Disappointing response to first post

Question

First, some background

I first joined Stack Overflow 4.5 years ago, and have been active on various sites, especially English and Bicycles.

On English, I have reviewed 690 Close Votes, 328 First Posts, 268 Low Quality Posts, 42 Late Answers, 64 Reopen Votes, and 48 Suggested Edits.

On Bicycles, I have reviewed 651 Close Votes, 1328 First Posts, 558 Low Quality Posts, 552 Late Answers, 390 Suggested Edits, and 41 Reopen Votes.

Across the various sites I've written over 570 posts.

The point I am making with this evidence is that I have a good grasp of how various sites work, that each one has it's own character, and I have contributed strongly to Stack Overflow community.

So, when I decided to join Italian, I was very careful to watch how the site works.

The Issue

I saw Naming a male pet Monkey posted some days ago. With my reviewing experience, my immediate thought was it will be closed. It's not clear, and the way it was written meant any answer was as good as any other, like a survey question.

But it wasn't closed. Answers started to accumulate. Ok, I think, on this site such a question is OK. So I wrote an answer. The OP lives in Texas, and has written in English, so my answer suggested a mixture of Italian and English. With my level of Italian (very beginner), I certainly did not expect to be able to answer any question.

My answer started getting down votes, without explanation. I have done that myself, to experienced members of a site when they are known to argue.

But as a new member, I expect better. I expect to be told what I'm doing wrong. When I stood up for myself, the response from @Denis

This does not answer the question. [snip]

Is simply factually incorrect. The question asks for a monkey name, and I gave one. So it's difficult to learn from his feedback.

Then the upvoted response from @DaG confuses personal opinion with why the downvote mechanism exists (see the [help] Vote Down page:

When should I vote down? Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy, no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps dangerously incorrect. ... Down-voting should be reserved for extreme cases. It's not meant as a substitute for communication and editing.

Notice that the recommended reasons for down voting do not include whether you think the post is useful to the OP, or useful to you personally. Indeed many good answers may be much more useful to other readers.

The OP can decide for themselves of an answer is useful.

So down voting should be a fairly abstract decision, as the quote above suggests. Going beyond those reasons makes it personal.

Concluding remarks and questions

I think this situation shows a poorly run site, with poor review practices. We know very well on other sites that low quality questions attract low quality answers, so early review, especially for new members, is vital to the character and quality of a site.

I checked out the Review pages and found an astonishingly low number of reviews. My questions are

• Was the question reviewed, before I brought it to the attention of @Denis and @Dag?

• Was my answer reviewed, since it was a first post? If it was reviewed then one would expect some feedback, and a welcome message as is frequently done on other sites.

• Is it normal on this site to be so unwelcoming to new members?

• Are these cultural differences? I notice @DaG is Italian, but @Denis does not disclose his origin (in his profile - as he points out in his answer below he links to such information). Of our moderators @Charo♦'s location is Spain, and @egreg♦'s location is Italy. I am Australian.

My principle goal here is to point out the unsatisfactory way this new member has been treated, and what I believe to be a weakness in the way this Stack is being run, so that these can be addressed. As I said in my comment, I think this is bullying behavior. It's very disappointing, and I expect better of a Stack Overflow site.

I have no concern about that particular answer. It is completely unimportant to my purpose for being here, and I can easily delete it.

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I thank Denis for his answer and his willingness to engage, and up voted it because it is useful / helpful to see his explanation. I do however disagree with the way he uses down votes; as discussed above I think they should be used much more cautiously than this. In my view none of the quoted reasons apply; he disagrees, but maybe he can be persuaded :-)

Answer 1

I could have closed the question as off-topic soon after it appeared, but I think that waiting for other members' opinion is better.

If your reaction to a question is “it will be closed”, the best approach would be to not answer it and maybe leave a comment asking for clarification.

The question could be rephrased: instead of asking “How can I name my pet?” it could be “Why do some animal species names have single gender?” or any similar question regarding the language, rather than asking for opinion. It could be complemented with an example about the monkey pet, but the main part of the question should be about Italian.

Answer 2

I am Italian, and I do not hide my origin: on my profile you can see a link to my website, which contains a complete CV.

That said, I downvoted the answer because I considered it a very low quality one, and I commented accordingly (although I might have written the comment somewhat hastily). Also I would like to point out that I commented right before downvoting, not "after you stood up for yourself".

Now, the question is not that good either (you'll notice I voted to close it), but at least I did not interpret it as "what's a good name for a monkey". My interpretation was of a more general kind, something like "how do you name animals for which the grammatical gender disagrees with the biological sex?"

I am afraid that it takes time (sometime days) for questions to be closed on this site. It is a consequence of the community not being very active.

I am sorry if that has been perceived as bullying, that was not my intention at all. However I stand by my opinion that your answer is not really helpful for the OP, which is all that a downvote represents.

Let me reiterate that, at least for me, you are absolutely welcome to this site, both as an asker and an answerer. I regret that your first experience was somewhat confrontational.

Answer 3

The issue appears to be, "It's neither English or Italian."

To a greater degree than most other SE language sites I've been on, many Italian SE members are "purists" regarding the language. Hence such an answer would not be well received here. This was particularly true because, as one of the native speakers pointed out, your answer inadvertently had negative connotations, kind of like selling the Chevy "Nova" in Spanish-speaking countries, where it means "no go."

Your suggestion wasn't good Italian, but you clearly "tried," both with regard to the question, and to stay on topic. My view is clearly a minority one for the Italian SE community however, and the community as a group decided that your answer wasn't "good enough" for the site.

I've done similar things on e.g. German SE with greater acceptance. Frankly, I would not give an answer like yours here. When you've been on as many SE sites as I have, you will find that site standards vary meaningfully. So your long experience on some sites doesn't always translate.

Answer 4

It is true that the question is asking which name to give to a monkey pet, but the site is about Italian language, not which word Italians would invent to give a name to a pet.

Saying that the answer is not answering the question is not exact. It's not much helpful for future users, who come to the site to learn more about Italian.