willsullivan / idownvotedbecause

I downvoted because...

idownvotedbecau.se

Let others know why you downvoted, why it was worth a downvote, and what improvements can be made.

Each page addresses a single reason why someone would downvote a post. It includes a description of what was wrong, why it is a problem, and why the community in general thinks it is worth a downvote.

The reader is also given ways to fix the problem, and is encouraged to do so. The reader is also encouraged to let the person who left the link know afterwards so they can retract their downvote.

If you would like to add a page, please do so! You can open an issue to suggest a topic, or add one yourself and send a pull request.

There's a template for new pages, and CONTRIBUTING.md contains information about how pages should be written.

This website is for your benefit, and the benefit of all others in your reputation-based community.

idownvotedbecause's Issues

Consider using Cloudflare for SSL

Github Pages doesn't allow SSL for custom domains, but this article should get you started: https://blog.cloudflare.com/secure-and-fast-github-pages-with-cloudflare/

TL;DR:

• Use Cloudflare DNS servers for your TLD provider
• Add A records pointing towards github IP's
• Enable Full SSL (but not strict)
• Create three page rules: www/https direction and cache (optional)
• Enable HSTS (optional, but recommended)

Oh and it's free.

Homework assignment

You should do your homework alone.

Meta questions

Good example of a need https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/358796/if-a-user-post-for-first-time-and-not-have-reputation-dont-permit-down-vote need to read his reactions to being "attacked" by downvotes and see what can address. Primary would be "downvotes indicate disagreement" (note-look up essential posts on the subject), might be a few more (e.g., rants?)

https

https://blog.github.com/2018-05-01-github-pages-custom-domains-https/

Another reason why images instead of text is bad

Image of and exception and Images of code should include as a reason why this is bad the fact that if a person with visual impairment is using a screen reader to read the question, he will be unable to get the screen reader to read the image.

Typo

Often times new developers do not how to debug their code

should be

Often times new developers do not know how to debug their code

No evidence of research

I'd like to see a reason for a lack of research (or evidence thereof). It could expound on the various ways to show research without writing a novel, perhaps something about rubberducking as a form of research, etc.. I might have time later to fill this out, but thought I'd get the idea down in case someone else wants to take a stab.

Clean up drafts

I did a quick clean up on the SO drafts

Opinions?

I was to lazy to do it as a fork and did it right in master. I figured that was ok since they arent live anyway.

Page responsiveness for mobile

The page doesn't really work well on small devices. Fonts need to scale better, images shouldn't blow out the width of the page, and left/right margins should collapse to nothing on smaller devices.

[New Page] You did nothing

I need a new page. offending question in this case the user did not do any research or make any attempt. I end up doing

 http://idownvotedbecau.se/noattempt/ + http://idownvotedbecau.se/noresearch/

or

http://idownvotedbecau.se/noattempt/ ||  http://idownvotedbecau.se/noresearch/

I think we need a page that combines the two. Something along the lines of your question does not appear to contain any effort.

How do we write this without outright saying to people I cba to answer your question because you cba to try.

Code Leech

I was thinking about doing a PR for "Code Leeches" or people who copy code verbatim from other SO posts/websites/etc and then ask us to debug it when it doesn't work in their app or website. These are often people who are not programmers at all and are taking advantage of SO users to write and fix code for them rather than hiring a developer. These people are clearly not interested in learning.

Here's one example. I see others on an almost daily basis.

I'm posting an issue instead of a PR because the contributing file directs that only reversible reasons should be added, however, you've got an issue marked "help wanted" for adding a reason for off-topic questions, which also violates that rule.

(I personally don't see the point of that rule. If their only option is to delete their post then they don't deserve to know why that's their only option?)

If you think it's worth adding feel free to assign to me.

Downvote reason for "code-only" answer

As mentionned in issue #31 , a downvote reason for answers that contain only code should be created.
This downvote reason can be based on current Stackoverflow page How do I write a good answer ?.

Clunky sentence in MCVE

The sentence:

If lacking the code that exhibits the issue...

in the paragraph of Why this is a problem is a bit clunky to me. Could do with being slightly re-worded to be a bit clearer. i.e.

If you post code and that code is lacking the section of code that actually exhibits the issue....

So full paragraph:

Without code, users will have to guess what might be wrong with a person’s code. With too much code, the problem may be lost like the proverbial needle in the haystack. If you post code and that code is lacking the section of code that actually exhibits the issue, then what is included is practically worthless. And, if the code is full of compile errors or artificial bugs caused by translation to the question, these may hide the actual problem.

The "it's not working" is to focused on code

"it's not working" is to focused on code. I think it should be rewritten to be more general. I realized that now, when I answered someone who was trying to compile working code. I think I'll try to make a suggestion later, but I wanted to point this out. Not all programming problems is directly related to the code.

Downvote reason for link-only answer

As mentionned in issue #31 , a downvote reason for answers that contain only link(s) should be created.
This downvote reason can be based on current Stackoverflow page How do I write a good answer ?.

Repeated words in paragraph

how to change contiperf generated report location?

