I have never used Stack Exchange before (besides google searches that lead me to Stack Overflow) so my expectations were a little bit too high I would say. My initial assumption about Stack Exchange was that it seemed like it was Reddit, just different. I went in face-first and just opened different Stack Exchange tabs that aligned to my interests/skills.

I looked around a lot of the sites that I thought I could be useful in (Game Development, Arqade, SciFi, etc) only to realize they were either dead or had questions that were way too complicated for me to actually answer.

I dug through countless tags on Arqade just trying to find something I could contribute to as I thought that’s where most of my knowledge was. (spoiler alert: turns out I’m not knowledgeable enough). Most of the posts on the front page were all about Minecraft, something I never got into while anything else was months old which lead me to believe that the page is somewhat dead. I decided to check back later for new posts, as I might be lucky and find a new question that was not about Minecraft and I did.

Someone had asked a very detailed question about creating video games for the elderly and how from his experience they were always geared towards a certain genre of videogames. This person had asked a question that did not quite belong on the Arqade page but rather the Game Development one. So, I took it upon myself to redirect them to the other page because they are more likely to find a response there and it was mainly off-topic.

After profusely refreshing the page waiting for those points to start pouring in, I was hit with a downvote.  Needless to say, I was both angry and confused, I just helped out this guy immediately after he asked for help, but I was being downvoted instead of thanked? I checked and found that he had responded with something along the lines of “good idea.” A couple minutes later and I got another downvote. I am still both confused and angry but mainly confused as I clearly helped someone out who acknowledged my help, yet I was still getting downvoted. I got a notification that warned me that my post would be removed if one more person downvoted me, and they did. I was hit with the 3 downvotes and my answer was removed (Which is why I can’t post a screenshot.)

I carried my anger and confusion over to another page, Seasoned Advice which is meant for culinary work and found myself just digging for anything I could answer. I eventually stumbled upon someone who was looking for a specific fried egg recipe, with the information he had given it took me seconds to find the exact page he was looking for. As I commented on his post with the link(response seen below), I found myself eagerly waiting for his response, his approval of my comment. I needed to redeem myself from what happened at Arqade.

He is yet to respond. Instead, I had a mod and another random person just scold me for giving a link as an answer. That it was not acceptable to just post a link even though the person was looking for a link, instead I am expected to rewrite the information from the link to an entire post just in case that link dies one day. As much as that argument makes sense, I don’t understand why that responsibility falls on me, the person answering rather than the person asking the questions. Mainly I do not see why I should be responsible to make sure HIS post is archivable through my answer.

I also checked out the chatrooms in hopes of finding a place to have some sort of discussion rather than just answering or posing questions, but I was not allowed to participate in any chat rooms due to not having enough points; which I found to be counterproductive as I lost my inclination to be involved on that platform.

One thing that struck me about Stack Exchange in general is that it is not really a place that allows for discussion, something I did not know before using it. The lack of freedom to discuss made me uncomfortable, I constantly felt like if I had half an answer or my answer was wrong then there was no room for me to exist on that platform without being heavily scrutinized.

As much as this experience was valuable, I don’t think I ever want to use Stack Exchange again, people are too mean. (Feel free to try convincing me otherwise.)