I am active on plenty of sites on the SE network, but I asked my first question on Software Engineering SE today: What is a Drop Release? asks about a definition of a term from release management.
To my surprise, it was downvoted multiple times and closed with the reason:
Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations.
It has also received one vote for deletion already.
Now, I am trying to find out how to improve the question. Let me first try and check my interpretation of what I found in the Help Center and similar resources:
What topics can I ask about here?
If you have a question about...
As far as I know from other SE sites, only one of these has to apply, not all of them.
Software development methods and practices
Kind of, insofar as a model of releasing software products is considered a software practice.
Requirements, architecture, and design
No.
Quality assurance and testing
No.
Configuration management, build, release, and deployment
Yes, release management it is.
...then you're probably in the right place to ask your question.
Some questions, even if they appear to fit into one of the above categories, may still be off-topic:
In this listing, I am aware that matching any of the points below may make my question unsuitable for the site.
Explaining, writing or debugging code
No, my questio nis not about code.
Providing support for tools or products
No, my question is not about any particular tool or product.
Product or service recommendations, including tools, libraries or packages, programming languages, books, scholarly papers, tutorials, articles, or blogs
No, my question is not about finding any particular external work - beyond the basic goal of receiving an answer whose content can be supported by some external reference rather than being a totally unsourced claim.
Career or education advice
No, my question is not about career or education.
Questions asking "What is the best way" without providing any criteria for evaluating what is best.
No, my question is not looking for advice on how to do anything.
Legal advice
No, my question is not asking for anything legally relevant.
Before asking a question, be sure check out our guidance for what not to ask and our tips for asking a good question.
What types of questions should I avoid asking?
You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.
Does not apply, my question concisely focuses on a very specific issue. Also, as I have outlined, it is an actual ... question that I face ("I have encountered company X who uses term Y. What is the commonly accepted definition of Y?"), not a mere hypothetical consideration ("Not that I had ever encountered anyone who did, but imagine someone were to call their development process 'Blublablorgh', would it clash with any commonly accepted definition?").
Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.
I seriously doubt that either answer ("No, this term is not generally in use." or "Yes, this term is commonly understood as ...") would be so complex.
If your motivation for asking the question is “I would like to participate in a discussion about ______”, then you should not be asking here.
It is not.
However, if your motivation is “I would like others to explain ______ to me”, then you are probably OK.
Exactly. I would like others to explain the meaning of a term to me.
To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where …
every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?”
The term I am asking about either has a single commonly accepted definition or it does not.
your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use ______ for ______, what do you use?”
I have no idea what the answer is. As described in the question, the traces I have followed when trying to solve the question myself have led me nowhere.
there is no actual problem to be solved: “I’m curious if other people feel like I do.”
As described above, I am not merely curious about a hypothetical situation, but I am actually interested in understanding a piece of reality.
you are asking an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if ______ happened?”
As described above, I am not not asking about a hypothetical situation.
your question is just a rant in disguise: “______ sucks, am I right?”
I have no preference about the meaning of the term I am asking about. I am just trying to find out what it is.
Some subjective questions are allowed, but “subjective” does not mean “anything goes”.
I do not think my question is subjective. I am specifically not asking what the term means in the particular instance I encountered it, but whether it has a commonly accepted meaning with respect to software engineering as a whole (which may or may not align with the intended meaning where I encountered the term).
Lastly, I chose the terminology tag for my question. Its description says:
Questions about the definition of software-engineering terms, and about the right terms to use to refer to commonly known concepts, practices or patterns related to software and systems development life cycle. Using the right terms correctly is a core practice of the scientific and engineering reasoning.
This is precisely what I am after. Finding out about the definition of a software-engineering term.
Based on the above analysis, it seems my question should be spot-on for this site.
What parts of my interpretation of the guidelines are mistaken, and is there any way how I can salvage my question on this site (or maybe another SE site)?
