Welcome! LQ is neither PerlMonks nor any of the flavors of StackExchange!

You may have noticed that there is no downvoting here. (People can say that your post was "helpful" to them, but not the other way around.) So, no one can vote you off the island. :)

All that we "oldies" would really ask is that you observe and read the "stickies." Or, I would put it more-or-less like this:

1. Don't ask homework questions. (Speaking as a part-time college instructor myself ...) "If you are having trouble, then you are not the only person in the classroom who is doing so! Your instructor needs to be 'in the loop,' so that (s)he may achieve both the instructor's goals and yours." Ask your instructor first. Please.
2. Please do at least a little bit of due diligence. "Google it.™" Don't just spew a console-dump in our general directions and then just throw up your hands. Don't ask us to do your job for you. (And, if you're just "afraid to ask your boss" ... "ask your boss, dammit!" ;))
3. Give your post a meaningful title, and complete content. (Don't just title it, "Help me pleeuz!") The title attracts our attention, and the post itself gives a complete description both of what you have so-far done and of exactly what question/problem you are facing. Tell us all relevant details. The better you do your "prep work" in presenting your question to us, the faster and more effectively we can (maybe) solve it.
4. Write for the future, simply because you are! Many years hence, someone may well encounter your post. Make your post a targeted information resource for them. Take the time to give them a careful description of your problem, so that they can know that the problem applies (or, doesn't ...) to them, too.
5. (therefore ...) Bring closure. "Your future footsteps-follower, many years hence," will only be frustrated by a cryptic follow-up of "I solved it." Having opened your can-of-worms, be sure to close it with a follow-up summary post detailing exactly what you did. And, mark the post as "[SOLVED]" to further identify it as a thread which bears a solution.
6. Don't be afraid to ask. Like many others, I "volunteer" many hours on this forum every week, precisely to "give" answers even as I "take" knowledge.
7. Again, welcome! (We mean that.)

It might be helpful if I mention that the post was not a Trojan horse for thinly disguised complaining about LQ. I have for years, as long as I've heard "newbie" and "noob," said to myself "What would I call the opposite of a newbie" or words to that effect, and had just thought of it again.

Whatever my attitude toward rhetorical behavior at LQ, it is only part of my overall reaction to behavior on various discussion forum websites (and certain other types of sites where people display certain attitudes and modes of speech), that has me questioning the the wisdom of the very idea of online discussions. I can't characterize LQ generally with words like "mocking." If I had to describe responses to my posts in one or two words: they would be: unpredictable, totally unpredictable.

I haven't heard of the sites mentioned by Sundial. I don't think I'll have a look.

The difference between LQ and the stacks is that LQ is a forum and Stack Exchange is a question/answer voting site. LQ is based on discussion - Stacks are based on answers that are perceived as right.

I am so often reminded that for many online this has largely replaced actual human contact, as usual, both for better and for worse. The "worse" part is that as much as many humans try to ignore or deny it, we are animals and do operate very much on instinct. We are just fortunate enough to have a "manual override". In person we get numerous conscious and subliminal cues often called "body language" which of course is non-existent online with the minor exception of webcam real time coms and that is even reduced data.

It's difficult to use explicit language that is also concise, but we should exert the effort if we want or communications to be properly understood and have the desired effect. Much more important is how we respond to others. Even in person A != A', we don't always get exact meanings but online with nothing but (often badly written) raw text it is just SO EASY to take offense instead of talking it through like gentlemen and the race is on!

Just as in this post it might be misconstrued to imagine I am speaking as if I have it all figured out when that is not the case. I fall prey to miscommunications regularly. This is just a reminder, as much to myself as anyone else, that texting leaves a great deal to the imagination which is probably why it is so popular for flirtation. If you think back to school days I think it is easy to see that real bullies, those that enjoy crushing others, are considerably less than 10% of any population so we all should be less than ready for verbal fisticuffs.

I think it's tough, also, with computer use and Linux or other "alternative" use to find challenging responses.
I admit I expect that when I have an issue with linux duistro it willbe met with questions and, if I go off the beaten-track, demands for explanaotions.
My best friends and I only get together physically a couple of times or so a year but when we do we sound like we're arguing -- it's just how some people exchange opinions.

Both of the sites that I referred to support downvotes, and their participants use them very often.

LQ does not.

I scurried away from the Stacks in less than two weeks and vowed never to participate there again. I was involved at PerlMonks for many years but finally gave up on them, too.

You can see for yourself how long I've been hanging around LQ ... (Wow, my 13th-Year Anniversary! Or, thereabouts ...) :eek:

The problem that I have with "downvoting," and with a focus on "voting for against posts, and by extension, their authors," is that this focuses attention very-negatively upon people, and serves as a very powerful counter-incentive to participation in the site at all. I observed posts receiving negative votes within seconds of their having been posted on "the Stacks," sometimes enough to freeze the question – making it unanswerable(!) – before it ever received one single answer. (And, I found nothing at all wrong with the questions that received such an icy treatment.) I couldn't help but wonder what the poor soul who wrote them thought about that, or about a website/community that had just treated him or her in this insufferably rude way.

"If you provide people with the technical means to :jawa: on other people in public places, guess what they do?" :rolleyes:

I also watched a post's score go up, then suddenly go right back down, and I could never see the two counts separately – only their sum. Frankly, I don't care how many people don't think that a post is useful. But it is helpful to know how many people did, especially if I can use this as search-criteria.

"The Stacks" also allow you to edit(!) other people's posts to suit your fancy, and once again that just doesn't sit well with me. How do you know, better than the original author did, what that person "meant" to say? How presumptuous to think that you could say it better. The point of the exchange is not "the poster's particular choice of words." Once again, this is not advancing what should be the true purpose of any such website: to invite questions, and to encourage people to want to write good answers. To make both parties feel free and welcomed to do so, which "any sort of negative feedback does n-o-t do."

I also surmise that they don't have moderators. (Never underestimate the vital importance of a great moderator team ...)

So, very quickly, I said: "To hell with this!" :mad:

LQ provides the ability to say that "you found this post helpful," but not the other way around. I think that's very, very good. It also has moderators who are "on top of their game" every day all day.