I'm using contiperf with mvn test and a report of name

index.html

is generated in the following folder

/target/contiperf-report

my question is that can i change the location of where this report is generated?

Thank you in advance.

Too much code vs too much info

I am wondering if this could be reworded to also include wall of text type question as seen below.

Wall of text example

Bad title

Title of question should give a meaningful summary of the problem

Example of bad title

• Title that is simply meaningless (e.g. Java problem; Why the code fail)
• Title that is irrelevant to the actual problem
• Title that just describe the assignment or task, instead of the problem
  • e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45134675/sentence-builder-java
  • e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42499245/creating-a-guessing-game-in-c
• Title that requires special contextual knowledge of author (e.g. mentioning special jargons which is not meaningful for general public)

how can we get value from text area in wysiHtml jquery spellchecker?

Not quite ready

This reason relies on people who post questions being instructed to wait for a few minutes after posting their question, since stuff happens quite fast on StackOverflow. However, this hasn't happened yet.

Downvote reason for question being off-topic

some people just think stackoverflow is like a forum. A page explaining what a relevant question is could be great

There also already is a closure reason named like that.

Full exception info may be excessive

With some languages, environments, and examples, exceptions can get very long. They may get too long to fit in an SO question (dozens or hundreds of pages), but even if they fit, they may be too big for anyone to want to look at. I think the page on missing exception info should provide some tips for dealing with this situation.

Rewrite to avoid all use of pronouns

Rewrite the guidelines on tone and rewrite all current pages to avoid the use of pronouns, be they first person singular/plural, second person or third person.

Skin

Ugly website is ugly

Site formatting is broken?

Something happened to all the formatting on the site.

Being unresponsive {::comment}
[People who read questions often leave comments seeking clarification. Without responding to these clarification requests, it is less likely that the question will be answered and you may get downvoted.](http://idownvotedbecau.se/beingunresponsive)
{:/}

Screenshot

HomePage empty with no information

First off wonderful resource. Only issue that I had was that http://idownvotedbecau.se/ only has a banner (which links back to itself) while http://idownvotedbecau.se/index has all the needed information about the website. To anyone not too familiar websites it may be confusing for them to navigate and access all the pages/resources on the site as the first page linked by google is http://idownvotedbecau.se/ and not the index/help page

missing word in sentence (noattempt)

The following sentence is missing a word:

"If we have made an effort, but we failed to detail exactly what we did in our question can result in duplicated effort on the part of those trying to help us."

Suggested fix:

"If we have made an effort, but we failed to detail exactly what we did in our question, that can result in duplicated effort on the part of those trying to help us."

Downvote reason for an answer ?

Hello there,

I'm wondering if we could create one reason (or more) reason for downvoting answers.
We have great reasons for downvoting a question on SO but nothing for downvoting an answer.
I think this could really help people improve their answer too.
This reason could be based on current How do I write a good answer ? on SO.

PS : This site is a really good idea :)

Regards.

Wrong language

I was doin' the triage queue, no sweat, when I came across a question written in Portugese.

I wanted to downvote and link to a relevant idownvotedbecau.se page for "wrong language", but, well, there isn't one.

Hence, this issue.

This page might need a little extra doing, which is why I don't just make a PR: There should be different versions for each language. e.g., idownvotedbecau.se/wronglanguage/?lang=fr should serve up the page, in french.

Downvote reason for answer to a blatantly off-topic question

As mentionned in issue #31 , a downvote reason for answers to a blatantly off-topic question should be created.
This downvote reason can be based on current Stackoverflow page How do I write a good answer ?.

Could we have a page for the "XY Problem"?

For those that don't know what the XY problem is outlined here.

Downvote Anwsers

I am wondering if we could also add some pages for answers that get downvoted like the following

Link only or this guy works there who knows.

links to issue 34

"Don't add code to comments" redundancy

There are three pages that mention not adding code to comments:

• http://idownvotedbecau.se/nodebugging/

• http://idownvotedbecau.se/nocode/

• http://idownvotedbecau.se/imageofanexception/

I think it breaks the flow and is a little redundant. However, the paragraphs all contain useful information so maybe they can be factored out into a separate page or admonition. Something like:

When requested to add code or stack traces to your question, please do not paste them in the comments. Instead, use the Edit link found below your question. Comments are meant to be brief and cannot format code as neatly.

Please DO copy/paste code.

The text for the Stack Overflow "No Code" page contains "The code should not be directly copy/pasted from your editor or IDE!"

I understand that the intent here is to discourage either pasting too much code or pasting just one function entirely out of context. But I think it could be misinterpreted to encourage the behavior we also frequently see of just typing something the user thinks explains their issue directly into the answer box. This can introduce additional bugs or errors that keep the program from actually getting to the question behavior, and/or just distract from the actual question. Worse, it increases the odds that something is posted that doesn't actually have the described behavior at all.

A good question will contain exact code which the asker has actually tried out and checked it shows the behavior they want to ask about, so copy/paste is a good idea after that step. For many of us, it would make more sense when writing a MCVE to just create a file and compile it from the command line. But for an asker who is much more comfortable with an IDE than the command line, it's appropriate to create a temporary project to write the MCVE, compile from there, and copy/paste from there.

