Then I have to constantly remind people about the same stuff in the comments.
That culture problem has been getting worse and worse at SO over time. I only go there as a last resort.
(Edit: Let’s add /s just in case)
In that light all the weirdness made sense. Of course, I am very interested in getting my problems solved, so I simply stopped asking on SO to avoid the frustration.
I know that's what they say. The thing they have trouble understanding is that "helping everyone else" does not mean bending every question into some 101 level software design advice thing.
"Helping everyone else" very much can mean being a repository of answers to hard questions or solutions when non-typical constraints are at play. Every software engineer worth his salt must have had an experience where the answer he was looking for was in some old, weird forum post that was the single hit to his search query, but a lot of SO doesn't seem to get that.
Most questions are now answered in the comments instead of being written as an answer below the question and I assume this is because people have had bad experiences with gate keeper mods when writing answers.
I have reasonably high karma.
I don’t think quality deteriorated due to some attempts to make the site more friendly. It’s the spirit of a county rabbit breeders association that drives people away
Where these other community members who had the close vote privilege? Or an elected moderator that had a diamond in their name to designate that?
Comments can't be downvoted. MetaFilter had the right of it.
The cultural norms of internet forums should never have been allowed to take root on a Q&A site. There is nothing "professional" (or even helpful) about answering questions with out-of-scope proscriptions.
Your plumber doesn't show up asking why you want your toilet fixed, nor does he tell you your house is messy, give you dietary advice and passive-aggressively insinuate you need to fix your roof. SO responders are mini-spouse syndrome incarnate.