Questions tagged [closed-questions]

Meta questions about why particular questions on the main site were closed.

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17 votes
1 answer
3k views

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 ...
user avatar
48 votes
3 answers
6k views

On the troubles of naming and terminology

Difficulty with naming has a bit of a history with programming. There are two hard problems in computer science: caching, naming, and off by one errors. It has been repeatedly revisited on meta ...
user avatar
22 votes
3 answers
417 views

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? ...
Adam Lear's user avatar
  • 32k
18 votes
2 answers
676 views

How many questions do we get from users recently blocked at SO, how many of these are closed / deleted?

Recent efforts in SO close vote queue make me think that quite a lot of users started hitting the question ban there. There is long known "tradition" of attempts to circumvent such bans by posting at ...
gnat's user avatar
  • 21.3k
-6 votes
1 answer
390 views

Why was my question so quickly deleted by a moderator?

I asked a question and it was deleted WITHOUT any polite explanation, by Thomas Owens: I want to learn Symfony but I think, learning Symfony as a first framework is a TITANIC task for someone who ...
user256083's user avatar
16 votes
1 answer
230 views

What's all this about heroic edits?

I've heard there's a way to get questions reopened by doing something called a heroic edit. What is it, how can I do it properly, and how does it help?
27 votes
8 answers
1k views

How to reconcile guidelines, community opinion and moderation

First of all, I realize that this topic has already been discussed ad nauseam, so I apologize in advance if nothing fruitful comes of this. I strongly feel that there is a large disconnect between ...
Mitch Lindgren's user avatar
20 votes
1 answer
1k views

Recent Trouble With Popularity

A few recent questions seem to exhibit issues explained in The Trouble With Popularity article: we discovered that these posts... truly start to drown out everything else on the site... it's too ...
gnat's user avatar
  • 21.3k
12 votes
12 answers
1k views

What can we do to help users understand our site better?

As of right now, the close/migrated question rate for the past month or so is around 43% (see notes below) The majority of the closures are valid based on our site standards, however the fact users ...
Rachel's user avatar
  • 24k
18 votes
4 answers
933 views

Programmers.SE Summer Cleaning

So it's summer-time, and while you may be thinking that means warm temperatures and blue skies (sorry, Southern Hemisphere!), the Stack Exchange network has caught the clean-up bug. Our sister sites ...
user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
560 views

Requiring registration to ask questions - did it made a difference?

In September 2012 registration requirement to ask questions has been introduced: In the past 60 days, 76% of all questions from unregistered users have been either down-voted below 0, closed, ...
gnat's user avatar
  • 21.3k
8 votes
1 answer
202 views

Why was my question closed?

I recently had my question closed, but I don't understand why, and it doesn't seem fair. Why wasn't my question left open so others can decide if the question is good themselves, and how can I get ...
49 votes
1 answer
29k views

Why is "Is it possible to..." a poorly worded question?

A lot of questions try to cast a net into sea of possible designs with the wording "is it possible to...". These questions often get closed for one reason or another. What steps should I take to try ...
user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
524 views

How to prevent "Why is my question being closed?" and User Frustration?

There are a lot of frustrations all on the front page (Nov 2010, still occuring Jun 2011): Why is this question closed? It's a good question about a bad idea. I don't think peaple understand ...
0 votes
3 answers
482 views

Is this site failing? And should it go away? [duplicate]

Fact 1 At the time I write this, 12 of the 15 questions on the questions front page have net downvotes. That is an extreme statistical outlier on stackexchange. Other sites tend to have between 1 and ...
Mowzer's user avatar
  • 189
11 votes
3 answers
960 views

Why do certification questions keep getting closed?

Whenever I look at certification questions on the front page or in tags, they seem to be closed. Why is this?
user avatar
0 votes
5 answers
837 views

Too many answers is the sign of a bad question

You may have noticed a few whale questions—ones with a ton of answers—getting bumped to the front page and subsequently closed as "not constructive." This is part of a cleanup based on some new ...
user avatar
26 votes
5 answers
1k views

What can we do about extremely low quality questions from unregistered users?

