while I agree about SO culture, it's probably the case that most of the laid-off staff took no part in that behavior.
The Great Reset 2.0 which might save SO:
Everyone whose downvotes exceed a certain threshold has their reputation points reduced to zero. And since "sentiment" is measurable nowadays, the same would be done for anyone whose hostile comments exceed some threshold. Probably other behavior would be similarly penalized.
Do you lose some valuable expertise? Undoubtedly, but making an example out of people is a warning to the rest.
> Everyone whose downvotes exceed a certain threshold has their reputation points reduced to zero.
Why it would help?
While closing random questions as duplicates of similar but different question is obnoxious, downvoting "do my homework for me" questions is very useful.
> While closing random questions as duplicates of similar but different question is obnoxious, downvoting "do my homework for me" questions is very useful.
In what way? Who really cares if it's homework or a newbie question? Are you such an expert in everything that you never ask newbie questions?
This arrogant attitude is toxic, spreads quickly, and poisons far too many communities. I'm grateful to dang et al that HN hasn't become like this.
Just ignoring the newbie questions is best, unless you want to answer honestly.
On the r/jazz and r/classicalmusic, almost every day there's some question like "I'm just getting into <genre>. What are some top albums/artists I should listen to?"
Someone does answer those questions. Props to those saintly people.
SO/SE might benefit from a "this question smells like homework" button that could shunt questions that are posted without any code or evidence of adequate clue off to a forum specifically for homework, rather than leaving them in the general queue.
> Everyone whose downvotes exceed a certain threshold has their reputation points reduced to zero.
This could be reasonable or not, depending on the "threshold". SO/SE already have mechanisms (which aren't perfect) to deal with emotional up/down-voting. It already 'punishes' with a 2 rep cost for downvoting an answer. It doesn't for downvoting a question.
while I agree about SO culture, it's probably the case that most of the laid-off staff took no part in that behavior.
The Great Reset 2.0 which might save SO:
Everyone whose downvotes exceed a certain threshold has their reputation points reduced to zero. And since "sentiment" is measurable nowadays, the same would be done for anyone whose hostile comments exceed some threshold. Probably other behavior would be similarly penalized.
Do you lose some valuable expertise? Undoubtedly, but making an example out of people is a warning to the rest.