32
Frankly, I think that you are off base. Or at least your "change enforcement" is too thinly scoped.
No amount of name changing or scope massaging or helpful blurbs will fix the community.
As it stands, we have a fairly insular group of regulars who view questions as something to vet - things to protect the site from. We reliably have purges where old, ...
29
This is one of those cases where people phrase a question in a way that disguises their true intent. They are not asking for a tutorial on persuasive speaking. They are seeking a deeper understanding of the subject.
Take https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/q/237500/3965 for example. His real problem is not lack of skills of persuasion. He has ...
22
Let's get the most important point out of the way first, and it is this:
You can still benefit from the information on the closed post
That's right; the question, and all eight answers that were posted to it, are still there, information waiting to be consumed by anyone who wants to read it.
Now that that's out of the way...
Stack Exchange is not a ...
19
There are two answers to your question: how the site theoretically works, and how it actually works in practice. In theory, the border is that questions should have answers that are supportable by objective statements, and aren't purely a matter of taste.
In practice, the border is much more strict than that. The first reason is that voters are often not ...
15
A good rule of thumb for these types of questions is "would the question be acceptable if it were about the quote itself, and not about what the creator of the quote meant?"
So, "Does BASIC mentally mutilate programmers beyond hope of regeneration?" would, clearly, not be an acceptable question.
"Is Perl broken by design?" is also pretty clearly opinion ...
15
Here are my thoughts on the solutions currently listed.
Change Name is BAD because it was already rejected by SE top brass and for seemingly valid reasons; namely, there isn't an alternative name that narrows the definition whilst staying true to this site's purpose.
Add Sub-title is GOOD providing that the right wording could be found. Sub-titles are less ...
14
Questions such as you describe are typically closed as Not Constructive as they are either based in opinions, or will solicit debate and extended discussions. StackExchange has a different mission in mind.
This is the biggest confusion that most new users have at first, we are foremost a Question and Answer site, not a discussion forum. Questions should ...
13
Can Questions be Reopened After They've Been Closed by Some Self Appointed Gestapo Moderators?
Certainly. At 3000 reputation, people can vote to reopen a question.
Granted, 3000 is also the level that Gestapo Moderators can vote to close the question.
Who decides what is a "real" question or topic of interest?
The community.
Questions like this ...
13
For what it's worth, I voted to reopen. I don't think questions should be evaluated on the asker knowing if there's a single canonical answer a priori. If most standard libraries you're aware of call it either f or op, say so. If the answer is, "there isn't any convention so choose whatever you want," then let that be the answer. Don't close the question....
13
A good interview question does not have an answer that the candidate knows; the candidate is expected to be able to discuss different options, with some options being thrown in by the interviewer.
The questions is asked to find out how (or if) the candidate thinks, not to get an answer to the asked question.
On SE sites questions are asked to get answers ...
13
This is difficult. I see a few bounds on when a question is acceptable:
A question should seek for solutions, not opinions. For example, consider a hypothetical question
I am considering solution A or solution B. Context is this and that. Which solution is better?
Answer: Obviously the one with fluffy kittens.
The question could be made more concrete ...
11
The question was rightfully closed.
It is composed of several different questions that are:
Vague
Not answerable
Speculative
These are all not good attributes for a question on the Stack Exchange site.
In particular they are of the Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site as the FAQ discusses.
10
Discussions should be closed as they fit the definition of not constructive. Not only is it mentioned explicitly in the FAQ, but there's an entire blog post on the Stack Exchange blog about it. If you want to have a discussion with other users, we do have a chat room - all Stack Exchange sites tend to have at least one for the site. However, you need 20 ...
10
Ultimately, the goal is to get off-topic questions off the front page as quickly as possible, so that they don't provide encouragement for other people to ask their off-topic questions. Migration is not the best mechanism to do this; most off-topic questions asked here will not qualify for migration, and it's not uncommon for it to take hours for a question ...
9
Everyone and their mother (and their dog and their robot dog and that dog's AI subroutines and their subroutines and their subroutines and their circuits and their atoms) has a favorite programming language. My answer to the question would be HTML 5 and Javascript but others will disagree and most of the answers would be equally valid.
People are forever ...
9
This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format.
I think this phrase is key, it's this that shows that Stack Exchange is different to forums and emphasises the fact that we are a question and answer site. Even if we don't get the exact same wording we should get this included.
9
The close notification for "not constructive" reads:
This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.
There are:
6 answers, ...
9
Depending on the reader's frame of mind, that question either looks like someone genuinely wanting to know the advantages of dynamic typing, or like a static typing fanboi disguising a rant about dynamic typing in the form of a question. The reason it looks bad is he framed it as a comparison, made his first paragraph a complaint, and worded the question in ...
9
I've just deleted your question - for technical reasons.
You cross posted the question on The Workplace, and the community there seemed to welcome it. When I noticed, I migrated the Programmers version to the Workplace, and promptly voted to close it as a duplicate of the version you posted yourself. The question was closed a couple of hours after the ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
