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I think the deleting and closing of my posts are very much questionable.

How unacceptable are questions about software engineering concepts and principles? Although pragmatism is important, concepts and principles have the real best chance to be generalized and applied to real problems. Questions and answers can be conducted with different amount of abstractness or concreteness. Claims that a post is not specific simplify the issue to binary and are very much subjective.

How unacceptable is a post with more than one question marks? In my posts, it is usually a question followed by a rephrasing question, or by some subquetions which serve to clarify the question and to constructively lead other users when they write an answer. They are not independent or unrelated questions. Counting the occurrences of question marks in a post and furthermore accusing the post for asking multiple questions imply that the accuser has no ability or willingness to understand the post, and does not allow unfamiliar or different things to exist.

Regarding the behaviours of some powerful and privileged users including some moderators, being exclusive not inclusive, lack of open-mindedness and empathy, interpretation of policy to own liking, obsession with power and its usage, covering up each other for having the "team" spirit, and lack of being monitored and criticized, effectively undermine our justice and democracy, and lead to obstruction on normal questions and answers. The moderator team doesn't have any mechanism of examining and correcting themselves. The more we users stand up against abuses and look for ways to combat them, the better the community we will have.

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I'll tackle the easy one first:

What are the differences between concurrency computational models and concurrency patterns?

When I initially wrote this, that question had been open and had not been deleted.

It has since been closed as too broad, and I think that the close reason text accurately sums up why: Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer. Avoid asking multiple distinct questions at once. There are three non-specific questions within this first example.

Is broker a design pattern and mentioned in Design Patterns by Gamma et al?

This is a trivial and easily discovered question, as pointed out in the comments. The list of patterns within the GoF book is widely available and easily found. Asking "is foo in bar book?" is not a question that this site was built around. It begs for LMGTFY type answers that are unfriendly (to be kind), and they don't build the type of quality Q&A this site is looking for.

How is the SOA pattern different from the client-server pattern?

This question is confounding several concepts. And while I might quibble over closing as too broad instead of unclear, the outcome should remain the same.

SOA (service oriented architecture) and client-server are architectures, not patterns. Confounding the terms implies a significant misunderstanding of the two topics. The points you lay out in the question are sufficiently vague as to be applicable to both architectures and failing to identify any differences between the two. That strongly implies a lot of confusion about what the architectures actually are.

A solid answer is going to have to define SOA as well as client-server before it can really get into the differences between the two approaches. The length and detail involved is too much to ask within a StackExchange question.

Finally, you asked:

How unacceptable are questions about software engineering concepts and principles?

And I think you're missing some of the point. StackExchange is not a replacement for wikipedia. It's not a replacement for tutorials. It's not meant for discussions or extended back & forth. It's not a replacement for proper coursework.

It's meant to be a place where specific questions can be asked, and someone knowledgeable in the matter can answer the question in a few paragraphs. This intentionally excludes some interesting questions simply because they don't fit the StackExchange Q&A model.

A much more restrictive version of your question would be "How unacceptable are [my] questions about software engineering concepts and principles for this site?" And the answer there is "sorry, but you're out past the limits of what this site was intended to handle."