Image Of code

I downvoted because an image of your code is not helpful

Could possibly use an example. Showing say screenshot of code, and well formatted example of code.

Also might not be a bad idea to have this refer to links of images hosted on other sites like image shack with just links to them. Something like please include your pictures rather than linking to your pictures. However this may actually be a separate problem.

I am happy to take some ugly pictures from Visual studio and add a pull request if you like.

the how to debug should describe gdb for c & c++ on linux

Is it possible to add routes to allow for capitalized names.

Having additional routes to the existing pages so that http://idownvotedbecau.se/nocode/ and http://idownvotedbecau.se/NoCode/ both worked would be nice to have.

Question regarding first-person perspective

Looking at this page, I notice you tried out a first-person perspective. Is this something you're interested in continuing to do?

If so, I think this page could be improved by referring to the protagonist in the singular rather than in the plural, to avoid sentences like this, which imply a single question is owned by multiple people:

There are people trying to help us with our question, but after asking it, we haven't responded to requests for clarification.

I suggest this be reworded this way:

There are people trying to help me with my question, but after asking it, I haven't responded to requests for clarification.

@WillSullivan Are you open to a pull request that would make this change?

Easy copy-paste dashboard for commenting

Hi, I like the concept, but in it's current state, there's quite some effort one needs to do in order to comment in a nice way instead of just leaving a link. Perhaps each item in the list on the landing page can have a copy button next to it that copies to the clipboard, a formatted comment for an easy paste.

Sample comment (output) -

I downvoted because no attempt was made

Sample comment (actual content copied to clipboard) -

[I downvoted because no attempt was made](http://idownvotedbecau.se/noattempt/)

Add an alternative domain

I really like this page a lot, but I often use it without downvoting. And when the poster is not a lazy bastard, but obviously has put some effort into creating a good post I think that the domain idownvotedbecau.se is a bit harsh. I suggest adding another domain. Maybe commonforummistak.es

Migrate all pages over

Currently only the first page was migrated. Move them all over.

404 on the homepage

The URL to http://idownvotedbecau.se/toomuchinfo/ throws a 404.

Too much code page is a bit passive agressive and contains pronouns

Some of the wording in http://idownvotedbecau.se/toomuchcode/:

It also shows that not much effort was put into creating your question. People are volunteering their time, free of charge, to help you. You need to be considerate of their efforts. One of the easiest, and most helpful, ways to do this is to pare down your code to the minimum needed to illustrate your problem.

Is a but preachy and passive aggressive. It also contains the pronouns "your" and "you" . If you compare it to similar sentences on no attempt:

It can be seen as very rude to ask other people to do our work for us. People will look and see if we made any effort at all, and if they see none, they may look upon us as lazy, and act negatively toward us, downvoting our question and voting to close. Without making an attempt, we may not even know where our real problem lies. People may spend time answering our question, suggesting things that we would have already been able to accomplish, and not things that we truly would have needed help with. This wastes the time of those volunteering to help us, and doesn’t solve our problem at all.

This is a bit more passive (without the aggressive!). I'd suggest changing the wording in this area to be more in line with the other more passive, less aggressive pages?

Fix spelling of "Xcode"

This may seem trivial but it really grinds my gears - the correct spelling is Xcode.

Translation of pages to Spanish in Spanish StackOverflow

Hi Will,

we at Spanish StackOverflow recently found your website and found it great! We think it could be useful to explain new users about how the site works, so we started translating it into a meta question here. Our idea is being able to link to the different answers in the comments.

We've seen that the license seems to allow what we've done, but we just wanted to let you know so we could be sure that you're ok with it.

If you need any clarification (or translation), just ask :)

Add a page for "Unclear what you're asking"

The most common reason I flag something is because it is unclear what the OP is actually asking, so it would be helpful to have "unclear what you're asking" as an option on idownvotedbecause. Or should such questions always be flagged and closed as soon as possible without feedback for the user?

noattempt should possibly link to noresearch

I find my self commenting with something along these lines.

idownvotedbecau.se/noattempt && idownvotedbecau.se/noresearch

see the poster made no attempt to use the code from within the duplicate and didn't bother to research what he was trying to do.

I am wondering if maybe there should be a comment in no attempt about doing research?

Add a page that lists all reasons

Use the ability to assign categories to dynamically build a list of all current reasons

Delete draft Off topic answer

I would like to suggest that we delete the draft Off topic answer

I cant exactly understand the purpose of it.

1. If the answer itself is off topic and has nothing to do with the question asked?
   a. Answer should be flagged and deleted not just down voted and theirs probably nothing they can do to fix it. So what is the point of us having a page for it?
   b. IMO these pages should be used to help users fix there issues not just slap them on the wrist.
2. Someone answered an off topic question.
   a. Well if you want to spend your time answering an off topic question that will probably be close then all power to you.
   b. It may just be the right answer and there for i wouldn't down vote you for your efforts.

So do we need this page?