The problem Tons of extremely low quality questions from unregistered accounts. A few recent examples: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/162691/question-on-pl-sql-evaluate-the-...
yannis's user avatar
  • 39.6k
13 votes
4 answers
645 views

Why is "what language should I learn" considered off-topic?

Don't get me wrong: I understand the argument that the answer in almost all cases is "it depends". Nevertheless, many people do want some advice on the applicability of various languages in the real ...
Cameron Skinner's user avatar
16 votes
4 answers
379 views

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 ...
user40989's user avatar
  • 2,880
15 votes
1 answer
425 views

How to ask "how to understand some code" questions

Often we find questions along the lines of Help me understand this C program #include<stdio.h> main() { printf("Hello World"); } Well, that one may be a bit simplified - but its not an ...
user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
540 views

If the scope is wrong, which of these questions belong here?

Over in Is this site failing? And should it go away? I posted this list and haven't gotten a satisfactory response yet. If the site's scope is at issue, then some percentage of these questions should ...
user avatar
12 votes
4 answers
391 views

Questions barely or not related directly to programming. We need handling them.

Next week we will receive an avalanche of questions migrated from SO. We have a lot of questions not related to programming jobs if we drop the "programming" word. Nothing new so far. But we need a ...
Maniero's user avatar
  • 10.8k
10 votes
3 answers
326 views

Voting on questions that might fall in the "All Careers" circle of FAQ

Can we stop closing good questions simply because they could be applied to more than just programmers, if the answer is something that would be unique to developers, or if the question itself is ...
Rachel's user avatar
  • 24k
9 votes
3 answers
356 views

How can we avoid turning off potential participants who see the wall of Closed questions?

The home page of P.SE is often littered with inappropriate questions that have been appropriately closed. This is an important part of any .SE site. However, it can be intimidating or off-putting for ...
Alex Feinman's user avatar
  • 5,792
8 votes
3 answers
303 views

What does it take for a question to be a duplicate?

I just learned that this question is a duplicate of some other question (the link to which is supplied now in the first question). Reading through both questions I cannot see how one could defer the ...
Thomas's user avatar
  • 1,229
5 votes
7 answers
700 views

If I was a homework cheater, [duplicate]

...if I was a homework cheater, I would applaud an approach like that... I'm for deletion if not improved in a reasonable timeframe. But minutes after closure is, I think, too speedy. I tend to give ...
gnat's user avatar
  • 21.3k
4 votes
1 answer
54 views

Does deleting a closed question remove a question ban?

I asked a question recently which was closed as being too broad. I disagreed with the reasoning, but I understand the position that programmers.SE moderators took on it and I want to ask questions ...
AmadeusDrZaius's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
151 views

Question being closed without community requests [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: When is it acceptable for a moderator to make a unilateral decision to close a question? Hey Jeff, why not letting the community decide about this question? The question has ...
user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
146 views

Putting contentious questions on probation

Say I've asked a question that may be rather controversial. Oh, wait, I have. It was closed, and for good reason: it's probably not the best fit for Stack Exchange, no matter how interesting the ...
Jon Purdy's user avatar
  • 20.5k
-7 votes
2 answers
195 views

Closed as not constructive?

Can someone explain why my question was not constructive? https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/187264/how-do-i-take-my-web-dev-learning-to-the-next-level The only answer given (...
user avatar
14 votes
4 answers
705 views

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 ...
Patrick Szalapski's user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
701 views

Now that 3 close votes has been proven and implemented on Stack Overflow, can we have the same on Software Engineering, please?

I won't belabor the research by repeating it here. It's been described in exhaustive detail at this post. The executive summary: Closing, editing and reopening all become more effective. Can we ...
Robert Harvey's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
160 views

Can the migration path from SO be reconsidered?

