I disagree with this. You can tell someone that a question is not appropriate for a community without being a jerk. Or you can tell them that there needs to be more information in a question without being a jerk. I do not think being mean is a prerequisite for successful curation of information.
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As Ops person who has to tell people "This is terrible idea, we are not doing it.", I've always struggled with how to tell someone nicely "No" without them seeing it as "Well, I guess my idea delivery is off, my idea is fine though."
When dealing with those personalities, seems only way to get them to completely reconsider them approach is hard "F off". Which I why I understand old Linus T. Emails. They were clearly in response to someone acting like "I just need to convince them"
There are bad questions (and ideas, like you said). Stackoverflow tried to incentivize asking good, novel questions. You grow up often being told "there are no stupid questions" but that is absolutely not the case.
A good question isn't just "how do I do x in y language?" But something more like "I'm trying to do x in y language. Here's what I've tried: <code> and here is the issue I have <output or description of issue>. <More details as relevant>"
This does two things: 1. It demonstrates that the question ask-er actually cares about whatever it is they are doing, and it's just trying to get free homework answers. 2. Ideally it forces the ask-er to provide enough information that an answer-er can do so without asking follow ups.
I'm reminded of this link: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Biggest thing as someone who has been in Discords that are geared towards support, you can either gear towards new people or professionals but walking the line between both is almost impossible.
I believe in gearing towards teachers. Q&A sites are often at their best when the Q and A come from the same source. But it needs to be someone who understands that the Q is common and can speak the language of those who don't know the A. Unfortunately, not a common skillset (typically doesn't pay the bills).
> You grow up often being told "there are no stupid questions" but that is absolutely not the case.
There are no stupid questions, but there are stupid choices about whom to ask.
Often the right choice is yourself.
The key part of your post is "has to tell people". Absolutely nobody on SO was obligated to respond to anything. The toxicity was a choice, and those doing it enjoyed it.
No, questions that don't meet the site's standards must be closed as quickly as possible, and it actively harms the site to ignore this duty.
Please read "How long should we wait for a poster to clarify a question before closing?" (https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/260263), especially my answer (https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/425738/523612), and "Why should I help close "bad" questions that I think are valid, instead of helping the OP with an answer?" (https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/429808).
To play devil's advocate, I think some people confuse terse, succinct communication with being mean. I find this to be a common cultural difference between contributors from different backgrounds.
Personally I find a lot of "welcoming" language to be excessively saccharine and ultimately insincere. Something between being talked down to like I'm a child and corpo-slop. Ultimately I don't think there's necessarily a one-size-fits-all solution here and it's weird that some people expect that such a thing can or should exist.
Personally I'm not a fan of terse writing; if something's worth saying at all it's worth using suitably expressive language to describe it, and being short and cold with people isn't a good form of interpersonal communication in my view. Pleasantries are important for establishing mutual respect, if they're considered the baseline of politeness in a particular culture then it's overtly disrespectful to forgo them with strangers. Terseness is efficient for the writer certainly, but it's not necessarily for the reader.
Written like you're on one side of the cultural barrier and think that you have to be somehow naturally correct because that's what's natural to you. To others, that attitude is just arrogant and self-centered. Why should one particular culture dictate the behavior of everyone, and especially why should it be your culture?
What you call "establishing mutual respect" is just "insincere and shallow" to others. I do not believe for a second that a grocery store cashier wants to know how my day has been.
That's not what I mean, I don't like corpo-speak either. I mean just treating people like they're human beings, neither with affected shortness nor affected warmth. I really don't like the common notion that you have to be cold and short with people to be a good engineer, it makes the culture considerably less pleasant and more abrasive than it needs to be in my view.
I could just as well turn that around and say why should we all adopt your preference of unpleasantly curt communication? Is that not also an imposition of someone else's culture?
What if short isn't "cold" at all? That's a value you're projecting to it.
I understand there are cultures that value flowery speech more than mine. I'm asking you to stop using emotionally loaded words to describe how other people behave.
> To play devil's advocate, I think some people confuse terse, succinct communication with being mean.
I agree completely (this was part of my findings in https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/394952/173477).
Exactly. When a certain moderation style is allowed, it attracts aligned personality types and produces a distinct culture. When toxicity becomes the norm, it is enjoyed by sadists and the demented, who have positioned themselves appropriately to get off on it.