## What is a good question?

A good question on Software Engineering Stack Exchange (previously known as Programmers) would be a good question on Stack Overflow.  This isn't to say that if it is on topic on Stack Overflow then it is on topic here.  Rather that it's not too broad, not opinion polling, and not unclear. If you have the slightest inkling of closing the question for any of those reasons, don't suggest Software Engineering.SE.  Those reasons span all of the Stack Exchange network.

Suggesting to someone to repost a question that is too broad or primary opinion would get it closed on Software Engineering.SE too and that's really something we'd rather avoid.  It is no fun to get a question bounced from one site to another and being told repeatedly we don't want it here.  If it needs to be fixed, it needs to be fixed before it is reposted or telling the OP *exactly* what needs to be fixed.

The interpretation of these close reasons is described in https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6483/why-was-my-question-closed-or-down-voted which may have a bit higher of a bar in some aspects than Stack Overflow.  This meta question also goes into the off topic reasons for the site.

## Some commonly referred *poor* questions

Please, we *don't* want these, though it seems like people keep suggesting them to be reposted here.

### I don't understand...

Questions that that boil down to "I don't understand ${concept}" with no additional information about what *is* understood tend to get down voted and closed (too broad). [There is an expectation](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/234663/165773) that at least the person read the Wikipedia article on the concept and explained what was understood and not.

### Here's my problem. Anyone have a solution?

Another example of commonly (incorrectly) referred questions are those of "come up with a design or solution for me."  Similar to how Stack Overflow has issues with people doing problem statement questions ("write a program that takes the average of three values"), Programmers.SE has similar issues with similar questions ("here is what I want the outcome to be, anyone have a solution?").

Neither Stack Overflow nor Software Engineering.SE is a code/solution writing service. Just because the question lacks code but has a problem statement doesn't mean it belongs here as is. The question needs to be fixed up significantly before it is reposted on the proper site and suggesting to do so with the question in its current state does a disservice to the person asking the question. For a more detailed outline of what is generally expected at Programmers, see https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6559/why-is-research-important

### A blog I read said...

Questions that are trying to get someone to explain more about something someone said in a blog (or worse - twitter) post also often have trouble with being a good question here.  More about those questions can be read at https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6417/discuss-this-blog

### Our custom off topic reasons

And then there's our off topic reasons that were alluded to above:


* [What tool, library, language, project, resource to take up or use](https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6483/why-was-my-question-closed-or-down-voted/6487#6487) (the wording was modeled after Stack Overflow's close reason)
* [What career to take or what to study](https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/a/6488/40980)
* [Assistance in writing or debugging code](https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7742/40980)

These are specific forms of polling that the Q&A format really isn't geared to answer.  While close voters may argue amongst themselves about too broad or the clarity of the question - these reasons often meet with very prompt close votes.

## So what ***is*** in scope here? I thought it was everything "not programming related"...

While we have some of the legacy of "not programming related" still hanging over us, the help center is likely the best spot to read for our scope: [What topics can I ask about here?](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic)

 - software development methods and practices
 - requirements, architecture, and design
 - quality assurance and testing
 - configuration management, build, release, and deployment



## So what questions do you want?

Well thought out and researched questions about the [Software Development Life Cycle](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Systems_Development_Life_Cycle.jpg) that aren't code troubleshooting questions.  Remember that algorithm questions are also on topic on Stack Overflow (so [you don't need to migrate those](https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/03/respect-the-community-your-own-and-others/ "'Be a bit jealous of your site - don't blithely turn askers away simply because their question could be asked somewhere else...'")).

If you have a question, stop into [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/21/the-whiteboard) and ask (we're a friendly bunch).  If it's a good question, we might be able to prod a SO mod into migrating it or help flag it ourselves. I don't believe I've had a flag to migrate a question from SO to P.SE declined - explaining that the person flagging the question, despite the low Stack Overflow rep is a trusted user on the target site and will endeavor to have it remain open on the target site rather than being a rejected migration does go a long ways to helping.

Also consider that many of the "soft and squishy" questions are ones that *can* be answered in chat.  We are easily distracted by actual questions when people ask them.

## So, why so mad?

Software Engineering.SE has a much smaller community than Stack Overflow. We get about 30-40 questions per day.  Stack Overflow gets about 8k questions per day. This is orders of magnitude different in what we look at.  It also partially relates to how many people we have available to moderate the site.

To put this into comparison, the Java tag on Stack Overflow gets more questions in one hour than we get in a day.  We're much more in line with the Perl tag on Stack Overflow, or Matlab and a bit more active than the Delphi tag.

There are days when there are more ***suggestions*** to migrate or repost to Software Engineering.SE than there are questions posted here.

There's a bit of a history here.  Back when Software Engineering (Programmers.SE) was changing from its "not programming related" charter to its "conceptual software design questions" we got crap hurled at us. Several times more crap questions were migrated to Programmers.SE each day than were asked on the site.  This lead to the post https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/73382/please-stop-using-programmers-se-as-your-toilet-bowl because we were getting all the questions that were "meh, no code, migrate it to Programmers.SE".  As an aside, also give https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/167516/how-can-i-encourage-stack-overflow-to-rein-in-the-subjective-vigilantes a read for some more history.

When a new user posts a question and then gets told to repost it on Programmers.SE... and then has it resoundingly trounced and down voted - it's not a good experience for anyone involved.  We really don't want that.  We've got our own set of "why is Programmers.SE so negative" and "why do we get so much crap?" questions in meta too. Exacerbating the problem really doesn't help anyone and it takes up the time of the community moderation.

Stack Overflow can completely swamp us with ["post this on Programmers.SE" comments](https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/q/7154/31260 "we even had to introduce a chat bot for identifying when Programmers is mentioned on Stack Overflow") and when even a fraction of those questions show up here (and get closed) it's problematic. So the attempts to nip it in the bud and try to help educate the person suggesting the reposting, and the person asking the question, and hopefully try to prevent the "no code, repost elsewhere" meme from spreading we will.

That you have made it this far, I will apologize for any suggestion that we're a bit terse or angry in the comments. It can be true (though we're not angry - we're just not able to fully express our feelings - it's exasperation and weariness). But when there are a dozen or so comments a day with suggestions one can be a bit sparse with words.  Imagine hanging out on the php tag and writing a customized comment each time someone has a SQL injection vulnerability in the code... yea, it's like that.

And no, trying to fit all of this in a comment doesn't work either.

## So, what can you do?

* Think about if it's a good question.
* Flag it for migration if it is.
* If it's a really good question, ask in chat here for us to help it move along.
* Avoid bouncing users from one site to another (and having the question get closed on each)
* Try answering good questions on this site to understand what we are looking for