We've had some discussion recently about bad Programmers questions being migrated from Stackoverflow. The number of close votes required to migrate on SO was changed from 3/5 to 4/5 in response. ...
Michael K's user avatar
  • 15.6k
9 votes
5 answers
212 views

Delete some questions instead of just closing them

There are the FAQ's, plenty of closed questions (heads on top of spears), and comments about what types of questions are appropriate, but since so many questions of the same type are closed, should ...
JeffO's user avatar
  • 36.8k
9 votes
2 answers
354 views

Lock the top-voted questions that are closed

Due to a huge amount of feedback received on Meta Stack Overflow regarding the deletion of massively-upvoted but off-topic/not-constructive questions, questions locked for historical reasons have ...
user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
226 views

What questions recently closed can be salvaged?

When people ask about Programmers.SE being too negative, closing too many things, or needing to be more inclusive - the best way to approach this is probably to look at the questions that have been ...
user avatar
9 votes
4 answers
318 views

valid questions being closed.

there is something wrong with closed questions, here is a popular one why are so many programmers arrogant it has a lot answers and a lot views and it seems a valid question and was closed just for a ...
killown's user avatar
  • 1,466
8 votes
1 answer
193 views

What's the point of closing a question?

What's the point of closing a question if people can still answer, vote it up/down, favorite it and add comments? I dont get it :(
sebagomez's user avatar
  • 432
7 votes
1 answer
87 views

Can the closed questions please be removed from "related"?

I keep clicking on related questions and they are closed. Its annoying. It would be more helpful if it was only related open questions. Or even if they are older related questions with good answers, ...
Talvi Watia's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
281 views

Is my question that bad, or am I totally out of it?

This question was closed for not meeting the criteria for a good subjective question: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/15856/when-do-you-get-your-best-ideas-closed The ...
Mark Ransom's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
299 views

Examples of inappropriately closed questions

This is a follow up to BartMan's question, which is now locked. We shouldn't be dismissive of the over-moderation concerns of potential new users. You asked for 10 examples of inappropriately closed ...
Karl Bielefeldt's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
97 views

Question got closed citing that it requests for "customer support"

Yesterday I asked this Qn: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/q/340510/24410 But some fellow members felt that, it belongs to below category: Why we're not customer support for [your ...
iammilind's user avatar
  • 2,232
0 votes
1 answer
184 views

Reopening "When programmers talk about "data structures", what are they referring to?"

Software terminology is on-topic here, however my question When programmers talk about "data structures", what are they referring to? got closed as "not a real question" The question was asked ...
Rachel's user avatar
  • 24k
0 votes
4 answers
299 views

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/...
arussell84's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
143 views

Career Development Questions - Moving rather than closing? [duplicate]

I was surprised to see that the top five questions on programmers.SE this morning were closed as off topic. As is often the case, they were all career development questions. Since there seems to be ...
Matt Grande's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
455 views

Why did we start closing and migrating algorithm questions?

This site used to be a good, safe place to get help on algorithms. Indeed, I would consider it one of the primary purposes of the site. It is prominently listed in our help center and tour. It's ...
Karl Bielefeldt's user avatar
16 votes
1 answer
229 views

Does closing a question before an answer is received change the behavior of a user on future questions?

One of those ideas that got bantered around - does closing a question have any evidence at modifying a user's future behavior if it happens before they get an answer? We often see people ask a ...
user avatar
15 votes
1 answer
223 views

How can I get my question reopened as someone answered in the comments?

I posted the following question on programmers.stackexchange.com : Is there any language-agnostic specification for "String Natural Sorting Order" I posted it on programmers.stackexchange....
Adriano's user avatar
  • 181
13 votes
4 answers
311 views

Are now all questions about teaching programming to be considered off topic?

I noticed that this question, "Teaching kids to program - how to teach syntax?" was closed a few days ago on the the grounds: "Questions seeking career or education advice are off topic on Programmers"...
phant0m's user avatar
  • 2,624