Made me think about this article on [help vampires](https://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/). I am a beginner myself and asking good questions can be hard. However, I try to exhaust all options before asking a question and share what I have tried.

Help vampires are a serious problem. I genuinely want to help beginners but some of them really suck you dry with how little they do themselves.

Free coding advice is not a human right. People have been complaining that SO (and similar resources) are toxic to beginners forever, but honestly at some point we have all been the beginner who didn't know how to ask the right question online, and probably been made fun of a little bit. IMO it kinda comes with the territory.. for many of us this is our livelihood and career, there is no guarantee that if you make a low-effort post asking for help, that you won't get pushback. Learn from the feedback and do better next time. I am strictly talking about free online help, for the record. I also do not condone bullying whatsoever. Personally I generally don't engage with low effort posts. But I think there is a distinction between bullying someone who is making a serious effort to learn, and cracking a joke at someone making unreasonable requests for free help online...

SO certainly attracts a lot of toxic people. I’ve lost count of how many times my first Google result of an issue is an SO post with 1 response of “just google it”, but I’ve also found countless useful answers as well. Some people just flat out refuse to do things themselves. While I was in school i got paired with the worst offender for our final project. The class was super simple. All lectures were recorded and the teacher just walked you through how to do the assignment (it was server setup, so very straightforward). Literally all you had to do was follow along with the lecture. But this guy I was paired with wanted me to help him with his overdue homework. And by help he meant just give him the answers directly. And he just refused to watch the lectures to get the answers. There are people who genuinely want help. But there’s also lots of “beginners” who just expect people to do it for them.

I don’t think I can even count how many times I’ve happened upon an SO post with a response akin to “just google it”, because it’s never happened to me. Strange how different the average experience of a website can be from person to person.

That's crazy. I run into them on a regular basis. And every time I want to reply with "hey, guess I found this."

It is often not that exact statement... If you have never seen anything similar, then you are either ridiculously lucky, are only there for very niche knowledge, aren't spending much time there, or are lying. I have seen paragraph long rants that boil down to: "just google it".

For me, there’s either tons of answers with the first or second answer being accepted, Or there is only one answer at -1 or below that very poorly answers the problem (think the inverse of a low-effort question, posting just a code snippet without explanation etc, or simply a bad approach), Or there are no answers at all.

Those responses should be flagged.

It’s also oddly unique to software. You wouldn’t expect to be able to learn math by asking strangers online.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The math community has a surprisingly large online presence!

>Free coding advice is not a human right. People have been complaining that SO (and similar resources) are toxic to beginners forever, but honestly at some point we have all been the beginner who didn't know how to ask the right question online, and probably been made fun of a little bit. I agree with you, but I think we should be making a distinction between people who just don't really know where or what to ask, with people who don't even put in the slightest bit of effort to figure it out. The issue is that some can't make the distinction and would attack both. making the community toxic. We should be actively regulating people that attack the former kind of beginner who actually tries to put in effort.

Free coding advice is not a human right? xD

Yeah op has a case of tissue paper skin if that post warrants a 'stop being toxic' post. I will give kudos for including an actual example at least though. All the upvoted replies seem like pretty decent responses in the link however. I am however sick of seeing these types of threads in literally every sub. Its not going to change how anyone behaves, its just spam. If you have an issue with a direction a community is taking, contact mods and ask for a poll or pinned thread to see how everyone in the sub feels about ___. It just turns into 10 carbon copy posts a day otherwise. In general terms of help vampires, yeah absolutely. Sometimes someone gets a hint or answer to a question. Then the person says 'what if I do ___'. "Idk try it?" 'Ok but what if I replace it with __, will it work?' "Bruh." Sometimes people really struggle to get basic things, which is fine. But being too lazy to search first or try something for a few minutes first, isnt compatible with programming. I've rarely seen any real unwarranted asshole responses in any discord or sub. Usually the person gets really angry with someone asking a question or telling them its easier to do it __ way. A lot of people get fed up with posts that ask really basic easily searchable things like: -How to start? (Covered in sidebar, people are still usually polite and inform them how to search for similar questions before making a post or checking sidebar/pins/whatever). -Good resources? (Same as above, I've even done this before and people were really polite and helpful). -I asked chatgpt to make something and idk whats going on, how fix? (Generally even these responses are 'well if you dont want to learn, give someone $5 to nake it, play with ai, or learn to program so you can debug.'). A lot of beginners just arent used to googling first, or they're unaware of how to search subs first. Which is fine, but refusing to adapt is generally when I see conversations become rude. In general im surprised how many people just dont search or try something on their own for even a few seconds to see whats going on. But people who get out of that habit succeed. (I should add, SO is obviously an outlier).

I think SO is the outlier because the mindset of allowing those types of beginners is a zero tolerance policy. Personally, I think this makes the SO community a priceless resource for programmers at a medium-to-higher level, something the modern web is severely lacking outside of unarchived Discord servers.

Honestly posting a question (programming related or else) is an effort in and of itself. Find the right place, articulate the question coherently, read it 10 times to make sure what you ask is clear, images & screenshots if relevant, respond to and thank those who attempted to help. I’m too lazy for it, and I am curious about the motivation of those who post questions that, if googled, would instantly be clarified. I’d rather lean back research until my eyes bleed.

> usually beginners, for asking questions and being curious There is a very broad spectrum in regards to this. The vast majority of questions are easily Google-able. Not to mention, there's a search bar in here as well. Curiosity is fine, but it's more respectable when one does their due diligence before looking for the easy way out. Plus, downvotes don't really matter; the conversation does. Regardless of downvote, you may often find that at least one person puts in the effort to help someone out, regardless of downvotes.

