Oh, yeah.
SO is infamous for treating question-askers badly.
I have used LLMs for some time, and have no intentions of ever going back to SO. I get tired of being insulted.
> The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.
- A poster on my old art teacher's studio wall.
SO wasn't even the first site with this phenomenon. IMO SO is way more cordial than some of the forums from the early 00s. And before that, many irc channels were known for being brutal to people coming for help. I was part of the problem there until I realized there was a problem and decided to change my approach, but it took years to unlearn what I had picked up from other channels ops.
I was quite the troll, in the UseNet days.
One of the reasons that I strive to behave, hereabouts, is that I feel the need to atone.
It can be quite difficult to hold my tongue/keyboard, though. I feel as if it’s good exercise.
Wikipedia does the same to those who contribute
StackOverflow intimidated me for reasons you say. What is it with the power trip that some of these forum mods have?
Basic human nature. Many folks that are hard on others, have been the recipient of bullying, themselves. It’s a self-perpetuating thing.
“Breaking the chain” is quite difficult, because it means not behaving in the manner that every cell in your body demands.