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  • (1) I have quite a number of posts deleted in past few months or so. Probably only I can see them deleted, and other users can't. I like to bring them up just to let others judge whether the deletions are fair.
    – Tim
    Jun 27, 2019 at 2:08
  • (2) SOA is an architectural pattern. books.google.com/…. Regard of what you believe, you should hold an open mind to accept understandings different from yours. If you think it is wrong, then post an answer to explain why, but that can't be the reason to close or delete the post.
    – Tim
    Jun 27, 2019 at 2:08
  • (3) I haven't read all of your reply, but once I do, I will address them. But in general, I don't think it is healthy that moderators or high profile users try to cover up for each other. Instead, these users with power or privileges should be critical of each other. That is democracy.
    – Tim
    Jun 27, 2019 at 2:09
  • (4) Questions about software engineering concepts and principles are specific. What unspecific are about them? Q and A can be conducted at multiple levels. What is the point to make up some project, just to make the question "valid" according to you, when the question can be addressed perfectly with fundamental concepts and principles?
    – Tim
    Jun 27, 2019 at 2:15
  • (5) Since you bring up something like policy, there is no policy saying that questions about software engineering concepts and principles are unacceptable. It is really up to the interpretation of moderators and users with powers and privileges. While most of the users don't, some users tend to wield their powers and privileges beyond reasonable, causing lots of posts closed and deleted unnecessarily and suppression of normal Q&A participations. But there is insufficient measures to counteract those abuses. In that sense, it becomes important for powerful users to avoid being exclusive.
    – Tim
    Jun 27, 2019 at 2:24
  • For example, Is this putting words into my mouth: "What do you mean by 'fall out of favor?' Are you one of those folks who simply follows the latest fashion, regardless of its relative merits?"(softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/393860/…). It is a comment from a moderator to what I wrote "I don't have much exposure to them, but concurrency models seem to be mentioned more often than concurrency patterns. Do concurrency patterns fall out of favor?"
    – Tim
    Jun 27, 2019 at 2:34
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    @Tim It looks like you're simply seeking to reaffirm your preconceived notion of events as opposed to actually seeking constructive feedback. I'm no longer participating in this conversation.
    – user53019
    Jun 27, 2019 at 2:40
  • In between, the first link got deleted too, maybe you can update your answer?
    – Doc Brown
    Jun 27, 2019 at 6:23
  • @GlenH7 That is your choice. But I would encourage your moderator team to begin reflecting on your own and each other's behaviours. Several related posts have considered these actions as power abuses, and should sufficiently warrant self examinations and maybe investigation or im* query. Under the current system with lacking self correction mechanism within powerful users, I have little hope that you are willing to do so,.
    – Tim
    Jun 27, 2019 at 11:11
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    @Tim: On Stack Exchange, the "democracy" that you refer to takes the form of working out a site scope via open discussion, which this site has done exhaustively.
    – Robert Harvey
    Jun 27, 2019 at 15:40
  • @Rob If you have a decent amount of self examination, you be doing it now, instead of asking others to work out an open discussion caused by your power abuses. Just remember being a moderator gives you ultimate powers and also imposes a higher standard on yourself. When multiple users and multiple posts have reported the same experiences with your moderation behaviours, it tells that there is something wrong.
    – Tim
    Jun 28, 2019 at 0:35
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    @Tim: "When multiple users and multiple posts have reported the same experiences with your moderation behaviours, it tells that there is something wrong." No, it doesn't. The "multiple users" consists of 3 people. That's not enough to declare that something is wrong with the site. That only shows that some people disagree with how the site is currently working. And for someone who seems to feel that the other side isn't open-minded enough, you've showed a profound unwillingness to be open to the possibility that you're not particularly open-minded either.
    – Nicol Bolas
    Jun 30, 2019 at 19:23
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    @Tim: Then why do you blame others for not believing that the actions are power abuses at all? Because that's really the issue here: you believe that actions X are "power abuses", while most others do not agree. You haven't really provided evidence for your position; your argument boils down to "these are software engineering concepts, so questions that mention them must be allowed on SE.SE, and if you vote against them, then you're abusing your power." That is not a convincing argument.
    – Nicol Bolas
    Jun 30, 2019 at 19:48
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    @NicolBolas There are much more than 3 people (and remember most victims don't speak up against the abuses), while you downplayed to 3. Concept questions are on topic, while you claim they are are not. My post provides sentences of arguments, while you oversimplified what I wrote and put that into my mouth and then claimed it is not convincing. I never intend to ask uses that stand behind abuses like you in particular to believe what I said, so you can quit saying that now.
    – Tim
    Jun 30, 2019 at 19:56
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    @Tim: So this question is not in fact a "discussion" question, attempting to have a reasoned exchange of arguments and positions which might lead to convincing someone of something. It is instead intended to be a standard around which to rally those who already agree with you. Since thus far, you have rallied... 4 downvotes and 1 upvotes, I'd say it's not working.
    – Nicol Bolas
    Jun 30, 2019 at 20:14
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Thought you might like a second answer to your question.

Basically all three of your questions there are way too academic. Whether some pattern should be labeled "design" or "architecture" for example is meaningless without context and trivial with context.

People invent these kind of terms and classifications in order to explain their ideas. So if you say "does Dr X in book Y say this..?" then it's (usually) trivial. Go read the book. But the terms aren't unique, so if you ask without that context you can have a dozen equally correct answers from a dozen sources.

Your question boils down to "do my research for me!"

If you have a real issue then you need to frame the context so that anyone can read up on what you are asking and give you an answer.

eg. "Dr X and Dr Y seem to disagree about Q in their books A and B. ..."

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