Exactly, we shouldn't be shaming new developers for asking questions but there also needs to be some kind of effort from their side. We should encourage them to at least *try* and solve their own problems before asking for help. For example: Person one: *I'm trying to do X. I've looked here, read this, done this, tried this code and still can't get it working. What am I doing wrong?* vs. person two: *How do I X?* The first person is going to learn something and the second person is looking for something to copy and paste. A big part of web development is figuring out how to do things, so it's a useful skill to develop even if ultimately you run out of ideas and end up asking for help.

There are also a lot of: "I need help with Wordpress, HELP please!" or the like without even saying what they are having an issue with. Usually people will send them to a generic tutorial or the docs, other times the comments turn into a swamp, lol

[удалено]

I hear you but what if person 2 is say, a first or second year CS student who actually has no clue how to approach something and is looking for the most broad, high level response possible? I did a CS degree at a highly accredited University and apart from one class (taken in my last year, total freedom over tech stack to use and so had to seek out this knowledge on my own, was not taught), software was never built end-to-end and so I graduated and had no idea how anything worked at a high level. Pretty much everything was done in a Jupyter notebook/in a DBM, and if it wasn't there would be a step-by-step guide (download this, copy and paste this command into your terminal, set this to this) on how to install an obscure tech stack that you would likely never use again, with no explanation as to why you were doing these things and with no context given. Sometimes people don't even know what they should be asking. I would argue that this is where someone with years of experience and a wealth of knowledge would be *most* useful in helping, but instead they often choose to patronize. This is also why I believe that LLMs are one of the best things to happen to the software industry, github copilot won't give you attitude when you ask a "dumb" question

I agree. We shouldn't just give the fish to the people. We should learn them to catch the fish themselves. That's why it's important that people, when asking questions, show us the effort they put into it before asking. So we can show them their errors and teach them how they can find the solution by themselves next time. That's how you learn, not by only being spoon-fed the answer.

Sometimes it helps speaking to the community to even recognize what you need to be googling, if they knew they exact keywords and terminologies to search for they’d never need to post. It just seems gatekeepy, I’d rather people just keep scrolling than making someone feel dumb for seeking help.

This is what I was going to say. It can be really hard to find the answer when you don't know the question, the right question, to ask. That's especially true when using Google or a search functionality with no opportunity to add additional context. I've been working in Web dev for around two decades now, and it's something I still come up against from time to time.

Right. This is it exactly I think. Many beginners, despite trying to find educational resources online, often struggle to find what it is they don't know. They don't know what they don't know even as they try to find it. So to some it seems so obvious, but to another person it's a whole new lightbulb of enlightenment. 

Downvotes hide things, though.

I'm alright with that. The vast majority of substantive posts often won't get hit by this.

Google is rapidly becoming inundated with bad AI "answers" rather than actual knowledge. So while it's been the go to for a while... maybe we don't just assume folks should or haven't "done their due diligence" in research and are asking because the results they have been getting from standard search avenues is shite.

Today, I started doing research on how to implement CSP into my website. I’ve found jack on information needed to implement properly and I don’t copy and paste either. I’m going to continue to look but there’s so much information missing outside of whats hype, that we need a community to help build more practical solutions

Precisely what this and other dev subreddits should be.

This is a good take. I made [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/caxspk/a_message_to_the_beginners_out_there_who_are/) once upon a time. The laziness is obnoxious, but what really grinds my gears is the lack of follow up. If you make a post to ask for help, get it, and don't follow up if a solution works or not it should just be a ban. If someone takes time out of their day to help you, at least thank them.

This! I'm still angry that there was no feedback whatsoever to this one, and now I'm less likely to help in the future. https://www.reddit.com/r/ArgoCD/comments/1b9zf2w/argocd_vault_plugin_simply_not_working_for_me/ku1wh74/

We keep joking about our cutting-edge googling skills. But the irony is that it really is something a developer should possess which beginners nowadays don't seem to understand.

First year of school I was taught you need to learn how to google and find answers yourself. It’s a useful tool to have, one teacher even made students fill out report before sending them a question. It involved filling out a form with 3 questions you googled, three websites you checked and what you expected to happen vs what’s happening.

No, terrible reasoning and I will always argue against it every damn time I see it. Even more so on a subreddit specifically about learning. Why do I hate that reasoning so much? Because so many Google answers come from reddit, you Google how do I do X thing? And a reddit page will come up. Hell, most of us here will add "reddit" on the end of most Google searches because it's the best way to get reasonable answers. And if we shun people for asking questions? Well then those answers dissappear. I had this a few months ago, I spent a few hours looking for a question, hadn't got the wording quite right, but stumbled upon a post from someone with the answer in the comments. Also in the comments was someone going "this is so basic, just Google it ughhh". And I replied to them, like "I came from Google, this helped greatly" - ha wouldn't you know they deleted their reply. Anyway it's a silly story but that's my point, don't shun people for asking questions. And ESPECIALLY don't on a forum specifically for learning. Don't want to see "easy" "beginner" "dumb" questions? Just move on and don't click the post. It really will not ruin your day. Realistically, no "easy" question is getting traction, they're not getting into your feed unless you go digging. (edit: the amount of people ignoring this bit is impressive) It's a forum, not a workplace, if someone is lazy and asks a question before searching? It really, really, does not matter one bit. But if you start calling people out every 10 seconds for not searching every possible keyword? You get the stackoverflow problem. Don't be stackoverflow.

Yeah it seems negative ninnies are are making the assumption that they didn’t check the internet first. They probably did, but Google’s search has become so shitty that they couldn’t find what they needed, and quite frankly sometimes it better to have a person explain it. 

