12
$\begingroup$

There are increasing numbers of questions that are "How do I do this" + picture.

The basic rules of [SE] are that questions should be focused, show some research and are basically non-forum type begs for help.

Something is seriously broken on [blender.SE] as the help vampires are quickly becoming the norm, they aren't being flagged or down-voted.

While I appreciate the need to be polite and good, the blatant lack of effort by those posing questions is becoming more than a little grinding.

It is getting to the point where folks aren't even watching / reading a tutorial before jumping onto the site to abuse the generosity of others.

This sort of thing used to be quickly stamped out on [SO] but seems to be rampant here. Does the community really condone this type of question?

$\endgroup$
13
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ It depends, if the question is useful for others and not just a "solve my very specific problem from start to finish" then I think it's ok for a new user to make that mistake. Remind the user in a comment about the rules, be stricter the next time this happens. Personally I'm glad that moderation isn't handles like on Stackoverflow, which I don't consider a good example in this regard, and our moderators apply common sense. Enforcing rules is ok, but it should still be a welcoming community. $\endgroup$ – Robert Gützkow♦ Nov 15 '19 at 12:00
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Thanks Robert, I do try to be gentle with the new folks, I understand that learning is daunting at first, but I will try to apply the same methodology as best I can. I am concerned though that the How to Ask and How to Answer pages are not clear on Stack Exchange policy and that they need to make more effore in asking a question. $\endgroup$ – Moog Nov 15 '19 at 12:48
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ If you've got suggestions to improve the linked pages, I'm sure we can discuss them as a separate meta post. $\endgroup$ – Robert Gützkow♦ Nov 16 '19 at 14:28
  • $\begingroup$ This right here is the beginning of site rot, and is actually very demanding and quite exhausting for the community. Unfortunately I know of no good solution to the problem, downvoting/harsh reactions are frowned upon as per the CoC, so ignoring such questions is all we can do. Luckily we have been getting a recent inflow of active users who have the positive energy to deal with it. $\endgroup$ – Duarte Farrajota Ramos♦ Nov 19 '19 at 23:49
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Would it be possible to get an option to filter questions from people that have 1 rep? 9 times out of 10 new members have very poor quality questions, that could be resolve in one simple google search, and if you take the time to answer them properly (which takes a lot longer than the time it took them to ask said question) they will not mark the topic as answered and you get no rep at all. I can totally see why this could become detrimental to new users that genuinely try to ask good questions but isn't that still better than having experimented users going burn out from all the spam? $\endgroup$ – Arthur Blaquart Nov 22 '19 at 15:40
  • $\begingroup$ @Leander I was asking if it was technically possible to the moderators. I guess my answer is more of an opinion (I'm not sure how the Meta forum works and what should be an answer actually) which is: I think something needs to be done, we can't just simply ignore the vast majority of questions as Duarte suggested. Reasoning behind this is that people like me who enjoy helping others and finding answer to tricky questions will end up leaving somewhere else. $\endgroup$ – Arthur Blaquart Nov 22 '19 at 16:56
  • $\begingroup$ Of course it's possible, you can just write a tampermonkey script which requests info from the api. $\endgroup$ – Leander Nov 22 '19 at 16:59
  • $\begingroup$ The thing is that a lot of the people on this forum are not able to down vote yet because of the lack of reputation also that many people don't know how this community works. $\endgroup$ – Yohello 1 Nov 22 '19 at 18:29
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ It isn't that it is something we condone, but more a case of all the active users who used to discourage it became tired of constantly trying to keep the site clean from the no-effort-leeches, and moved on. And now there is very little effort to try to keep the site clean. Hence why on the first page it is not uncommon for 30+ of the posts to be from new users, be very low quality, have no votes. Of course no one wants to help people begging for help, so they remain unanswered. $\endgroup$ – X-27 is done with the network Nov 24 '19 at 2:14
  • $\begingroup$ Why not make it so that you need at least 10 rep to be able to ask a question? This will force ultra beginners to go elsewhere for answers when they have extremely easy questions (any google search will yield them a result anyway) or try to help other first. $\endgroup$ – Arthur Blaquart Nov 25 '19 at 10:58
  • $\begingroup$ @DuarteFarrajotaRamos downvoting should be the solution for poorly researched questions, and perhaps a polite comment to push to user in the right direction (what have you tried? have you searched for a tutorial? can you edit to add a screenshot of your setup / upload your blend file?) This is the sort of thing I've been doing on GD.SE and it helps interested users to learn how to use the site. $\endgroup$ – Luciano Nov 28 '19 at 9:29
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ "a polite comment to push to user in the right" That would be the correct thing to do, but review queue stood at 30+ posts by new users last night. It is hard to find the time or energy. $\endgroup$ – Duarte Farrajota Ramos♦ Nov 28 '19 at 13:59
  • $\begingroup$ @RobertGutzkow It's not a welcoming community anymore, since this dead brain above me is in charge for spreading his stupidity. $\endgroup$ – lucutes Apr 30 '20 at 12:52

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .