All Questions
785
questions
46
votes
11
answers
22k
views
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,...
44
votes
10
answers
7k
views
The Six Subjective Question Guidelines -- Enforcement Notice
Just a quick note here on meta to let everyone know we will be enforcing these six subjective question guidelines.
Great subjective questions...
inspire answers that explain “why” and “how”.
tend to ...
- 6,757
143
votes
2
answers
9k
views
What's the difference between Programmers and Stack Overflow? [duplicate]
What's the difference between Programmers and Stack Overflow?
84
votes
16
answers
4k
views
Are you still confused about what Programmers (now called Software Engineering) is for?
I'm going to try and keep this short, because a lot of it has already been discussed. If you are interested in the history, you can find it here on Programmers Meta, but here's a very brief recap:
...
- 199k
42
votes
6
answers
3k
views
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
47
votes
3
answers
4k
views
What is the history behind the site scope change from NPR to "conceptual questions about software development"?
How did the topic of this site to change from "Not-Programming-Related" to "conceptual questions about software development"?
I've tried looking through meta questions to find where the change in ...
- 24k
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 ...
user40980
48
votes
3
answers
5k
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 ...
user40980
27
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Are Design Review questions on-topic?
There is a gray area between Software Engineering & Code Review regarding design reviews.
Code Review's on-topic page explicitly calls out design reviews as off-topic.
However, if your question ...
user53019
33
votes
5
answers
4k
views
Are Career Advice questions useful to anyone except the poster? [duplicate]
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career-advice
https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career-guidance
There seem to be a fair number of "should ...
- 5,793
57
votes
5
answers
2k
views
Renaming the site to match its FAQ or changing the FAQ to match the site name?
This site is called programmers.stackexchange, while the FAQ states that this site is about "conceptual questions about software development".
Since a large number of people never read the FAQ, or ...
- 24k
23
votes
1
answer
1k
views
I have a question, but it may not fit best on Software Engineering. Where else can I ask it?
What other Stack Exchange sites are there that may be able to answer my questions about software engineering or software development?
Thomas OwensMod
- 79.9k
16
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Are book recommendations on-topic?
We get a lot of book recommendation questions, so much so that it's hard to keep up with them.
We've been closing them as off-topic, not a real question, and not constructive based on a few different ...
user8
125
votes
3
answers
11k
views
What goes on Software Engineering (previously known as Programmers)? A guide for Stack Overflow
Moderator Note: Programmers changed its name recently to Software Engineering.
This post has been updated to reflect the new scope, but it still refers to Programmers for historical reasons. Wherever ...
user40980
16
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Why is research important?
You've probably seen it somewhere
Sharing your research helps everyone. Tell us what you've tried and why
it didn’t meet your needs. This demonstrates that you’ve taken the time
to try to ...
user40980
64
votes
1
answer
9k
views
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
10
votes
5
answers
349
views
Posse request: jobs/career/etc. tag cleanup
We discussed merging career and jobs, but now it's time to put a plan into action. Aaronut's plan is great, but we need some help from the posse:
Step 1: Clean up the tags
There are currently ...
user8
32
votes
7
answers
2k
views
Change the name of Programmers to something that more accurately reflects the site scope? [duplicate]
This is a follow-up to the discussion on renaming the site to match its FAQ, or changing the FAQ to match the site name.
That discussion is one of the highest voted questions on here, so this ...
- 24k
28
votes
2
answers
5k
views
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
9
votes
3
answers
418
views
Request for comment: structured tag cleanups
So one of the major problems we have on Programmers is the proliferation of bad tags. We've had a number of discussions and posse requests for different tags, but killing a tag—when it's even possible—...
user8
36
votes
1
answer
6k
views
Green fields, blue skies, and the white board - what is too broad?
I've been accused of having questions that are too blue sky-y or green fieldy and not white boardy enough.
What does this mean and why do those questions get closed?
user40980
26
votes
2
answers
7k
views
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
15
votes
2
answers
390
views
Are software law questions off-topic here?
Most of the answers to legal questions here are prefixed with "I'm not a lawyer, but..." I'm beginning to think that including "software law" as on-topic is way too broad, and opens the door to ...
Thomas OwensMod
- 79.9k
13
votes
3
answers
1k
views
What types of legal questions are on-topic here?
I know legal issues are in the faq as on-topic but I could not find an existing discussion of it.