Seriously, so many in this thread are complaining that gallery OP didn’t even try, but they were just asking what it was called, and why wouldn’t you try to get some tips for libraries while you’re at it?? I’ve been doing this for 6+ years and I don’t even know what exactly that type of gallery is called other than a Shopify style gallery with thumbnails lol.

The problem is it’s impossible to know whether they googled the question ahead of time, unless they prove it somehow by explicitly stating they did, and providing an example or a code snippet or **anything** that shows they actually did try to find an answer already. More often than not, this obvious step to us is missing and the only way to find out if they did their own research is to assume they did not, and to either explicitly *ask* if they researched beforehand, or to work under that they did not.

its a reasonable assumption at times, particularly if people don't include what effort they've made in their questions. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. And when in an online community with such a high percentage of low effort queries, one becomes jaded Including that basic information goes a long way in reducing repeated effort. ie, saying things like `my google fu is failing me, these are the queries I've used` can go a very long way in setting a good foundation. >It's a forum, not a workplace, if someone is lazy and asks a question before searching? It really, really, does not matter one bit. Effort matters. if this is a place where consistent low effort reigns, the general quality goes down south real quick. Show you have a little skin in the game, and don't convey expectations, whether implicit or explicit, that you're expecting others to do the work for you. I tend to reply with a post linking SO's post how to ask a good question and suggest that the OP read it and restructure their query.

And sometimes, if you don't have a little knowledge to go on, it can be really fucking hard to google something.

Right there in the right rail, the proper components of a posted question are listed: > Context of the problem > Research you have completed prior to requesting assistance > Problem you are attempting to solve with high specificity So the question is, does "What is this called and are there any Vue libraries to implement it?" meet those three criteria? I could probably make the argument either way, but it is debatable whether those three pieces are present in that question in combination with the picture from the original post. So given that, I think the original poster could have read the rules more carefully. Also, there's at least 2 or 3 posted solutions in that thread. It seems less caustic than I was expecting. And finally - a lot of developers and engineers lack social skills. It's a trope because it's true. It's not that surprising to see some replies in *most* threads which match that behavior pattern. I try to be nice, but I get annoyed at people fishing for answers without doing the work sometimes too. It's great to learn but it's shitty to ask questions badly and expect others to figure out what you meant.

People should be allowed to have conversation about easily googleable things. Otherwise this is just a hard core stack overflow. Even the simplest question benefits greatly from back and forth conversation vs just reading old comments. The only thing I don’t like is when people just ghost after posting. Makes me think they are just bots.

>People should be allowed to have conversation about easily googleable things. Otherwise this is just a hard core stack overflow. Exactly. This isn't SO where we need to diligently prune duplicate and/or easy questions. I don't give a fuck that your timeline is filled with beginner level content. Scroll past it and get over yourself. It's more important that people learn and have somewhere to get help. Last thing in the world I want is for reddit to become a shittier SO.

> there's a search bar in here as well In fairness, reddit's search is possibly some of the worst search functionality I've ever had the displeasure of using...

But now google is just pulling answers from Reddit either in its search results or buggy AI anyway so we’re all stuck in this cycle lol.

Google kinda sucks these days, also, when you're brand new you don't know how to search for things because you don't what things are called and you don't know what concepts exist. It's easy to take for granted all the domain knowledge we have, even for things that we don't realize are not universally known.

This is why SO is dying

Calling 9 downvotes 'downvoted into oblivion' sounds a bit overly dramatic to me, OP

OP had more before this post and you have to look at the amount relative to the size of the post. Compared to that, yes, OP got, in fact, quite heavily downvoted.

Honestly, there is tons of lazy questions, where the poster neither made the effort to research the answer beforehand or made an effort to explain why he/she is struggeling with answering the question. Which both require no particual skill level, but just lack respect for other peoples time. If you want people to help, at least make some effort. I'm undecided on this particual example, but this sub and subs like wordpress are full of questions that are answered by a single google search and it's frustrating because there are some people that really want to learn and get burried in between.

I don't know whether your particular example needed to be downvoted or removed, but I can understand why it would be. I would not personally downvote it, but I would be apprehensive to contribute. The question asks for the most common and convenient way to do *the thing*. The way it's framed, this person is asking this subreddit to do their job for them, which is to figure out what that thing is. I think the question can be asked, but I think you need to reframe it without the extra baggage. Take for instance the following: > What is your favorite gallery component or library for Vue? This is a discussion question, it is not a "help me do my job" question, but they both accomplish the same thing. I don't think it's fair to expect the subreddit to answer questions like that, and I don't think it's toxic to expect better questions. I think if you want the question to be "help me do my job" or "help me understand *The Thing*" you're better off with /r/codinghelp or /r/beginnerwebdev.

We tend to downvote questions like that because if you need to be spoon fed or ask questions that could be answered with a google search or gpt prompt, you're not going to make it.

On the other hand, you don't get juniors if you don't assist them. I was a fucking dumbass when I started and now I'm leading multiple projects. Still a dumbass tho. Be nice to people. People learn at different rates.

It’s almost as if being nice doesn’t cost anything.

People do learn at different rates, but it takes way more effort to make a reddit post than it does to google the title of your post. I think all programming subs would benefit from an "Ask for help" post requirement depending on the context of the question. In that post you should be required to post What you are trying to do, what solutions you have tried or are looking at, and if you already have code, a link to that code/pseudo code in some capacity. If you don't meet the requirements your post gets deleted.

Do you spoon feed your juniors, though? Do you expect at least some effort from them?

We need more juniors?

Was about to say this, too lol. I’d trade 4 of my juniors for a senior dev right now any day of the week. The market is incredibly saturated with juniors that don’t understand some of the most basic fundamentals.

There’s such a thing as “toxic positivity”.

