by zahlman | 2025-05-18 04:26:44+00:00
> Damaging a contributor's reputation because they didn't initially conform to your standard is vandalism.

So, you tell me, vandalism is when you notice that someone's content doesn't meet standards, rate it accordingly using the system that was explicitly designed for that purpose, and it ends up incidentally (because of a system we don't get to change) "damaging the reputation" of its author... ?

By the way, the only thing those reputation points are good for is gatekeeping access to privileges that are supposed to be exercised by people who understand how the site is supposed to work, so that they can help keep the site working as intended.

So it's a little hard for me to get too bent out of shape about it. There are a ton of problems with the design (https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/387356), but this is not one of them.

> Why don't you make your suggestion for improvement

I, personally, often do. But people are not required to, by policy, in part because they get cursed at when they try. Because most of these questions not conforming to standards come from people who don't give a damn about what the site is or what it's trying to accomplish, and feel entitled to a personalized answer about whatever it is.

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/357436/

But also because there is a relatively small, specific set of things that can be wrong with a question (https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/417476/); when your question is closed, you are generally automatically told which applies (it comes from the system according to the close votes), and that's normally all the information you should need if you actually care about the site and have read the policy basics.

It's no wonder LLMs have taken off in this space. They provide that exact service, by design. Stack Overflow does not, by design.

> and let the poster bring the post into compliance?

Nobody has ever been prevented from doing this except for actual spammers and vandals. Even if your question is "deleted" you still have an interface to access it, edit it and nominate it for undeletion. When your question is merely closed, that is explicitly soliciting you to fix it.

> do you think that by damaging my reputation

Oh, the other thing is that your reputation starts at 1 and cannot go below 1. So this doesn't matter in the slightest for new users. (There are rate limits, intended to make you pay attention to the guidelines and read the explanations in the Help Center before trying to post again.)

> Maybe it's just a misplaced conviction that punishment is the best way to motivate the behavior you are seeking.

No, none of this is about punishment. Downvotes apply to the content, not to you.

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/366889 https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/121350

My community is not special. It has the same right to decide and enforce its standards that everywhere else on the Internet does. The fact that you see a shiny button labelled "Ask a Question" and a text input box does not change what those standards are. You are the one coming to a new space on the Internet; therefore, you are the one responsible for understanding the basics of what is expected in that space.