I’m seeking a website where I can ask any programming or tech-related questions without the risk of it being closed. The platform should allow linking of similar problems for better organization. Previously, I found HeapOverflow to be useful, but unfortunately, it is no longer available. Another platform I tried was Wotas.net (Wisdom of the Ancient Souls Q&A Tech Website), but it didn’t last long either. These platforms were not very active, often leading me to post solutions to my own questions. Despite this, I prefer them over websites with an army of moderators trying to find any excuse to close your post. My preference leans away from platforms like StackOverflow or Codidact, which focus mainly on bug-related questions. When dealing with troubleshooting bugs involving Minimal Reproducible Examples and error logs, I find seeking help from an LLM more beneficial than those kinds of websites anyways, due to their clear and concise responses.
Context is important. If a business decision has to be made, or it is important to get it right because there’s some real-world value attached to it. Otherwise, on the internet, it rarely ever matters why and is in most cases just a reason to detract and go on a tangent.
This is most often seen on HackerNews. Someone creates something like Harder Drives, or asks how to put Doom on a toaster and people respond with “why?”. It doesn’t matter why. Just let people have fun, learn in their own way, discover new things, or do things differently.
It shouldn’t be necessary to defend yourself over such trivial matters.
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I used to spend a ton of time helping people on reddit with linux and related things, and the “why” matters immensely in that case.
XY problem was extremely common, where someone was trying to achieve a goal through “incorrect” means.
I also saw many, many people’s issues where they wanted something, but were referring to it by a different name, ending up confused and lost. All I had to do was say “you actually want Y” and point them on their way, and they would be happy.
And then of course, sometimes people try to do something that’s simply not possible (or more usually, not implemented in software.).
But in general, it’s very difficult to help people who don’t make it easy for you to help them, and part of that is explaining the “why”, in addition to their issue.
I also contribute to communities like stackoverflow. There are very few reasons to ask “what are you trying to do”. Often it’s when the solution to their question doesn’t help them reach their actual goal and they willingly say “actually, I was trying to do X, but this didn’t achieve that”. Other cases are when they ask things like “why doesn’t this work” or “could you recommend ABC” and don’t provide enough information to answer the question.
An example “how do I fit this $lightbulb into $fitting” shouldn’t be answered with “why?” even if you first thought is “that makes no sense, why would you do that?”. Maybe they don’t have other lightbulbs or fittings, maybe that fitting is the only one with a potentiometer or transformer they could find, maybe they actually bought the wrong fitting.
IMO, a better answer is “I would advise against it, but here’s how I would do it”. It’s then up to the person asking the question to either indicate that they want to know why you advise against it, try it out and find out that it works for them or doesn’t. You asking “why” might just waste their time having to explain circumstances and wait on async responses instead of just getting a solution and deciding for themselves whether it helped or not.
“Why” is often a waste of time and prone to tangents.I try not provide context to my questions anymore because of that.
But you do you.
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