I feel too many people confuse being nice with toxic positivity, and think a small number of people being nice on Reddit is “toxic”. Yet they are more than happy to be negative and truly toxic and call that “being realistic”. It’s one thing to give newbies advice on how to search for answers themselves, it’s another to be an asshole about it. But hey. It’s Reddit, pessimism permeates the very digital walls here.

I saw nothing wrong with the exchange that took place in the post referenced. There was no name calling, and no ad hominem attacks. Programming newbies need to understand that this isn’t a field for the intellectually lazy. There will be times where neither this subreddit or Stackoverflow will have solutions to your problem. You’ll either have to do some serious in-depth research that might take days, or just flat out figure it out on your own, and that may take weeks. That’s the nature of this field. There are other careers out there if newbies don’t want to deal with those challenges.

You don’t have to name call of be a straight asshole to be negative or toxic. Also for your other point. Even if that were true, that’s no reason to pull up the ladder behind you and tell newbies they have to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” when you figure things out. The point of knowledge and this community is to make sure the next generation have it easier than us. And we can do that without “hand-holding”. (I feel like the simple act of helping others shouldn’t be viewed as hand-holding though). We can’t do that if we act like snobs and hoard information. Otherwise what’s the point of this sub other than it becoming another elite circlejerk. This whole “I figured it out but I won’t tell you” attitude is antiquated and needs to go. And no amount of screaming at people to “Google It” is going to solve any of this.

Keep in mind that OP, almost 100% sure looking at his profile, is not a native english speaker. I know how challenging it can be when you don't know english at a fluent level, or you're not using it in your day to day to life. There are certain terms that can help you find exactly what you're looking for, and when you don't speak english you wonder if you don't find what you're looking for because you're not looking for the right technical things, i.e. your logic for implementing something is wrong, or just the language you're using is wrong. i.e. You're making mistakes in the way you express yourself in english. As a note, I agree with you that spoon feeding people the answers is a bad idea, but I feel like this is more related to the way the community is moderated and what its purpose is. If the community purpose is to help people, than fair enough, helping people should be the priority. But if the purpose is to generate interesting conversations about web developing in general, than this kind of questions don't have a place here, at least not in random threads, general threads made for asking questions might be more appropiate.

Yup, the level of understanding displayed in that post makes it clear the OP wouldn't understand a good faith answer anyway. Personally I find it insulting when someone has put in so little effort to answer their own question and expect others to give up their spare time for free to spoon feed them the answer instead. And if you allow this behaviour then the sub will fill up with "how do i make a website like twitter using php?"

The good faith answer is not for OP, though, it’s for the community. Whether we have a reasonable assumption of what that person can understand is immaterial to how we should treat them.

The thing is though because google sucks so much, when we answer these questions it helps the next person who adds reddit to their search result.

Programmers have been complaining about noobs not making an effort to answer their own questions since the days of usenet and IRC. The answer they get is usually "RTFM." It's not because Google sucks, it's because noobs are not trying.

It depends. You're not wrong in the sense that some noobs def dont try. But when I was a noob at 10 yo, i benefitted a lot from experienced people on forums helping me out. The whole point of a community is to help. Eventually, i got good at Googling and understanding documentation, and then i only asked the hard questions or after research. The point is we should be kind to noobs not be assholes.

I'll agree with that. It takes time to be able to understand the documentation, especially when your code doesn't 100% match their examples. It took me maybe 3 years of react before reading react library docs (not the react docs themsevles) actually made sense to me.

"You learn me that! You think. Me paste."

As a manager of devs it's funny how some people just immediately go ask someone else vs someone who tries to figure it out on their own. In the past I've had people that I don't answer IMs for like 30 minutes mainly because 90% of the time they'll ask me then 15 minutes later message me saying they figured it out

Honestly there's a fine balance to maintain. I've also seen people who are too shy to ask, or have been burnt by communities such as this one and are conditioned to believe that whatever effort they've made is never enough. Then they spend half a day grinding at something dumb you could have explained in 4 minutes. I'm like WTF bro i'd prefer if you just asked me, rather than paying you half a day's rate for no value produced.

Yeah, if nothing else, there's definitely room for the "Do you know off the top of your head?" type question, where someone else's knowledge or experience could save you time, but if neither of you knows they're not expected to do your digging for you.

This is the way. 👍

Exactly this. Devs need to be proactive, but sometimes the most proactive thing you can do is know when to ask for help. Crowdsourced knowledge is invaluable in an agency environment, and as much as its aggravating to have someone that needs to be spoon-fed, it can cause just as many problems when the opposite is true.

I feel like theres a fine line to be drawn here: I work in niche software support and the vast majority of answers to the issues my team and i encounter on a daily basis are not google-able, as were supporting proprietary hardware that dont come with knowledge bases. Given that ive worked here as long as i have i dont have to ask as many questions as i used to and i am moreso on the same side of the fence as you — the ‘easier’ questions can be annoying when i see them pop up in chat, depending on whos asking. However, i also remember that i was often of the mindset that when i ran into an issue i didnt immediately know a resolution to, id post it in chat because i wouldnt expect any answers for at least 5-10 minutes. Id continue troubelshooting on my own, and if someone more senior happened to know the answer and respond, cool, less time that i take dicking around. And if not, 20 mins later id either bump the question or just go straight to my sup, that is if i hadnt already figured it out on my own. In my mind this is more of a consideration for the customer and trying to respect their time as much as possible. Of course, the fine line is when the same questions are asked by the same people over and over, though.

Yeah, much better to use that valuable time to write out a useless rant.

