It is crucial to bear in mind that Stack Overflow strives to uphold a specific standard of quality in both questions and answers. The platform also emphasizes self-learning and encourages users to research before posting questions.

see some comments here

The thing is, Stack Overflow is meant to be a question and answer site. They dislike questions that don't have definitive answers, and they don't tolerate any discussion.

It's not meant to be a forum, like say, Reddit. The people that dislike Stack Overflow for these reasons don't understand the purpose of Stack Overflow and they want it to be something it's not.

I think yes. They downvote for nothing. And they do not retake downvoting after edit.

I think there is a loby here. They grow theirselves.

Do you believe Stack Overflow is toxic?

Toxic may be a stretch, but I would certainly call it swampy. I stopped contributing to that platform after several negative reactions to detailed answers I provided.

My answers were never wrong, but they didn't align with the strict perspective of the poster.

I see you are a user at Stack Overflow (so am I). You have a few questions and a few answers. That is the general trend. Sometimes people have questions and expect answers. Others have answers (these are voluntary) for questions.

It takes time, experience and participation to get an understanding of any environment. If you dont like down voting, dont do it. If you dont like a comment or an answer flag it. You are free to comment what you think of a question or an answer or a comment. If you like an answer or a comment upvote it. Or, just browse questions and answers and comments - learn.

I sometimes see the newcomers (even who has used the website before) dont follow basic rules - these rules are elaborate, clear, and well documented. People sometimes post questions without proper research, no formatting, bad grammar and language, poor explanation, and flouting basic rules of the website and in general a public forum. These are toxic too. These can get hard on others - people who are looking for answers, learning, solutions, volunteers, and the web site staff.

People of all kinds of experiences, attitudes, expectations, baggage, hover and hang around over these websites. There is also a lot of volunteering there. There can be beginner, learning, learned, great, and poor quality volunteering too.

Though I dont post questions often, I find quite a few answers and solutions there. It was a great experience too.

I agree ✊

No. I do think Stack Overflow is hostile to new users. There are many rules and specific guidelines, which are enforced without any mercy. The platform has a steep learning curve as well. That said, the purpose is centered around making sure the content on the website retains a certain amount of quality, and Stack Overflow's success demonstrates that. Perhaps the site could be gentler with newcomers, but there is a reason behind it all.

I've never had a bad experience on Stack Overflow per se, but I'll always only post a question on there as a last resort, which I guess is the way it's supposed to be.

But the main reason I do that is not just because I've exhausted all my options but also because I always get the feeling I'm either going to get patronised, made to feel stupid or criticised for the quality of my code for example. It could just be down to my lack of confidence sometimes but I feel it can be a pretty harsh place, especially for newcomers. It feels like there are a lot of egos floating about there.

But for the most part people have been helpful when I've needed it.

Some users are, yes. But some also don't understand what the platform is about. It's not a "do my assignment for me" platform. It's all about solving specific issues, that more often than not have already been solved in the past.

Stack Overflow is now the last place I would ever consider asking a new question. Sites like Reddit are much better & helpful for asking questions and actually getting relevant answers.

It is very toxic. When you ask a normal question, they say it's stupid. When you ask a hard question, they get angry because they don't know it and say it's stupid, too.

You are criticized by people with high reputation. When you answering or questioning. They will always find some fault and will downvote.
In my case, when I just started answering questions, I stumbled upon 2 similar questions and I answered them same. And one guy checked my profile and because, I just started and had given only 7-8 answers, he said that I'm repeating my answers and downvoted my answer. I replied him that the answer is correct. But he replied with that you should share your previous answer. Ok I got that but whats the reason for downvote when you can clearly see I just started. If its not demotivating and toxic and I dont know what is.

In my recent interaction with Stack Overflow, I had about 8 people respond to my question. Two started out with a patronizing response in the comments. When I pointed out that they didn't understand my question, one of them became offended and my question and my question got an immediate downvote. Every time I pointed out something to this person in the comments, I'd get an immediate downvote on my question. Within a day, my question was deleted. There are highly toxic people in Stack Overflow. However, there were 6 people there who took my question seriously and were able to give comments that helped me before my question was taken down. I would suggest, that if you ask a question on Stack Overflow, be prepared to encounter highly dysfunctional people. Ignore them. There are many more people there who are genuine human beings. Sorry, my answer to this question is yes. Stack Overflow is a toxic place. For those of you who are Christian, it only takes one drop of poison to poison a barrel of water and as Christians we're weak enough to take it and wait for Jesus to purify us.

It is toxic. In fact, it's one of the most trending searches about it at this point.