Stack Exchange

Can't even contribute to an answer or upvote someone's answer that made your day. *sarcastic voice* "Sign up! Oh sorry you need reputation to tell everyone else that this answer worked and that you appreciate it...". Ridiculous.

Years ago, Stack Exchange was a decently good place to seek help for your problems, with so many different sites for different topics. These days, however, the site has no interest in helping anybody. Good, well-written questions constantly get closed without reason or for reasons that don't actually apply on the whims of fickle moderators. Getting questions re-opened or migrated is practically impossible and because it goes against the Stack Exchange rules you can't simply ask your question again at a different Stack Exchange site where it may be a "better fit" so you're completely out of luck.
Just about any other website is more helpful than Stack Exchange.

The people that run these websites act like losers instead of professionals. Do not bother wasting your time asking them a question. They'll just be losers. Listen to the negative reviews here. Go use something like Wyzant instead.

I first used Stack exchange some ten years ago. It wasn't perfect then, but it was far better than what it became later: a cesspool of egotism and petty people wanting to express their insignificant sense of pointless authority.
Anyone reading this who wants to improve it? First of all, disallow negative scores. 0 serves the purpose of showing minimal effort or low quality, yet doesn't have the aggressive, amassing effect of -3 (or -4, or -5). Secondly, stop pretending everything is quantifiable. It isn't.

I have used stack overflow many times for programming questions and am always able to get the help I need. I used stack exchange for a biology question and was met with rude and arrogant moderators. This should be a site where people can feel comfortable asking questions without being attacked. I will only be using stack overflow for programming questions from now on.

I was trying to ask a question but it was stopped as it apparently was not clear, so I edited to make it as clear as possible but apparently that was not good enough. I contacted customer support and just got sent a generic email with a link to a post that was not helpful in any, way, shape or form. Would not recommend asking questions on this website unless you're willing to keep editing the question until someone can actually answer it

Found this site while looking for an answer to a Facebook posting issue I have. A poster has the same question, freshly posted. The only answer given was unhelpful to me as stated, so I asked to detail his answer so I might replicate. I was given a negative and then my post was deleted. I tried again, only given a negative, again.

They have posting guidelines, to not be mean, rude, to be courteous,... like everyone, but allowing someone to negative score a question honestly probing for a detailed answer is an unhelpful site (and is rude BTW). Within a week I deleted my account there,... better quality sites are everywhere.

If you want a curious exchange of ideas, go somewhere else.
If you want some arrogant hostile people to bash you for daring to ask, then go ahead and try it out.
There is particular hostility for any question the deem "un focused", however their idea of "focused" means they'll only answer "questions" where you already have the solution, the code, and just some minor typo. God forbid if you're in the solution-seeking stage ("I'm trying to chose between Kafka and RabbitMQ given this architecture and these network requirements").

I wouldn't mind the existence of this useless site, but its Google promotion is monopolising and makes it hard for developers to reach actual real discussion communities.

Not a good place for novices as the best answers are often downvoted whilst the worst rise to the top. If you have no knowledge of the subject you are asking about you will not notice this and end up being misinformed. However, if you are already familiar with a subject and just want further specific details, it can be useful as there are some good, knowledgeable contributors. Put bluntly, there are too many geeky sci-fi fans posting on hard science and engineering subjects they have zero experience of, who get angry when corrected on their ignorance and downvote their superiors. Poor moderation allows this behaviour to prosper.

Usually, I ask questions and get the information I want on two platforms. One is Quora, the other one is Stack Exchange. Stack Exchange is a forum where people from different fields can discuss, communicate, and help each other in classified communities. Due to a large user base, there are insanely amount of information. You almost can find any info you need on the exact problem there. Besides, you can expect a quick response to your question. Personally, I think two best communities of Stack Exchange is "Stack Overflow", centering lots of web programming questions and English Language & Usage, gathering questions primarily about idioms and grammars.

In order to comment or answer anywhere we need what they call 'reputations'. I feel it subdues our freedom of speech as we can't ask important questions.

I asked a pretty straightforward question & got some responses pretty quick with guys trying to help, but then some a hole user Barmar deleted my question because they say it had already been asked & answered, but it wasn't, I read for days thru the posts they referred to & not even close to what I asked, the sad thing is once I figured out the problem with my PHP code, I realized one of the users who was in the process of helping me when barmar ended it, would have solved my issue likely in the next comment, based on my answer to the last question he asked me.

Then to make matter worse, they locked my account from asking future questions, how is this going to help young programmers?

All you power tripping a holes need to get out of mama's basement & deal with men face to face now & again to re-humanize the community & yourselves too.
Acting like an a hole online has given you a false sense of power & control ur fat asses don't really possess.

To quote iron Mike people have forgotten what it's like to be pushed in the face for acting a fool.

You will be argued with till the cows come home. There are so-called experts who dominate and babble away, with you kept at the bottom of the pile. There are plenty who come along and say."this is not the right category for your question, go somewhere else". Somewhere else will be very similar to where you are ie. Pickiness. There are also very nasty unhelpful commenters who will resist another opinion with even if you get the facts and show them. The concept is interesting but its confusing to have to open a new profile for each subject site. I have had in the past, a few worthwhile answers and points for my questions on Interpersonal Skills and Writing, but the overall experience is that you will seldom be rewarded for your efforts or create any meaningful dialogue with anyone. Also there are too many questions on Interpersonal Skills and related categories of the type " how can I avoid being jealous of my boyfriends' mother? How can I stop my boyfriend from looking at other girls? And. How can I get my girlfriend to look only at me" ie. Limited in depth.

Asked a question about xpath, which is a beginner question I guess. Immediately got multiple downvotes. Received no answers. Avoid this site, its not worth it.

They actively discriminate against people with disabilities, declaring people to be AI machines.
Moderators are abusive with their authority and there is no mechanism for recourse.

Account privileges are restricted to your "reputation points " which are controlled by the Moderator team who then restrict access to your account and put penalties on the account that can only be removed by way of doing tasks that they have turned off on your account.

They have features to resolve conflicts, but put them behind privileges measured by prestige.

Honestly it comes across as gatekeeping and abuse. This is most apparent in the Academia exchange which reflects the egoististical elitist attitude seen throughout academics.

They are so afraid of criticism that they engage in discrimination against anyone who is not considered human beings by their standards.

And then they expect that you are the problem and are dehumanized in the process.

Furthermore, they refuse to acknowledge that they are engaging in discrimination. And demand that you not point out their inappropriate behavior so that they don't have to be held accountable.

This community is the worst network on the web, each network is seperate and this is soo abusif at the point you feel a newuser each time,
You have an issue and found an another have the same issue and want to add detail in a comment it's not possible need an amount of reputation on this specific group WTF, you can only add a reply, if do in this way it was removed be some staff
Also if a group of people think this is no a good question they attack the question and vote down for it and if reach too much down, the question is removed
This website was in violation of the human right at the onu