I just read a StackExchange discussion titled, "Are TED presentations academically credible?"
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26277/are-ted-presentations-academically-credible<p>The top comment reads as follows: "It's not clear to me how this is relevant to academia..."<p>Ugh!<p>Based on everything I've read (from people the who manage StackExchange) they consider pedantry to be a feature of their community rather than a bug.<p>Yet, every time I read a page on the StackExchange network I have to sift through comments questioning the appropriateness of the question. What's more, questions are routinely "closed" for being "off topic" despite high page views and numerous answers.<p>Why do people put up with this--seriously? I no longer intentionally visit their network because its such a miserable and frustrating experience.<p>EDIT: A typo.
What's the problem? The question isn't closed, and has an accepted answer. Both the question and that answer are ridiculously upvoted. About those "ugh" comments: they are also quite upvoted: people agree with them. The question is not blatantly off topic, but it is squarely not on topic either. Plus it has another problem, namely that it appears to be a solicitation for opinions about a generalization about TED presentations. (You would think that the credibility of a presentation of any kind rests in its particular content, and not in its association with other presentations by name, or sponsorship or whatever.)<p>About SE: the various stackexchange sites have different "flavors". I like the EE one (electronics.stackexchange.com). It has a small core of regulars with decent personalities.
It is frustrating that people will very quickly leap in with "this question is off topic and needs to be closed", but very slow to actually edit the question to make it fit.<p>IMO that question is valid for that site, but is lousily worded. A quick bit of editing could have avoided all that meta stuff.<p>If you're ever in that kind of situation just remember that META IS DEATH; and that TROLLS EXIST. This might be an example of Troll by result, and not troll by intent. Ignore, as much as possible, the people who make comments like that because they are not going to be any help to you ever.<p>You should have a read of the Meatball wiki about trolls.<p>Another tactic, which is time consuming and ultimately unfun, is to treat them as they treat others and use their own tools against them. Flag their comments as off topic; provide useful counter arguments; stalk their posts and counter the posts at every opportunity; upvote / downvote appropriately. (If this is serious you may want to consider buying votes from MTurk.)
It wasn't bad in the beginning.<p>There are a lot of interesting threads with a lot of interesting and often fun posts that would be killed immediately if they were made today. For example:
<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-comment-in-source-code-you-have-ever-encountered" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-c...</a><p>Even that was closed down. Essentially they wanted a great site, and did that, but then the pendulum swung too far the other direction and now I find the place groan worthy
I think people put up with this because StackOverflow is considered a technical Rank Badge. The higher the score, the more opportunity and respect you receive.<p>I agree that pedantry is a big problem but it also occurs on HN. Rather than closing topics they should redirect those "off-topic" questions and answers to a new forum.<p>Or... someone should create SLACKoverflow for these off-topic Q/A's. I am sure it would be helpful and receive lots of page views to boot.
Do users earn reputation for voting to close off-topic questions? Maybe they have poorly incentivized their users to close questions rather than answer them.<p>Why do people put up with this? Because there's not a better option. Want to make one?