Why my question about user storage is closed?

Question

I have an issue while storing user data.

Firstly post in on code review. Someone tell me that this site will be more appropriate.

Such as I was doubting between both, I post it on Software Engineering.

But it's also closed for off-topic. And here, I didn't receive any comments about it.

I know it quite difficult to ask for opinion-based question, specially on Stack Overflow. But I through that with all that I gave, that was enough to get answer.

Why both have been closed, and how can I make them on-topic ?

Answer 1

I see some issues with the question. One of them is the unclear problem statement, since the question seems to contain three different ones:

1. What is the "preferred way" of storing small sets of data in Java?

2. Why does the "Yaml library from Bungeecord" has sometimes loading errors / how can I deal with them?

3. Is there another, more stable Yaml library for Java?

Asking three questions in one alone can lead to closage with the predefined "needs more focus" reason. Sometimes, these kind of question can be salvaged by removing off-topic parts from the post and keeping the rest. However, I think in this case this won't work, since all three questions are not suitable for Softwareengineering.SE:

Ad 1: There is no "preferred way", especially not in the Java world. There are virtually dozens of ways how to store such data, but which to use is heavily opinionated. Sure, some of those ways may be better suited for your requirements than others, but in the end, it boils down to the taste and knowledge of the programmer.

Ad 2: That could be a good one for Stackoverflow, but not Softwareengineering, since we don't give debugging help here. However, Stackoverflow will only accept such questions when they contain a short code example to give others a chance to reproduce the problem.

Ad 3: Questions asking for library recommendations are explicitly off-topic for this site, and the same holds for Stackoverflow (though, like in this case, one can sometimes find some answer there, either). Today, Softwarerecs.SE is the most suitable place for such questions. Often however, it will be quicker when you simply google for "yaml java libs" (that's how I found the link to SO from above).

Since your question was already deleted, I would recommend you forget about #1, ask a proper question about #2 at Stackoverflow (with some example code), and if you want to try out a different lib (#3), start with the ones suggested among the answers behind the link to Stackoverflow I gave you above. And in the unlikely case that none of the libs will suit your needs, ask a question about it on Softwarerecs.

Answer 2

Why both have been closed, and how can I make them on-topic ?

1. Just because your question is closed, does not mean it was off-topic. Those that maintain stackexchanges tend to have very conservative temperments, and dealing with them are often an absolute pain because they end up narrowing the scope of what is allowed to be asked, often based on their own incredulity. Thus while they are essential for keeping the house clean, chasing out all the rodents and what not, they often go to far and end up wrapping all the furniture in plastic wrap, and prohibit otherwise interesting people from sitting down and having a good discussion.
2. Unfortunately your question as it stands is rodent tier.
3. Your question could exist on here, but it can't be:

• How do I fix this error?

That is for stack overflow.

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For your particular question: Its hard but I might ask it like this:

What are the qualities that would make a configuration file format human readable, easy to parse, and easy to configure?

That could give you the information you are looking for in choosing a file format.