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I've asked 3 questions so far

  1. The programming plant one
  2. The pronunciation of Delphi one
  3. The Unnecessary Code One

and they've all been scoffed at or given joke answers. I think I've been improving with each iteration. I've read the FAQ. I've been on SO and every other site for longer than you, I'd think I'd understand the game by now. I was under the impression that the stupid stuff I posted on SO that got closed within one hour would at least last a day on this site. But it doesn't and ya'll are playing popularity control because this site seems to be growing wildly out of proportion to it's actual usefulness.

I'm in it for myself - not to improve the internet. My cactus dies, I ask a programmer what kind of a plant they think is a cool plant a programmer might have, the kind of plant they might sell to a programmer on ThinkGeek if ThinkGeek sold plants. Everyone in the office says Del Fee, everyone in America Says Del Fi, everyone in the rest of the world says Del Fee. I think this is interesting, so I ask about it on this website. I write some dumb code, I think it is funny so I want to see what other dumb code people write - at least as good a question as least useful comment. And asked in the right place, made it community wiki - and people have the discourtesy to try to close it.

P.S. I don't give a hoot about "Jeff's guidelines". I'm not sure what he's thinking if he wants to micromanage the kinds of questions we can ask on a community driven site.

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    It sounds like you're saying "I don't understand why my questions aren't considered good," but also "I don't care about the guidelines as to what's considered good." You seem to be answering your own question.
    – Fishtoaster
    Sep 30, 2010 at 3:23
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    Yeah I wrote this before I realized Jeffery made it part of the FAQ. Whatever, good luck moderating this thing tomorrow.
    – Peter Turner
    Sep 30, 2010 at 3:47
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    Can anyone justify the closing of the Delphi question? It fits criteria 1, 3, 4 (somewhat), and 6, and had at least a few answers that fit criteria 2, and 5. As for a closing reason of "Not constructive", how is the correct pronounciation of a language name not constructive?
    – Note to self - think of a name
    Sep 30, 2010 at 21:20
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    FWIW, the Delphi question is open now.
    – David Thornley
    Oct 1, 2010 at 16:37
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    Good, do you mind voting to open the code question? The plant one is a lost cause, as is my cactus.
    – Peter Turner
    Oct 1, 2010 at 16:38
  • In my opinion, Programmers is a shambles. And I'm fed up with all the bickering between the users and mods.
    – Captain Sensible
    Jun 28, 2011 at 1:19
  • @Captain what is your basis for those remarks? And if you have a good case, why not post a new meta question so that something can be done about it?
    – Nicole
    Jun 28, 2011 at 19:37

2 Answers 2

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I've been on SO and every other site for longer than you, I'd think I'd understand the game by now. I was under the impression that the stupid stuff I posted on SO that got closed within one hour would at least last a day on this site.

Well... You did understand the point. For about a week. Then it all started to fall apart. Call it conflicting visions, or tragedy of the commons, or whatever else you want... 'Fact is, a number of folks don't want this site to be a free-for-all or the "anti-SO" or anything of the sort.

Don't quite know what it will be yet. Current plan seems to be to position it as a sort of grab-bag for everything that's sorta development-related but doesn't quite fit or garner enough attention on SO... With those "guidelines" in place to stave off the sort of idle discussion that's never been welcome on SO and which first prompted the establishment of P.SE.

In the meantime... You posts your questions and you takes your chances. Maybe they'll fly, maybe they won't. Best of luck!

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I was also under the impression that this a discussion board, which means topic that can be discussed, not objectively answered (anti-SO), for anything vaguely related to programming. E.g. Best work hours?

If some people want this site to be more objective and on-topic, it will just become an SO duplicate, which is far from what I want, and what anybody needs.

Though I must agree, there is a limit to how off-topic you can get, and there are a lot of questions here that have nearly no connection, if any, to programming.

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    StackExchange is actually explicitly set up to avoid being a discussion board. This is reflected in the design: Answers aren't displayed in chronological order, but rather sorted by votes. The whole menagerie of SE sites were designed as a Question and Answer tools.
    – KChaloux
    Oct 29, 2012 at 13:27

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