith. But you have to engage in the first place to determine which is which.
Also, when debating in a public forum, you have very little perspective on how many people are seeing the exchange. Engaging with a bad-faith interlocutor may be illuminating for others in ways you will never know. I wouldn’t discount that.
Why exactly would you be sad? Because, by your own admission, you were wrong. And it’s not like you’ve been called names, nor did anyone say you should’ve been retroactively aborted.
And this is also kinda the most uncharitable reading of the meta statement. It points out that your answer is wrong, and that it should be removed because it’s misleading, then wonders how to do that. There are not personal attacks or anything.
I struggle with not being considered rude kinda often, so, this is a genuine question.
Maybe this is a bit off-topic, but I recently found myself searching for answers to various newbie-level Javascript questions. As we know, JS has changed a LOT over the last decade alone. But whenever you ask Le Goog or The Bings, or Some Duck a JS question, you mostly get a bunch of results from 10-15 years ago that are just FULL of incorrect or outdated information. The best answers, in the rare case that they exist, are buried at the bottom with -1 votes.
Of course, if you ask the same question and specifically mention that the other MUCH older answers are no longer correct, or don’t fit your situation, it WILL get marked as a dupe.
SO has the strongest gate-keeping community I’ve ever seen in 30 years of being on the Internet. By not cleaning up old outdated answers, SO has set the perfect trap for experienced coders trying to get a grip on their new craft.
I am partially confused by the whole situation.
The top answer has thousands of upvotes, only works on static arrays, while the question is about arrays in C in general.
The meta discussion then goes on about an answer which provides the correct answer that it can’t be done in C which additionally provides a C++ answer.
While you could’ve explained why C can’t do it generally like the second most upvoted answer, it’s still not wrong. You could’ve done the second part with a minor struct like
The whole discussion feels like the whole reason I dislike stack overflow. Because people incorrectly answer questions which are accepted and then harp on the correct answer which does a minor perceived slight.
let me know if you feel less angry now!