Absurd downvoting

Question

I posted a question after having thought about the concept for a week or so. I posted the relevant research I had done and the sample code I used for trying out the concept. The question was long and I still feel this is a site for long questions and proper analysis of concepts. Your site tour explains:

about what you have tried and exactly what you are trying to do.

I said I found a lot about this concept during a bug fix. I explained that I had written an article about this stuff on Codeproject. I also mentioned that I have no experience with other languages. All this was done within the rules defined by you. When you say include details, it means details - code, links etc., right? Is there a thing called brief details or concise details or short details?

Your site tour further explains:

Not all questions work well in our format. Avoid questions that are primarily opinion-based, or that are likely to generate discussion rather than answers

I asked two to-the-point questions:

1. Is there another name for the concept I have just described in common language?
2. Why compiler does not optimize obvious semantic inconsistencies?

I deleted my question, but the moderators can grab it back I know. These two questions are not STUPID. I was told by guys that they do not want to hear anything about what I did or where I posted my research etc. They do not want the gory details. What? The site asks me to post details. Who are these people who want short, concise details? Do they even understand what detail means?

Someone said that what i had for breakfast was irrelevant to them. Another guy mentioned that my code sample was ridiculous. All this within seconds of me posting my 1000 words question (including code). This surely means that they have not read the question.

I pointed them to the following link: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/254570/choosing-between-stack-overflow-and-programmers-stack-exchange

Who are these guys? What experience have they got? I can tell clearly that these guys have no experience of working in a team or mentoring. It will be really sad if they ever get employed because they surely will destroy the team they work with.

The only answer I received was not poisonous. It just said that the compiler writers have better things to do than to catch what would eventually be a runtime error. What? Really. What better things do you mean. Can you not give me examples where such runtime errors would be a disaster and compilers and tools employed for such an environment do such checking? What are the benefits of not doing such a checking etc. in normal environment?

What do you expect me to do? Post one line questions here? I could do that on StackOverflow. Had I posted something like:

How to use interfaces in C# to delegate a functionality?

I am sure I would have been voted up to seventh heaven. These answers are so readily available that the guy answering receives a lot of points with minimal effort. If they have to dig to get an answer, they go berserk.

One guy also said that you are getting a free code review done here, so better get aligned to the rules laid down by the members. NO. I was not getting my code reviewed. I was trying to discuss something that troubles all beginners. Even if I was, I need not stoop and beg.

This attitude is poisonous and needs to be corrected. These guys need serious enlightenment. Real world is different from classrooms. Learn how to behave.

I do not intend to be a part of this community. Please delete my account.

Answer 1

I haven't interacted at all with that question (down votes or the too broad close vote).

My impressions of it are:

1. Some meta stuff at the top. This normally sets off a warning flag for me. Things like "I know this isn't the right place" and the like tend to be questions that are otherwise problematic on the site. Your particular meta comment was:

   Folks, there is no TL;DR version of my question. Please be patient.

   Even if this isn't a post that is problematic, it sets one's mind to expect that.

2. A quick scroll down and I hit four code blocks, two of which have scroll bars on them. This is something that then starts to look like one that is going to delve too far into code or fix my code/design type questions.

   Many of the questions that tend to be "here is a lot of code" tend to get answers that are "here is a lot of code too." Those answers aren't ideal for P.SE, and so questions that ask them may get down voted.

3. Where is the question? After digging down a bit, they are between two code blocks. The questions appear to be:

   1. Is there another name for this pattern?
   2. Is this really an Adapter?
   3. So, does the compiler have no mechanism to check such semantic inconsistencies?
   4. Something that looks like a design review.

   Asking multiple questions in a single post is problematic. Someone could answer the "another name" question, and another answer the adapter one, and a third about the compiler. None (or all) of them are 'right' for the question.

   While I may just be missing it... but I seem to have some difficulty matching the "abstract stuff in C#" in the question title to the questions being asked.

4. There's a naming question there. Naming questions have a problematic history on P.SE - a bit more about that at On the troubles of naming and terminology

There is a lot there. But I also have to read quite a bit to even find the question being asked and then go back and reread it. And after that, I'm still confused about what question you are asking and what type of answer you are looking for.

The mouseover for the the down vote reads "this question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful" and that 'it is unclear' part may be something that people are voting on when reading the question.

---

Some other bits that are in there from comments here and there...

_{@Doval, the site asks me to provide details and share my research. I did that. It is ridiculous that you guys vote down questions if they do not fit your mental models. Your lack of experience in working in teams and mentoring clearly shines through your comments. Gaining points on a forum is a completely different matter. Having the maturity to answer properly and with humility is a different matter altogether. – msiyer yesterday}

_{@ Alex, I never mentioned anything about my breakfast. Oh! you were being sarcastic? Reserve your sarcasm for some other day. I would have asked small questions on StackOverflow. This is a site for detailed analysis. What does detailed mean? Please go and read the link I posted in my last comment. Guys, learn to respect others. The internet does not give you license to be rude. Just because you do not understand something does not mean there are not others who can provide some answers. This site provides me the license to showcase my research. Does that make any sense to you? – msiyer yesterday}

This is a bit rude in its wording. Not enough that I'd go about flagging it... but it sets a negative tone and some people may vote accordingly. If you are to point out that other people are being rude too (again, judgement call there) this is a question that you asked and people are voting on that (they may also be flagging comments, but that's not as obvious).

_{@Graham, Your comment is a good one and gentle too. I am not looking for a free code review. I just want to discuss if what i understood is proper. The attention span of these guys is just pathetic. They need questions that are couple of lines long so that they can answer fast and get points. This site is for detailed analysis as per FAQ. It also asks me to show my research. If I have to be concise I will post on StackOverflow. Why is this so difficult to comprehend? – msiyer yesterday}

Setting aside the tone in this comment: "I just want to discuss if what i understood is proper" - discussions don't work well on Stack Exchange.

I will point out that you brought this up again in the meta question here:

_{One guy also said that you are getting a free code review done here, so better get aligned to the rules laid down by the members. NO. I was not getting my code reviewed. I was trying to discuss something that troubles all beginners. Even if I was, I need not stoop and beg.}

and

_{@Bart, you answered properly. But when you say "compiler writers have better things to do", it kind of kills discussion. But we surely discussed on Design patterns. I sincerely feel that the questions were not bad. May not be a world class problem but nothing silly about it. These are issues I have seen all beginners deal with. i hoped a discussion would help others to learn. – msiyer 6 hours ago}

Again, Stack Exchange is not a site for discussions. There are other avenues and sites to look at if you are interested in a discussion. Stack Exchange is designed to handle Q&A - not discussions. It does the former very well and the latter very poorly.

Answer 2

Just looking at the code you didn't need to put in the implementation of the Logger class (you did it twice), just a call to Logger.log(stuffToLog) would have been clear enough.

Asking for the name of things is an edge case on P.SE but in general disallowed.

Also the answerer was correct; you can catch the run-time error simply by a null check when calling TheDelegate.Inst.TheHook then it doesn't matter that TheDelegate is never implemented because all references to a TheDelegate instance will be null.

Also your pattern prefers a global over a field to hold variable state, this gives way to a whole host of problems starting from thread safety, to unexpected influence from another library that installs its own TheDelegate.