> people are afraid of downvotes
People are afraid of downvotes because people will throw out downvotes without even reading your answer, and once you get the first downvote, everyone else will pile on, also without reading your answer.
It is interesting how a tech-oriented community still replicates monkey or chicken behavior against unpopular individuals.
Re:The Fall of Stack Overflow
by throwaway2037 on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @04:43AM
(#36859625)
So, regular humans, right? I am unsurprised.
I see "answer as comment" in my most mature tech subjects because people are afraid of downvotes. In my experience, the most mature tech subjects are carefully guarded by a small community of very unfriendly "fastest gun in the West" types. The C++ community is incredibly unwelcoming and negative towards most questions. Note: Comments can only receive upvotes. (In theory, comments can be flagged as off topic, or offensive, but assume -- for my commentary here -- they are not.) Examples of more mature tech subjects: Python, Ruby, ASP.NET, Java (language/foundation libraries), C# (language/founding libraries), C (but not yet C++!), Win32, etc.
For less mature tech subjects (or faster moving), you see many more answers. Example of less mature tech subjects: Python AI/ML libraries, Java/C# open source libraries (Spring, etc.), C++, Qt, Gtk+, Zig, Swift, Golang.