Questions tagged [close-reasons]
The close-reasons tag has no usage guidance.
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Why was my question closed or down voted?
Help! My question was closed (or down voted). Why? And what can I do about it?
Downvoted
Duplicate
Off topic
What technology to take up next
Recommend a software library, tool, book, research paper,...
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On discussions and why they don't make good questions
I'll start off with the irony of this question being tagged with a discussion and point out that meta is different.
Why don't discussion questions work in Stack Exchange? What is it about the ...
user40980
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Why do 'some examples' and 'list of things' questions get closed?
A common form of question that is often asked is the "what are some examples of..." While this is hinted at in the help center
Please make sure that your question is not too broad, or strongly ...
user40980
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Where to start?
Often the question shows up of something along the lines of:
I'm trying to learn language XYZ. Where should I start?
or
I'm trying to do ${very large project}. Where should I start?
Why are ...
user40980
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What is the problem with "Pros and Cons"?
<Some question about design or product>
What are the pros and cons?
Sometimes, these questions get closed as 'too broad' or 'primarily opinion'. Why is that?
user40980
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Discuss this ${blog}
Occasionally there are questions asked that seek to explain some soundbite of thing someone said or wrote.
These questions take a few sentences from a larger piece and ask what it means, or disprove ...
user40980
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How do I explain ${something} to ${someone}?
One of the not infrequently asked questions that shows up on Software Engineering.SE is along the lines of:
I am trying to explain the differences between a NoSQL database and a relational database ...
user40980
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What are the rules around moderators closing questions outright?
I'm not a fan of seeing questions closed without the usual 5 closing votes, but I understand that sometimes that's necessary. Still, what are the rules around moderators closing questions outright?
...
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Why are there so many closed, on hold, and down voted questions here?
Compared to Stack Overflow, the number of questions which are down-voted, put on hold, or closed is astounding. I think it's a sign that the criteria (and possibly usefulness) of this site is poorly ...
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The real borderline for "Opinion based" in Software Engineering
In Software Engineering.SE (formerly known as "Programmers.SE") most of the questions are correctly related to design, patterns, metodologies and architectures. Now, my question is: when does a ...
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What should our predefined off-topic reasons be?
There are some fairly major changes coming soon to how posts are closed, you may want to read up on the details:
Closing changes: [on hold], unclear, too broad, opinion-based, off-topic reasons, bye-...
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Why do interview questions make poor Software Engineering.SE questions?
Occasionally a question that is asked at an interview comes up - "how would you design Amazon Web Services" or "how would you write Google" or some such question.
These questions find their way to ...
user40980
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Can we get a "Belongs on StackOverflow" as a closing reason?
Once in a while someone pops up with an objective "help me with my code" question like this one. I think it'd be nice to have a mechanism to migrate these to StackOverflow. Thoughts?
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How can I write a good custom close message?
We only have so many canned, built in, close reasons. There are so many other reasons to close something at times - giving a better message than trying to shoehorn the reason to close something into ...
user40980
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close reason (and associated expand the close reason count) request
I really don't like migrating crappy questions to SO. This is really the only place where its an issue because of the migration path (no, taking away the migration path would mean more suggestions to ...
user40980
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Why are we getting so many off topic 'debug this for me' questions? what can we do about it?
Yes, this is a duplicate of Using Programmers as "learning and training area" for Stack Overflow kind questions intended to re-ask the question more clearly and without the tangents of ...
user40980
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Would the "General Reference" close reason be useful here on Programmers?
This question on terminology was asked earlier.
Should the "General Reference" close reason as outlined in this blog post and this Meta Stack Overflow answer be enabled here on Programmers?
Are ...
ChrisFMod
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Great Expectations... or, at least, user expectations
Well I just saw a second Meta question expressing strong ill-will for this site after first witnessing this, seemingly well-trodden, battlefield. Given that I am already weary of it, I can only assume ...
user174739
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Can the number of custom close reasons on Programmers be expanded?
Right now, we are limited to three custom "off-topic" close reasons. I wrote a fourth this morning to address a number of recent closures, but it's not possible to even turn it on without turning off ...
Thomas OwensMod
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Why is this terminology question considered as “opinion based”?
I recently asked What is the name of the functional argument in fold which is now marked off-topic because it might be opinion based. I do not understand what makes this opinion based. This question ...
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What is the difference between software licensing and copyright
Over the past months I see that questions regarding copyright on software are receiving close votes, with a custom close reason along the lines of
This question appears to be off-topic because it ...
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Help Center tuning: "help/on-topic/and it is not about..." += references to meta guidance
Per recent discussion, I drafted some updates I'd like to have in Help Center -> What topics can I ask about here, section not about...
Added text is in bold, deleted is crossed, and some links are ...
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Are we too strict? Where should off-topic questions go?
This question on networking at conferences was not closed, but this one I just posted was closed.
First, what is a better forum for that closed question?
Second, I'm assuming that the first one ...
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Should the "primarily opinion-based" close-reason ever be used on Programmers, except on extreme occasions?
If one reads the description of this site, one finds that it's purpose is:
Programmers Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professionals and students in software development and ...
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Custom Close Reason Updates
First: We have a fourth custom close reason added.
