The tenor of the questions changed in the last couple years I participated. Early questions were more of the the "I'm having this strange thing-- here's what I've tried already"-type. These were a lot of fun to research and answer. They ended up sending me down rabbit-holes that helped in my work later on. (There were also "explain xxx concept" questions, which were tremendous fun to write for but there are only so many of those that can be asked.)
I was never one to "vote to close" because something wasn't "sysadmin-related". That's likely because I've been asked by Customers to "sysadmin" virtually anything electronic. A number of my answers ended up migrated over to "Super User" as a result. The migration of questions to other sites didn't bother me, because that wasn't killing the question out-right. The "community" closing legitimate questions, however, made me sad.
I did "vote to close" on questions more of the "Can I get some free labor" vs. "I'm having a problem, here's what I tried". The former seemed a lot more common towards the end of my participation. I never saw closing these questions as lacking in compassion. Often there were plenty of existing questions the posters could've used as reference. It was clearly easier for them to ask another question rather than research.
I hold myself to am unreasonably high standard w/ respect to researching before asking anybody a question (at least, anybody who I'm not paying for it). I tried to relax that standard when it came to answering Server Fault questions, but there was still a lower limit. It was hard for me to be "compassionate" in the face of such apparent laziness and disrespect for the donated time of others, particularly when there were so many good resources right at the poster's fingertips.
I totally understand the limits that had to be set on the low bar for quality content. In those early days though, it seemed to me that when people asked questions about managing mobile phones for instance, because it was only newly related to being a sys admin, they'd get closed as not related.
Granted, in those early days, there weren't as many process "rules" in place to guide users to ask better questions and perhaps that's still so. However, a quick perusal of the site indicate this has gotten better and more friendly towards new people.
People like you are why Server Fault sucks. I once asked a simple question about logging in microseconds instead of milliseconds. I received a bunch of condescending responses to RTFM and that I should "hire a developer" to figure it out. Site admins closed the question as being "low effort" or something equally stupid.
I'm a developer with over 20 years experience. I read the whole manual and the product clearly only documented milliseconds. I have thousands of karma points on the main site, but because I never used Server Fault everyone treated me like a newb who's first reaction was running to Server Fault.
Server Fault is filled with arrogant admins who would rather be assholes than help.
I think the main problem is actually the reputation system. People like you get MAD because someone asks a question you can't answer in 5 minutes because then you can't get your karma points so easily. You get MAD because someone else might earn a bunch of karma from "easy" questions you don't want to bother answering.
I've been a Usenet user since 1987 and am reasonably aware of how to write questions to technical groups. My last two or three Stack posts regarding "I want to do x, I've tried a-e" were summarily closed with no responses to appeals even though there may have been useful although not conclusive suggestions. The claim was that the questions asked for product recommendations, even when I wrote "Not looking for product recommendations" in the posts. That's when I deleted my account. "Lack of compassion" is very accurate. I think the gatekeepers have gotten carried away.
If you do not follow the Q & A format correctly, your “question” should be closed.
More regularly I have answered my own question because the Q was hard and got zero answers, then I eventually discover a solution so I wrote an answer.
Well put. This is what I've experienced with most of the stackoverflow communities. It WAS definitely better previously.
But I'm experiencing some trouble asking questions in certain tags where moderators are easily closing down or downvoting the question. Even I saw the person who answered my question replied in the thread that he/she doesn't understand why is it getting downvoted. People just don't stay on point. Neither do they refrain from their cocksure way of replying.
What the author says about the scope of the question is not there with answers or comments.
It's pretty obvious when that's the case. Ironically, using SO for work assignments is OK, but that's probably because the questions are more interesting, esoteric, or have longer term value than a question about while loops.
I was there too and I left cause mods were more interested about my english than about my answer - mostly correct.
SO beccame one big egoistic mess.
There was also a general lack of compassion on the part of many, many users. I get that the sites strive to be full of "high quality" content, but there were a lot of legitimate questions asked, in broken English, that got closed immediately, or got closed because it seemed like it as academic exercise they were asking. IT has a reputation for lacking in people skills (deservedly so) and in SO's and SF's early days, that certainly stood out as a major turnoff of the sites. Admittedly, I have no idea if it's gotten any better.