Do legal questions such as the iPhone issue or non-paying customer question really have a place here? ...
11
votes
1
answer
539
views
Are Career-Advice Questions On-Topic Here?
I have a question about
Education,
Finding a job,
Hiring,
Interviews,
Job Titles
Training Materials,
Classes,
Certifications,
Skill sets,
Marketing,
Job Stress,
Workplace Interaction,
...
- 199k
82
votes
3
answers
10k
views
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
43
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Where can I have subjective discussions about programming?
I entered Softwareengineering Stack Exchange and unfortunately, it wasn't what I was looking for. I expected you would be able to talk about all kinds of programming, but the rules are much stricter ...
user143253
12
votes
5
answers
572
views
Is programming history on topic?
History questions are on topic on Software Engineering, but have proven to be particularly troublesome:
It's not uncommon for history questions to get closed (and re-opened, and closed, ...)
It's not ...
43
votes
0
answers
2k
views
Let's help askers who are trying to circumvent question block at Stack Overflow
If a first time asker has an SO account that was recently (say, within a week) question blocked over there, how about showing them a warning like this:
Wait! You've recently been blocked at Stack ...
- 21.4k
37
votes
5
answers
778
views
Can we improve our style of self-moderation for not-too-bad questions?
Over the last months and maybe years, I observed some tendency on this site of what I would call “hostile downvoting”. I see often questions which are not-too-badly written (sometimes even well-...
- 201k
31
votes
7
answers
934
views
Are questions not directly related to programming (but might concern programmers) on-topic?
Questions like "Can you recommend some good pottery for programmers?" are an issue we need to figure out- to what extent are they allowed? I see a few variants on this:
Questions that are clearly ...
- 25.9k
28
votes
7
answers
3k
views
Are we Going down hill?
From what I was seeing overall question quality is going downhill, so on that hunch,
Using Stack exchange's Data explorer ran the Following Query:
Select
CAST(year(p.CreationDate) as char(4))+'-'+...
- 14.7k
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?
...
- 32k
21
votes
29
answers
2k
views
Structured Tag Cleanup Initiative Phase II
Back in 2012, we launched the Structured Tag Cleanup Initiative (STCI). It was very successful in identifying tags to create, merge, remove, and blacklist. However, it has been about 3 years since ...
18
votes
2
answers
671
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 ...
- 21.4k
7
votes
5
answers
421
views
Offering Solutions to the Career and Jobs Tags
We can’t perform the operation requested here, that is, blacklist career and jobs while still leaving the tags present on the site. We have some suggestions on what could be done as an alternative, ...
- 101
-6
votes
1
answer
388
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 ...
380
votes
12
answers
8k
views
(4 years later) Dear Stack Exchange: can we change our site name?
Four years ago we asked for a name change, which was rejected by SE because there was no evidence to support the claim it was causing user confusion, and there were other things the site should focus ...
- 24k
22
votes
1
answer
1k
views
When is a software licensing question on topic?
I would like to ask a question about software licensing. The help center says:
If you have a question about...
...
software licensing
and it is not about...
...
legal advice or aid
It seems like ...
- 7,590
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?
7
votes
3
answers
565
views
Let's nuke the catch-all tags
While we continue our work on cleaning up the career and jobs tags, I thought I'd bring up the next tag clean-up project: killing the catch-all tags that could be applied to every question on the site....
user8
1102
votes
13
answers
54k
views
Open letter to students with homework problems
It is September once again (today is the 8755th day of September), and once again students are asking their homework problems on Stack Overflow and SoftwareEngineering.SE.
We start seeing questions ...
user40980
32
votes
4
answers
1k
views
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 ...
- 1,004
28
votes
4
answers
814
views
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 ...
- 320
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 ...
- 454
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 ...
- 21.4k
19
votes
13
answers
943
views
What questions are on-topic, and what are off-topic?
Joel Spolsky created a post on the Stack Overflow blog this afternoon on merging Area51 proposals. In it, he talks about how some proposals are just too specific or are subsets of larger sites and ...
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 ...
- 24k
12
votes
4
answers
534
views
Provide 10k users more close votes
Please provide 10k+ users more close votes.
Why?
Putting questions on-hold in a timely fashion is critical in providing useful feedback to new users. It's rare for salvageable questions to be put on-...
user53019
12
votes
9
answers
515
views
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-...
- 39.5k