One of the most common close reasons that isn't accounted for by one of the current custom close reasons is for questions seeking legal advice or ...
Thomas OwensMod
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Merge and replace custom close reason
We've been fairly consistently getting poor quality implementation and debugging questions. A previous suggestion (related: 1 2) to increase the count hasn't been acted upon and the suggestion for us ...
user40980
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Is the question about statements being terminated by semicolons appropriate for Programmers?
update
At Rev 5, there was a major edit to question text, based on discussion in comments made to this answer.
As of Rev 6, question has been reopened. Reference: question timeline.
Below applies to ...
Thomas OwensMod
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Collection of frequently used custom close reasons
This question is partly inspired by this question. The difference is that this question doesn't care about "how" to create a good custom close reason. This question is to identify the good, already-...
user53019
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What is needed to really fix a question (an Atwood transform)
You've found a poor question that you really think has some merit to it. What things are needed to successfully do this transformation of making a poor question into a good one?
The Atwood transform ...
user40980
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Objective question closed as subjective?
I'm not saying my question was the best in the world, or even the worded in the best way, but I don't think it deserved to be closed:
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/80396/...
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Moderators Taking Community Function
Hi All,
I have come across quite a few questions now that have been closed a single Moderator (and a couple with 1 Moderator, and 1 Community Member).
Shouldn't this not happen? Half the point of ...
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What is “not constructive”?
Jul 20 update: question has been unlocked per discussion in chat and reworded as follows:
Looking for a definitive answer from a primary or secondary source for why did (notably) Java and C# decide ...
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Revisiting our close procedure and close reasons [duplicate]
In a comment in one of our Meta discussions Aarthi announced a set of changes to the closing procedure:
This is currently in spec-stage so I don't have lots of details available, but suffice it to ...
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Should the 'good question' criteria be revised, or, has flagging become over-zealous?
First off, let me say I love the community moderation system. I think it's tops.
But I feel like too many questions that could elicit interesting answers (specifically, interesting as a programmer) ...
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Should we clarify the wording of our "Not Constructive" close reason?
Our "not constructive" close reasons is as follows:
This question does not meet enough of our six guidelines for constructive subjective questions. All questions should be practical, answerable, ...
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Add a new close reason for implementation and troubleshooting questions
Code troubleshooting and code implementation questions are not in Programmers' site scope. Although there is an option to migrate such questions to Stack Overflow, the vast majority of them are not ...
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Voting to close - duplicate of a closed question
I recently marked a question (subsequently closed as not constructive) as an exact duplicate of another, closed question.
Another user questioned this as being nonsensical. While the question wasn't ...
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This question about word meanings was closed as off topic, but does not seem to be off topic.
This question: AddIn, AddOn and Plugin has been closed.
When I first read it I thought it might be better suited to EL&U, but since the question is something specific to computer programmes, this ...
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Grammar of Off topic close reason
So this question was closed at off topic, but the close reason took me back
Questions on Programmers are expected
to generally relate to indirectly
relate to programming, within the
scope ...
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I clearly got the wrong idea about what this site is about.
I have just signed up to this site in order to ask a specific programming question I thought would be unsuitable to ask on Stackoverlflow.
My question was quickly closed down, here is a link to my ...
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Argumentative users with borderline questions
We've had a few questions like https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/q/188657/3965 lately where the question is ranty, but not anything some editing couldn't fix, but in the comments the user ...
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Should "How do you ask or get asked to speak at a software conference?" have been closed?
Earlier today we saw https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/80898/how-do-you-ask-or-get-asked-to-speak-at-a-software-conference asked and subsequently closed as "not a real question".
...
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Some inconsistency in closing questions?
There's two questions:
favorite programming language
worst software bug in history
How come one is still open, and the other one closed? I ask because both seem to me to be mere curiosity questions.
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"What reasons do questions get closed for here?" should be in the help center under the "Asking" heading
Our new off-topic close reasons have come in so handy and been so well used I think they do a good job of giving clear guidance to many on what they can expect they should avoid. Granted they're a ...
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Confusing Closing -> Off Topic dialog
The dialog for closing questions as being off topic lists the following reasons:
Questions about specific programming problems encountered while writing code are off-topic, but can be asked on ...
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My question has been closed. I would like to understand why.
My question "Evolution of mainstream programming languages: simplicity versus complexity." has been closed.
I am not sure I fully understand why. The explanation I got from the moderator(s) is that "...
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Why isn't there an "off-topic" off-topic option?
When flagging a question as being off-topic, only meta.programmers or Stack Overflow can be chosen. What if the question doesn't fit either of those options, or maybe not any site on the Stack ...
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Question about naming conventions "not constructive"?
I'm confused as to why my recent question on naming conventions in JavaScript was closed as "not constructive." The best explanation I can find in the closed notice and FAQ is that "this question will ...
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What's wrong with proving best practices through statistics?
The guidance for off-topic questions has this to say about the use of statistics:
Asking for a link to something or statistics
This is a subtler meaning of the 'favorite off-site resource' part of ...
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What's wrong with this question?
The question: Problem using python QPID and gevent together.
It doesn't really seem to fit the description of not a real question, and I think the only problem with it is the last two sentences:
...
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