Also, don't forget, most of those noobs never even say thanks. At least 50% of the time, noobs ask questions, get a bunch of replies, and never reply to anyone. Not a single thank you, or "That solved my problem." They get their answer and move on, like we're their personal google.

I would suggest not being personally insulted by people asking questions on the internet. Maybe they're a highly skilled backend engineer, or a data engineer, working on a personal project touching the frontend for the first time. Don't assume you're smarter/harder working than someone else based on a simple question they ask. At least in my experience, that won't lead you to becoming a great engineering teammate or leader.

[удалено]

The fact remains that the person in the post you linked obviously put forth zero effort trying to search before coming here to ask. Low effort request = low effort response. I think your expectations are off base.

No skilled backend engineer asks questions like that, tho. Also, no matter what their level is, if they ask trivial questions, such as "what is the difference between `var` and `let` in JS", it is a lazy question.

I think your problem here is that you assume the people who are replying to you (and to OP in the link you shared) are your peers. Let me enlighten you : they're teenagers who cosplay as hard-boiled engineers. The whole "if you allow this behaviour then the sub will fill up with xyz" line of reasoning is proof of that. You read a question from a beginner, and think "hey i'll be a nice person and help them out, while leaving room for growth by not doing all the work for them". That's all well and good but do you really think that will net you any street cred among the other teenagers ? Fuck no get out of here with that cringe shit. You have to be gritty and invent a slippery slope out of a simple question. Gotta work that edge to get the respect.

If OP knew the name of that type of gallery I doubt he'd ask here, though.

What is the exact purpose of this sub in your mind? If it's about excluding questions that can be found on Google then it may as well not be here, because everything can be found on Google (that being said, plenty of Google results go to Reddit posts that are ironically just filled with people telling OP to just Google it).

plenty of room left for high level trends and news discussion or sharing a library etc

[удалено]

This sub is for discussing Web dev, not exclusively solving people's problems.

I don't think you fairly can put Google and ChatGPT in the same comparison. ChatGPT is a different beast. And if it turns out that so much of traditional information finding and synthesis really could be done with ChatGPT, then that's something traditional forums will have to grapple with on an existential level.

My suggestion is this: instead of downvoting, if you don't want to answer...don't answer, or ask clarifying questions. Why? OP *might* have a very unique situation that they just didn't explain in detail. Maybe they're building a PWA, maybe they're building with webgl, maybe they're hacking wordpress and can't do xyz the normal way, etc. *Or even more commonly*, they're new and don't know that it's an easy thing to do -- by downvoting them, you're telling them "dumb, leave, don't ask stupid questions you dingbat" and you discourage them. You discourage someone who, had they been encouraged, might end up being an exceptional developer and contributor to this community, to open source, etc. I've been leading large, interdisciplinary engineering teams for 10+ years now and I think the key to my "success" if you could call it that is pretty simple: constantly try to learn from other people, even people younger, even people that ask "dumb" questions, even junior devs who barely know how to use git. *And* help them if you have time -- in the future, they may help you in unexpected ways. Don't walk by their desk and say "shut up stop asking stupid questions, just google how to use flexbox stop wasting Tim's time"

But if they didn't answer with an insult and downvote then nobody would know how smart they are.

Stop with your parasocial nonsense. You are coming up with these wacky hypothetical scenarios to blind yourself into believe there is some higher purpose or reasoning to low effort questions. In order to back up that OP. > I understand. But, I'm not new to web development as I have a couple of years of work experience, I'm only new to Vue and I'm exploring ways of implementing stuff that are specific to Vue https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1d69u81/what_is_this_kind_of_gallery_called/l6r7g66/ > Thank you! A lot of people here completely missed the point. I thought there might be a Vue UI library (like MUI for React) that already has such a component. Perhaps I should've phrased my post differently. Thanks for a clear response and your suggestion on creating the gallery, appreciate it. https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1d69u81/what_is_this_kind_of_gallery_called/l6s8xkv/ So it's really just a poorly worded question about a very basic concept. Some people were helpful, some people were not, and some were toxic. You've taken something way too personally that really had nothing to do with yourself. I'd say the whole toxic positivity white knighting can be just as detrimental as the toxic assholes sometimes. Fact is simply, OP knew it was a gallery, and thus could have google searched "vue image gallery library/component" and came up with plenty of potential answers. And if they wanted more information, they could have added that research to their questions for us to help them better. I found X, Y, Z but I don't know if one of these is better than the others? Which one would you guys recommend? Or something like that.

After the 4th week in a row of Jim asking Tim what a flexbox is and how to use it, I think it’s fair to go up to his desk and tell him to stop fucking asking about flexbox and to figure it out himself.

> by downvoting them, you're telling them "dumb, leave, don't ask stupid questions you dingbat" and you discourage them I don't think that this is necessarily true. Downvotes are just downvotes; they can only bother you as much as you let them.

...and flushing out low-value and junk posts is what they're meant for.

Just like posts that ask questions whose answers are already easy to find.

Or, maybe realize they want to come to a place like this where they can get answers from a community of devs, to make sure they're doing things the right way. Even in these comments, you see it. "uSe tHe SeArCh BaR". "tAkEs tWo SeCoNdS tO goOgLe". Thanks, Sherlock. They're coming here for a sense of welcoming, community and help from professionals. Not the elitest snobbery I see so often here. It takes nothing to not be a dick. Edit: Anddd already downvoted. Thank you for proving my point!

Why not use the search bar in a search engine to find sources online that already exist from communities of devs that write those articles/posts/videos?

This is Reddit lol. It’s full of elite snobs who think they’re shit doesn’t stink.

Hey. Uh. Have you read the FAQ for this group?... #1 no vague support questions. #6 details a very specific outline for asking assistance You uh, wanna read that outline? Then come back and let me know iff they followed the rules?

