It feels like a corollary of memetic assholery in online communities. Essentially the R0 [0] of being a dick.

If I have a community, bombarded by a random number of transient bad actors at random times, then if R0 > some threshold, my community inevitably trends to a cesspool, as each bad actor creates more negative members.

If I take steps to decrease R0, one of which may indeed be "blunt- and harshness to new contributors", then my community may survive in the face of equivalent pressures.

It's a valid point, and seems to have historical support via evidence of many egalitarian / welcoming communities collapsing due to the accumulation of bad faith participants.

The key distinction is probably "Are you being blunt / harsh in the service of the primary goal, or ancillary to the mission?"

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number

> It's a valid point, and seems to have historical support via evidence of many egalitarian / welcoming communities collapsing due to the accumulation of bad faith participants.

Could you provide references to some of this historical support?

Kinda a silly example, but several subreddits that started out with the aim of making fun of some subject (i.e. r/prequelmemes and the Star Wars prequels, or r/the_donald and then Presidential candidate Donald Trump) were quickly turned into communities earnestly supporting the initial subject of parody.

I think Reddit is the broadest example, because it's evidence of both outcomes due to the diversity in moderation policy between subs.

Some can tolerate a steady influx of bad actors: some fall apart. There's probably a valid paper in there somewhere.

I don't think this is silly at all. And the fact that reddit's admins occasionally have to step in with a forceful hand over what the mods do only speaks louder to GP's point.

I'm not sure why you think you have to be mean to avoid bad code. Being nice doesn't mean accepting any and all contributions. It just means not being a jerk or _overly_ harsh when rejecting.

You can create a strict, high functioning organization without being an asshole. Maintaining high standards and expecting excellence isn't an exercise in babysitting; it's an exercise in aligning contributors to those same standards and expectations.

You don't need to do that by telling them they're garbage. You can do it by getting them invested in growth and improvement.

that is depend on who you are asking. if i am taking "no nonsense" aproach then some people are having no problem. but other people, include especialy woman, are say that it is not "nice" and that there is some problem even if it is neither "mean".

also here we are seeing persons are having no interest in "growth and improvement", they are not even creating the good faith contributions to project.

> Like how stackoverflow is lost to rule zealots there for the game not for the purpose.

Like?

Honest questions getting downvoted, closed for being too broad, duplicates or just "Wrong" in the eyes of overzealous long time members

There's nothing wrong with duplicates

If they weren't doing it, then quality of SO would decrease for all of us.

It's in our interest to have strict mods on SO

You haven't seen a question closed as a duplicate when it was clear that time or details had made the linked question not an actual duplicate?

I think the idea is that it's better to err on the side of too-strict moderation than too-lax. People can always come back to re-try a question at another time, but, once the spirit of the community is lost, there's not much you can do about it.

(Not to say I like the StackExchange community much. It's far too top-down directed for me. But I'm very much sympathetic to the spirit of strict moderation.)

I agree with you. Its silly to act like the phenomenon doesn't exist though.

I’ve never seen it develop into a serious problem, just as I’ve never seen rule driven Wikipedia have problems with rule obsession.

There are all sorts of community websites around the world. Which have developed into a serious SO contendor? IMO many things are threatening SO’s relevance, but they don’t look anything like it, which suggests that what SO is doing wrong isn’t the small details.

For example, I’d argue that Discord has become the next place for beginners to get answers, but chat rooms are very different from SO. For one thing, the help is better because someone else can spend their brain power to massage your problem. And another is that knowledge dies almost instantly.

EDIT: I removed quoted portions and snippy replies.

Forgive me if I wasn't being clear. It seems like your core point is that SO's rules are on the whole good for keeping it focused, and it seems like you are assuming I'm a beginner programmer who is frustrated with SO for not being more beginner friendly and thus advising me on what I should do instead. I feel like you are shadow boxing a little.

I think we probably mostly agree; I think SO gets an unfortunate reputation as a good place for beginners (as opposed to a sort of curated wiki of asked and answered questions on a topic, a data store of wisdom), and that in general beginners are probably best served by smaller 1-1 intervention. I usually suggest people seek out a mentor, it had never occurred to me that Discord could be a good way to go about this.

The original point I was trying to make is simply that you can see overzealous rule following on SO and that a form of that is in inappropriately closed as duplicate questions.

Kind of like how the zero-tolerance of the HN community for joke-y / quick-take comments kills the fun sometimes—but also means that people (like me who came here from Reddit and discovered what wasn't welcome right quick) learn the culture, and get to remain part of the culture we signed up for rather than something that morphs over time to the lowest common denominator.