You could learn how to write a better question. I've got ~140 questions on SO and none of them ever had hostile responses. Usually questions are downvoted because they're:

* vague

* no code example

* pretty basic that a google search could answer your question

* same old, same old repetitive questions answered many times over

Back in the days of usenet there would be a FAQ and likely a set of HOWTO's, you had to read this so as not to fall foul of pushback from the group (probably considered hostile).

If you are asking what might be a repeat question but didn't find a solution either on SO or elsewhere, then quote the sources that came close but didn't help. That shows you at least did some research. Both usenet and forums from the 1990/2000's were no different.

I quit answering questions on SO because I felt people were lazy and wasting my time, and I was done with that, mostly for the reasons above. I still monitor the same tags I was active in, see the same old crap, and really cannot be arsed because it's clear the OP's did no research. Also when you do assist some users become quite indignant that you must solve their exact use-case. Many users never even say thank you for an answer that might take 30-45mins to produce. So feck that shite. I don't have the time or energy to be hostile, I just went dark. And sadly many early enthusiastic answerers that helped bootstrap the site in the early years did the same.

I’ve seen really good answers who were despite being correct were downvoted in favor of someone with a higher SO score.

I posted an answer to a question like 10 years ago before dynamic or anonymous types existed in .NET. It was valid and I later prefixed it to say another answer is now correct but mine was correct for the version of .NET in question.

Still has people downvoting today.

It really sucks answering questions and investing time when people downvote for silly stupid reasons.

I’ve also seen questions asked which were good questions with examples and such. But downvoted because “that’s now how you do it” despite “I can’t do it that way because of constraints in the system”

Part of SO is really good! It’s been a game changer. But it’s really a different community now than when it started. I miss the early days.

I once answered a question on SO and included a link to some sample code (production-quality actually) that I had written several years before. The answer was (I thought) on-topic, clear, and helpful (it gave the questioner everything they needed to solve their problem). It was downvoted to oblivion, apparently because I included the link. Then I removed the link and just pasted the 150 lines or so of sample code directly into the answer, but my “reputation” is still negative as a result so I can’t answer any questions. As a result, I have zero interest in ever trying to contribute to SO again.

If you did ever have interest in contributing again, that’s what new accounts are for.

> I posted an answer to a question like 10 years ago before dynamic or anonymous types existed in .NET. It was valid and I later prefixed it to say another answer is now correct but mine was correct for the version of .NET in question.

> Still has people downvoting today.

Aye that sucks. I have a PHP answer that is the accepted answer, but the PHP wonks got all up in arms about it because the immediate solution for the OP was to use the global keyword in their class method to get access to an array that's being created/modified in the global scope. I did caveat by letting them know this isn't a fantastic solution. But it looks like their app had a shedload of bigger problems that weren't going to be solved in my answer.

I also miss the early days.

Apropos my previous reply, I wasn't having a go at you, though re-reading it does seem that way, so I do apologise. I'd had a couple of wines and whenever stuff like this comes up I do feel slightly hacked off at all the effort I'd put into help build that empire (I was a <500 beta user, and was also a diamond mod). And all I got was a lousy mug and some crappy pens :)

> You could learn how to write a better question.

That response doesn't disagree with the complaint.

My biggest gripe with SO is when someone asks "How do you do X?" and someone responds, "you don't need to do X to solve your problem, you can do Y."

Y solves their problem and is marked as the answer.

But X is exactly what _I_ am trying to do, and would solve my problem. But any other question regarding X is marked as a duplicate of this first question which only solves Y and not X.

StackOverflow isn't really for beginner questions/"help me learn" kind of stuff. In the course of trying to come up with answers to most questions, they knocked out the easy/fundamental ones early.

I used to answer question on the askprogramming subreddit sometimes, I generally didn't see a ton of negativity there.