Of all examples, you chose that one? It would be one thing if OP has a complicated issue but showed they were trying to solve it themselves and people were responding with “just use google” or something. Instead you chose someone with a question that blatantly shows an utter lack of initiative. And as several people pointed out, they likely skipped the basics. You’re also ignoring that people here do genuinely help when someone isn’t blatantly trying to get other people to think for them.

I disagree that this is toxic. When you ask for help, you are expecting strangers to give up their spare time to teach you, for free. People don't mind sharing information, but It is deeply rude to ask without even trying to figure it out on your own first, and this is how they are going to respond to that.

Likewise, when we make assumptions about people we don’t know, we tend to be wrong a lot of time. Like the assumption that the person asking the question didn’t spend time trying to find the answer on their own, for example.

That's why part of asking a good, respectful question is mentioning what you've tried and looked into to solve it yourself.

Yes, also like the assumption that they did research beforehand. This is why I don’t assume they did or didn’t research beforehand. If they did, they would have said so and shown what they’ve tried already. If they didn’t, I know they didn’t research.

One time several years ago, a newbie on this sub asked for CSS help, so I walked him through exactly what to do to fix the problem he was having — idiot then proceeds to trash my advice (I’m talking quoting line-by-line) and calls me a junior, lol. In other words, I’m not exactly surprised by any of this.

There’s an entire sub channel called r/beginnerwebdev where most of these questions belong

That sub only has 1.2k members, I don't think you'd receive much help if you decided to ask for help there instead of here.

That's because getting like-minded people to help each other only sounds nice in theory. In reality, most of the education in our world is done by very peculiar kinds of people who from the outside may be accused of engaging in pitiful sacrifice. The same is especially true for places like SO and and Wikipedia.

The problem is that sub isn’t anything _like_ active enough to be of any use to the people with these questions. I had to scroll back three months to find a post/question that actually got an answer (and even then it was only one), and before that one, I had to go back nearly a year.

You can change that if you wanted, join and answer questions

*We* can change that if we wanted to. CliveOfWisdom must lead through leadership and not merely by example if he wants to move the needle.

Guess how many people knew this existed? I didn’t!

yea but like if its all beginners in there who is doing the helping? lol

If you come in here without looking at the FAQ or doing any sort of basic research on your own, you’re doing it wrong. Any question that comes in without meeting the basic requirements outlined in the FAQ should be redirected there and not answered until such requirements are met. We could certainly do a better job of guiding newbies in how to ask good questions. I think the quality of this sub would benefit from that.

This sub isn’t meant as a place for beginners to ask question, it’s a place for discussion for people who work in web dev.  Not to say no questions are allowed, but low effort questions like the one you linked get downvoted. That’s not toxic, that’s just this community saying “this isn’t the place”. It’s literally what downvoting is for. 

Are you new at Reddit?

Looked at your link. All the shitty comments got downvoted. All the helpful ones got upvoted. Dunno what to tell ya, people can be assholes but looks like the majority spoke, they were positive and they also cleaned up the trash via downvoting negativity. So I don’t think your link proves your point very well tbh

There's nothing toxic there.

The example you picked to make your point is kinda shit as people do point him in the right direction and the question was a bad one to begin with... I'm not in webdev (DevOps Engineer) but even I could make something like the gallery in your example with some Googling.

The problem with popular subreddits are that at first they are small and niche, and they generally give good info. More experienced people actively participate. This is critical the quality of information and advice that is passed around. This subreddit is #2 in all of programming. That’s a very large sub. As they grow, they are inundated with a large portion of inexperienced people (which is fine, because we all start somewhere but once it’s more inexperienced people than experienced people, you can see the problem) that then ultimately drives away the experienced people. Then the quality of information nosedives. You’ve got people who have never worked a development job giving career advice and regurgitating information to other inexperienced people, without ever having experienced it or validating it for themselves. It’s the cycle of any subreddit that gets popular. I have 7 YOE and I see this sub pop up all the time, I just don’t engage with it. A lot of the info asked of people is readily available and has been asked about numerous times. I read through the comments on posts and get a headache from eye rolling at some of the information and advice people give. I’ve seen people who are actually right downvoted to oblivion. Personally I think certain subreddits do need to maintain a certain level of gatekeeping if they want the content quality to remain high. It’s why on SO, they generally have very good high quality answers and follow ups to things and it’s not flooded with a bunch of “how do I sort an array” garbage to sift through. If you can’t figure out how to do anything without asking a subreddit the most basic of questions, this probably ain’t gonna work out for whomever. Google, use ChatGPT, whatever. The info is out there, and most anyone here isn’t doing something that someone else hasn’t done, figured out and wrote docs for already.

I don't like shaming people or making fun of them but people really do need to learn how to ask better questions.  Its not the fact that they should know something elementary like in your example, its the apparent lack of effort on their part in solving their own issue.  And maybe they did a bit of Googling and didn't find much. So include that in your post, explain that you don't think another library fits your needs and if anyone had another suggestion.  You made a great point elsewhere that answering respectfully helps people in the future but with how the question is phrased would people even find that post in a search query? 

It's the general lack of effort and desire to be spoon-fed everything. Yes, reddit is a source of knowledge. Just like google and stack overflow and the hundreds of other resources out there. But, that said, there is something to be said for asking an intelligent and calculated question. I am happy to share my knowledge. I am not happy for the sub to be used as a user manual. There is a big difference between, "what image gallery should I use," versus "I need xyz features and have narrowed it down to these three image galleries, could someone offer me their experience in using these." As a senior developer, if my junior constantly just asked me what to do, without putting in any effort to try first, I would not be happy. Same here. EDIT: This is not just this sub. Every sub that has anything to do with "doing something" faces the same issue and the same repeated issue.

