@Belle-Sophie If people are being rude you should flag those comments or posts. But I wonder if you're interpreting curtness or blunt feedback as rudeness.
While we take action when people are being brutally honest for brutality's sake, a lot of posts get critical feedback here which can be interpreted as dismissive. But very often those questions are unanswerable without clarifications from the OP and it's impossible to bring the question up to site standards without asking clear questions or telling the OP to improve his post himself to match standards.
A few days back I saw a comment saying something among the lines of "I shouldn't need a crystal ball to understand the question", when the OP had written a sentence in not correct English. That doesn't sound very nice to me. I flagged it. The comment is now gone so I can't show it anymore. It's comments like that one that rub me the wrong way. So yeah, I respectfully disagree. I think there's no reason to be rude to people if they don't understand how the site works. Of course, it's not required to help them either, but being rude is definitely not the way.
@Lilienthal I think you're missing my point. I'm not against down votes or close votes. Far from. They are good. The sites goal is becoming a Q&A after all, as you said. Some posts get closed in a friendly and clear manner, like this one: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/110744/how-to-be-promoted-to-grade-6-in-the-uk-civil-service
I feel that some posts are not so nice towards new users and/or people new to the workplace. Like this post. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/a/110669/44419 It's not rude, really, but it does feel very condecending to me. Luckily, answers can be downvoted if the community doesn't agree, but that's not the case for comments.
So, while I don't think people have the responsibility to help, they do have a responsibility to be nice. And that doesn't include just 'not insulting'. I think that includes not being condecending or talking like you're better or maybe even being blunt. A simple "welcome" can take off so much bluntness already, it makes any sentence much nicer. For the most part, people do that. And I just had to vent my frustration for a moment about that. I'm glad that things are improving. I have no idea how it is on other stacks or even other websites, but that doesn't matter. There's always a place wh…
@Belle-Sophie You flagged the comment and it got deleted, so I am not sure I see the problem. I also seem to recall the user who made that comment doesn't visit this site that often.
It is impossible to prevent rudeness because we cannot control what people post, but the site deals with rudeness reasonably well. That is as good as we can do.
I cannot be preaching from a moral high ground on that topic though. I have myself made quite a few nasty remarks over the years, but I try to stay in line as much as I can.
Well yeah, I'm with @MaskedMan on that @Belle-Sophie. You flagged it and the comment was removed. System working as its designed to. If we see patterns of rude behaviour we'll take further action as needed.
@Belle-Sophie Are you referring specifically to that answer that's already on -7? Because again, that's the system working as designed.
Comments can't be downvoted indeed, which is one of the reasons we tend to clean up comments that are being used for incorrect reasons.
But beyond that the broader subject of welcoming new users and being open and kind instead of curt and dismissive comes up very regularly.
I encourage you to look through some meta threads about this because, well, there's only so many times I want to repeat myself. ;)
I think I've dropped a few answers on meta with my (personal) take on what we should and shouldn't do for new users.
There's been a meta thread from @MonicaCellio about this recently as well, specifically on the "don't chase users away" concept.
The Workplace gets a lot of questions whose initial versions don't fit. We correctly close those. Our closure rate is around 50% (I can't find an exact number in the tools), so this is a widespread issue, particularly with new users who aren't as experienced with our expectations.
Fortunately,...
Would asking a question about medical school admissions, compared to STEM PhD admissions, and hiring practices, be on-topic here?
I have thought of either posting it here, or on Academia or Economics.
Economics I'd rather avoid, since it seems like a very low-activity site.
@Belle-Sophie I find sugarcoated feedback to be a nuisance. There's the inefficiency introduced by unnecessary "encoding" (coating) and "decoding" (uncoating), as well as possibility of introducing errors in the process.
Of course, "your question sucks and you are an idiot" is not acceptable, but dancing around the issue with long winded speeches like "that sounds like an interesting question, and I am particularly impressed with how you articulate your situation and your feelings so eloquently. This question could have been better described though if you had considered the possibility of the other person being correct, or how the situation would be if looked from their perspective." doesn't help either.
"Have you considered the possibility that you could be wrong, or that the other person might look at it differently?" gets to the point much more effectively, and is more likely to actually improve the post. If the asker takes offense to that and starts complaining about "rudeness", then we shouldn't really bother.
The Workplace gets a lot of questions whose initial versions don't fit. We correctly close those. Our closure rate is around 50% (I can't find an exact number in the tools), so this is a widespread issue, particularly with new users who aren't as experienced with our expectations.
Fortunately,...
Would asking a question about medical school admissions, compared to STEM PhD admissions, and hiring practices, be on-topic here?
I have thought of either posting it here, or on Academia or Economics.
Economics I'd rather avoid, since it seems like a very low-activity site.
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