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So this question recently came up, and I'm not sure quite how to deal with the problems it caused. There are (at time of writing) 39 edits. Now some of them are grammatical, and some are clarifying, but the majority are... slight adjustments to the question based on answers to probe deeper into the topic.

The problem is that over time, the question effectively drifts into a different one - making existing answers invalid.

I don't want to suggest making a new question, since the new question would not be significantly different - leading to duplication. I don't want to suggest going to chat, since we're not a chat site. And I don't really know of any good general programming forums to suggest instead.

So how to discourage this sort of interactive question?

This meta question is relevant, but focuses on edits which are objectively bad. The individual edits of this question aren't bad in isolation, but the style/frequency of them certainly are.

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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Close it (future questions like that) and / or vote to delete (current question).

It's a discussion in disguise as evidenced by the lengthy comment threads.

39 edits really embodies the close reason of "unclear what you're asking" which is why it isn't fitting well within the Q&A format. It's more appropriate for chat.

There was possibly a solid Q&A in there, but the desire for discussion pushes me towards shutting it all down by deleting it.

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    Yup. Go to chat.stackexchange.com, find the user, start a new chat room with him, and add link to the chat room in question comments
    – user2622016
    Feb 17, 2015 at 12:54

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