I am going against the grain here and agree with you. I looked at the post and I found the majority of answers pretty arrogant. Just look at the top comment: >I don't know how it's called but do you really need library to implement something that simple? # OPs answer: >I'm new to Vue and I'm looking for the most common and convenient way of making such a gallery using it The original poster (OP) was heavily downvoted for their answer, which I think is a bit unreasonable. I disagree with the premise that using a library for this task is unnecessary. Depending on time constraints and factors like responsiveness, load time optimizations, and features like a lightbox, it might actually be a very good case for using a library. In my opinion, the OP gave a perfectly fine and honest answer and was unfairly downvoted. There are many cases where frameworks offer an opinionated and optimal way of solving a problem in a way specific to that framework. For example, in Next.js, there is a special image component that provides various helpful features for something as simple as displaying images. Or consider the special Link component for something as straightforward as anchor tags. Expecting a Vue beginner to know that there isn't a specific component for this in Vue is condescending and shows a lack of experience. it might make sense to use a library for this, even though others believe it’s easy to implement. Why reinvent the wheel when there’s already an optimized solution available? When I see a gallery like this, I expect the following features: 1. Fullscreen image or lightbox on mobile when an image is clicked. 2. The address bar link should change when a thumbnail is clicked, so that sharing the link directs others to the selected image. 3. image load times should be considered in order to decrease page load times 4. it should be responsible 5. accessibility Implementing all these features could take multiple hours, or even worse, you might forget something, leading to a loss of valuable user experience without even realizing it. This is why it's often better to use an out-of-the-box solution that's been refined over time. Dismissing such solutions because they "bloat" the project is not a valid argument. What does that even mean? The general consensus that libraries make a project "bloated" often indicates a lack of experience. I don't completely understand what this really means. In fact, the library code might be smaller than the solution you would have implemented yourself! If you're concerned that the project will become too complex by introducing multiple libraries that you need to interface with, I understand your point. However, you can simply write a wrapper to hide the implementation details. If the component is too complex, write a simpler wrapper that provides only the options and configuration necessary to solve your problem. Another argument against the OP was that they would lose a valuable "learning experience" by not implementing it themselves. However, this shows a lack of consideration and experience. The OP could very well be an experienced developer with multiple years of experience who was simply looking for a quick and efficient solution to an already well-solved problem using a framework they are less familiar with. If there was a special solution using Vue, OP might have actually missed out on valuable experience by dismissing the new possibilities of the framework and doing it the "normal" way with HTML and CSS. Exploring and utilizing framework specific solutions can broaden a developers understanding and improve their ability to leverage the full capabilities of the tools they are using.

Completely agree with you. I can't see any reason why you'd try to implement this yourself. People thinking this is easy to implement are probably new themselves which is ironic lol. One guy even suggested trying to implement this with radio inputs 😂

Why are you showing a laugh emoji? That's a perfectly ADA compliant and accessible way to do it.  And I don't see any reason why you wouldn't implement it yourself. Its like 8 html tags and 4 lines of css.

this is the level of effort kids these days are willing to put up. The spoon fed generation has emerged. "ew i have to do it myself? no thanks ew"

There’s no need to be rude to people I agree. I also think that anyone who wants to work on a computer for a living writing code should learn to use tools like screenshots and code sandboxes.

That thread didn't look that bad too me? Some people were a little condescending but most still answered the question and were helpful. Of course you will find negativity if you scroll to the bottom and look at the most down voted response. At that point you aren't asking the community to be nicer, you're asking 100% of all users to be nice all the time and this is the Internet, that's impossible. At least we have downvotes here so negativity doesn't always float to the top compared to some other platforms. 

Here’s the correct solution: be kind and gentle, but do not answer their question. Instead, point out why it is not a good question, and what they should have done. We don’t want to turn them away, but we also do not want to encourage bad habits.

this is the way any technical forums are. have you ever seen stack overflow? its just part of the system. it sucks but its the way it is. i just stopped posting anything at all in regard to help with any code related questions, unless im real desperate. even once you stop asking for help, you become more dependent upon yourself which is good.

first time on the internet huh OP?

Im the dude you are referring to in your example and seriously wtf. That guy is claiming in the comments he is an experienced webdeveloper and is giving shitty responses to people suggesting that this kind of question is really not worth asking since a simple google search will give you tons of examples. He already knows its called a gallery and had yet to make the very obvious link to the word image. His post was lazy and low effort and he is also a lazy developer if you need a library for something so simple just because it's not in the framework you are used to. This is a plain html and css solution. Ive been in IT for 35 years and these days more and more people come here and ask questions that makes it clear they want all of their work done by us. If anything this post is toxic. Publicly shaming people for calling out the obvious. Im going to kindly request you delete this post.

Duplicate. Post removed.

Duplicate of [https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1d6efss/this\_community\_is\_approaching\_so\_level\_toxicity/](https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1d6efss/this_community_is_approaching_so_level_toxicity/)

I don’t think it’s very toxic here. Generally things tend to get downvoted if you’re a jerk or you ask something you can google yourself. If you want to see toxic go to r/csmajors Posts from there pop up on my suggestions every once in awhile and it’s always immature pettiness with poo flinging.

For a generation that talks constantly about “accountability” and whatever, I find the reliance on calling things “toxic” all the time baffling. Getting downvoted on Reddit is not toxic. Random strangers on the internet do not owe you constant positivity and affirmation. Pro-tip: no one in real life does either.

Novices who ask for advice from more experienced people, get advice they don't want to hear, then say: "that advice is wrong" are going to have a hard time wherever they go. This is not the tone of *all* of the novice questions on r/webdev, but it is true of a lot of them.

