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Comment by JPGalt | Hacker News Reader

I have had similar issues on this site. I have had 3 high rep users of the site close a question I asked having never answered a single question in the technology I was referencing. That said I have never felt that because I was not white I was treated differently, how would anyone even know that? I guess they could go look for a profile picture before they answer?

If you have people doing that then there is a much bigger issue then what has been described by the EVP. My experience in general has been that there are a segment of users on StackOverflow that think they are better than everyone else and take every little opportunity they can to impress upon the rest of us how great they are in their own little world.

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> That said I have never felt that because I was not white I was treated differently, how would anyone even know that? I guess they could go look for a profile picture before they answer?

> If you have people doing that then there is a much bigger issue then what has been described by the EVP.

Probably why the comments are disabled on that blog post. Doesn't want anyone pointing out the disconnects from reality.

> I have had 3 high rep users of the site close a question I asked

I have some mod privileges on SO and have been a user for ~8 years.

The best way to not have your question locked or deleted, is to ensure you're following the best practices for asking a question and include a Minimum Complete Verifiable Example (MCVE).

https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask

If you feel you've done both and still don't get a good experience, it's worth speaking out on Meta for more specific advice.

Most people on SO just want to help — it's easier to help on a question that meets these standards.

> having never answered a single question in the technology I was referencing

Moderator privileges are more about the style of a question/answer than the specifics of a particular tech. The moderation queues are irrespective of the tech tagged in the question.

I've never had a question closed, but do have to agree with JPGalt that there is a problem. A lot of power is vested in high-rep users who got to high rep by making lots of snap judgments. In the Qt tag, I frequently encountered high rep C++ developers guessing at answers. They knew the language, but were unfamiliar with the library and would make guesses at how things work. Then other C++ developers browsing the front page would upvote their answer because it sounded right (even if it was completely incorrect).

It's mildly annoying when wrong answers get voted up, but it's even more annoying when moderation tools are used that way. This new user got screwed over by high-ranking close voters who didn't actually read the question: https://stackoverflow.com/q/49847677/331041

That's an interesting point. I mostly answer in Python, HTML, and CSS, and haven't seen this happen over there.

It reminds me of when SO added the feature to make front-end code snippets in answers runnable. Perhaps an evolution of that is to provide the equivalent for backend code. Do you think this would solve the voting problem you described?

To the linked question - Do you know if it's possible to undo a "mark as dupe"?

It is possible to reopen, but it requires 5 voters with >3k rep to do so, or one voter with a gold badge for the tag.

> That said I have never felt that because I was not white I was treated differently, how would anyone even know that?

People extrapolate from names. ESPECIALLY if your name sounds indian.

What names? You do extrapolate from the bad English. Loads of Indians using UK-sounding names and UK woman names.

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