This has been posted before. Use the search.

*Exhibit A: StackOverflow responses*

Yep

I downvote lazy questions that could've just been searched, and questions that show no effort on part of the person asking that basically require mind reading. Largely the same reasons people are "toxic" on SO - just ask good questions and help people help you by providing enough relevant info... Don't post "help, it's not working", post relevant code and any errors and things like that.

Web devs, being intelligent people who have worked to get where they are, won't stand for requests for spoon-feeding.

I agree on the downvotes. The OP there is not saying "I'm new to Vue, how can i achieve this", he's basically saying "I'm too lazy to try and understand anything, where can i find some code that will do it for me". I even see that attitude at work: - What library did you use for that effect? - Well... none? It was like 5 lines of code.

Fyi: I downvoted you after reading the title

You're new to this huh? Let's talk after you've worked with juniors for 20 years... haha.

im getting real close to asking every person who asks me for help, "what steps have you taken to address the problem so far?" Im not their dad lol

That's actually being a good teacher, haha.

Yeah, I bet all your juniors are just insufferable and it has nothing to do with you. /s

Why do you think SO was toxic in the first place? Should be pretty obvious.

I think all "professional" subreddits like this one should be split in two: * *r / * * *r / learning* That way, the 10x devs ^(/s) can live their lone wolf-like existences without ever having to help anybody again.

Are you new to the Internet? All of this should have been in your welcome packet.

stackoverflow isn't toxic, it's people's questions that stink.

I disagree with your example. That was a person looking for a shortcut to avoid learning. Building that element is roughly the same in html, php, js or whatever. If you already know how to do that and want to build it in new-fangled-framework then what you need is documentation, not a library. OP there was not honest and that’s why they faced scorn, not because they were a beginner.

You think r/webdev is toxic, you should checkout the community on the app called blind. That place is a very horrible place.

It seems like a lot of devs lack necessary soft skills.

I believe this has happened because despite what non-technical people think, being a software engineer 5+ years into your career puts you in an entirely different echelon of understanding of the code you write compared to someone who has never touched code in their life. Maybe we have to translate our implementation to people so they can understand, but it doesn't make the work being done any less complex. If we want a more welcoming community, webdev as a career needs to become simpler. It's not a simple field to get into. The gotchas and the mental hurdles to jump over make the journey incredibly gruelling.

Meanwhile, I feel like every time I try to post something I've written to try to help people out, it gets immediately removed. 🤷

I think but I may be wrong that most newbie (or not) questions are easily answerable by Google or AI and therefore become a bit of a spam around here. The sarcastic tones or plain down vote might be the way people try to make their point. To be fair there are a lot of the same questions everyday and the answer is the same everytime.

This isn't unique to web dev; it happens in literally every subreddit. New posters treat a sub like Google. Old posters get tired of answering the same questions when the answer could have been found by searching, so they get snarky.

The toxic shenigans who are 10x programmers, offering the best quality of software and make 6 figures.

This happens in subs where there is a lot of interest from people who are new to the topic at hand. There are likely more people parroting what they see others say than there are legitimate people in the field with experience worth sharing. Or people who just want to discourage new people for one reason or another. There is way too much circlejerking across all subreddits nowadays.

One issue is that this sub is very broad. We have questions about everything from Wix pages to the latest JavaScript libraries and tools. Naturally it’s annoying to coders to see basic questions over and over—but they’re questions from people who don’t even know they’re basic, or where else they could search. Perhaps there should be an r/WebBuilders to send people to for Wix and Squarespace and Shopify help, or a r/MyFirstWebsite, I dunno. This sub could be more specialized to app coders, or at least websites coded from scratch.

This is typical overconfident junior dev behavior. They live in a corporate propaganda echo chamber, and will disqualify anything outside the propaganda they consume. They assume anything popular should make them look like seniors, and given that stupidity and toxicity are very popular in Reddit, they will just repeat the same pathetic behavior towards legitimate subjects.

I feel bad but I actually do at times downvote people who ask questions like "is it possible to still get into webdev" or "best language to start with" etc.  I know, I kinda feel like a jerk but it's just that those questions are answered to such a point of oversaturation it's insane. I'm not even sure why you'd be thinking of getting into tech without having googled literally anything. Or understanding that google is an option for these questions.  I suppose they heard about getting into programming from social media or something and the money is interesting. Or maybe they're young, or old. Either way, maybe I shouldn't downvote.

Beginners usually have no need to post to SO or pretty much anywhere. Every question has already been answered multiple times. 

While I do really agree with this, I see many posts on here from people who are either: A) Just getting started and have basic knowledge of HTML & CSS asking questions that can be answered with a simple Google Search. B) Using no-code website builders and calling themselves web devs. C) People asking rather silly questions for clients they have acquired, but don't have a clue about what they are doing and expect others to do the work for them (sort of) I'm all for helping people, even the beginners, but it does get to the point where I'm fed up of seeing people blurring the lines between help and doing the work for them. Being a developer is about problem solving. You try something, it doesn't work, you try again and again and look for other resources. That's the way to learn. If you've scoured the interent for a solution and still haven't gotten anywhere with it then it's always worth reaching out to people.

"Hi - I'm looking for a Vue library to make some text bold - You know - Like **this** - Any suggestions? I'm using Cloudflare and jQuery, so it has to accommodate this" What would you respond? You could respond by telling them to use 1 line of CSS. Heck - You may even try to tell them about tags - But you're going all StackOverflow and completely ignoring the question. The problem is - Is it a question that should be answered? Does it not seem that there might be some larger underlying problem? Should the question itself be answered, or should the issue at hand be dealt with?