12
votes
Why was my question so quickly deleted by a moderator?
If you read the Help Center's page about what you can ask about here prior to posting, you would see that some questions aren't a good fit for this environment, specifically questions about "finding ...

Thomas OwensMod
- 80.4k
10
votes
Accepted
How is user without gold tag badge closing questions as duplicates with no other votes?
It's not single-handed: notice the presence of Community in the close voter list.
Last year a feature was introduced to Stack Exchange to allow question askers to single-handedly close their ...
10
votes
Question closed for being "opinion-based" but I only asked for the name of a principle
I cannot speak for the other close voters, but I voted to close it because of two things:
the question does not ask for a name for a well-known software engineering concept, it asks for a social ...
8
votes
The "Professional Engineers" question has 2/3 reopen votes AND 3/4 delete votes; what's going on here?
Most certification questions are either individual career advice or the answer is "go ask them" (and changes yearly). This is closer to being a question about the legal status of software engineering ...
8
votes
Question closed for being "opinion-based" but I only asked for the name of a principle
Often, there is not an "official name" or even a singular common name for concepts. Asking for one invites people to share their opinions on what they call it or believe it should be called. ...

Thomas OwensMod
- 80.4k
7
votes
How to address the "Why do so few languages with a variable-type 'operator' exist?" question
After having similar doubts myself and mulling it over for a few days, here's how I currently feel about that question:
1) It's clearly possible to write an answer to this question that's interesting ...
7
votes
When someone asks a "code improvement" question, should we edit it to an "algorithm improvement" question instead of closing as off-topic?
Stating that a question about code performance being off-topic here / belonging on Stack Overflow is inherently wrong. Those types of questions should be posted here ("software architecture and design"...

Thomas OwensMod
- 80.4k
7
votes
Now that 3 close votes has been proven and implemented on Stack Overflow, can we have the same on Software Engineering, please?
Some of you may have noticed the Meta Stack Exchange post - Testing three-vote close and reopen on 13 network sites (it's linked in the featured on meta sidebar) - we've finally got this project under ...
6
votes
Improving "What should a programmer experienced in high-level OOP language learn when moving to low-level C development?"
I made a significant edit to this question. The core problem is more or less this question as gnat points out.
And as I said in my comment on the question:
@KarlBielefeldt there is an [edit] ...
6
votes
When someone asks a "code improvement" question, should we edit it to an "algorithm improvement" question instead of closing as off-topic?
I made an edit attempt to focus the question to being one of the best algorithm approach that would result in the least amount of operations worse case. I also reopened it, it was close to being ...
maple_shaftMod
- 26.4k
6
votes
When someone asks a "code improvement" question, should we edit it to an "algorithm improvement" question instead of closing as off-topic?
Whenever we see a question about fixing/improving code that can easily be interpreted as asking us to suggest a better algorithm, should we edit it to focus on the algorithm instead of closing it as ...
6
votes
Accepted
This question isn't remotely subjective
I read your original question, your question here on Meta, and the comment chain on Robert Harvey's answer. After reading everything, I casted a reopen vote on your question.
It's been a while since ...

Thomas OwensMod
- 80.4k
6
votes
So apparently it's illegal to talk about technology difficulty here?
Q & A, of the type that we practice here at Stack Exchange, rests on a few fundamental principles and assumptions:
Each site has a specific subject matter area. Questions asked on Stack Exchange ...
6
votes
Can I ask whether coding patterns are good or bad? If so, how should I ask?
It is really difficult to ask a good question about best practices,
as also discussed on MSE: Why is asking a question on "best practice" a bad thing?
In a nutshell, asking about best ...
5
votes
Accepted
Does deleting a closed question remove a question ban?
Since this applies to all StackExchange sites, it's covered on Meta StackExchange in this FAQ Q&A. This is the part that answers your question:
Before you do anything else, fix your existing ...
5
votes
Accepted
How many questions do we get from users recently blocked at SO, how many of these are closed / deleted?
While running a test on Stack Overflow, there were some questions about whether we were driving traffic to Programmers, so I decided to rerun some of the numbers in Shog’s original answer and compare ...
5
votes
So apparently it's illegal to talk about technology difficulty here?
What you were asking for is a topic where a useful answer could fill a whole book. Such questions are usually considered as too broad for the Q&A format of this site. Note that facial recognition ...
5
votes
Question got closed citing that it requests for "customer support"
You are asking the SE community why a specific vendor (in this case Google) made a decision to favor tool X over tool Y. Honestly, the community here is the wrong audience for such a question. If the ...
5
votes
Now that 3 close votes has been proven and implemented on Stack Overflow, can we have the same on Software Engineering, please?
As I wrote in the comments above, I first was very sceptical about this change when Robert asked for it. In the meantime, however, my opinion changed a bit and I think the positive effects of the ...
5
votes
How is asking, "Is there formal terminology for storage of key value pairs?" an opinion based question?
Unfortunately, there is often no universally, or even widely accepted, term for many concepts in software engineering. Even with projects like the IEEE Computer Society and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC7 (the ISO'...

Thomas OwensMod
- 80.4k
5
votes
Accepted
Why my question about user storage is closed?
I see some issues with the question. One of them is the unclear problem statement, since the question seems to contain three different ones:
What is the "preferred way" of storing small ...
4
votes
The "Professional Engineers" question has 2/3 reopen votes AND 3/4 delete votes; what's going on here?
This question IS answerable, but it seems to me that it's awfully broad - within the US alone there are 50 states + DC and protectorates that all have their own legal codes on the subject, and that's ...
4
votes
Accepted
Refined question that was closed as unclear
I'm one of the users who originally voted to close it, and I also voted to leave it closed in the reopen queue after the edit. I also posted the longest and most upvoted comment on that question which ...
4
votes
Reopen controversial question?
I agree the close reason given might be debatable. The question was originally so badly written I was not even sure I understood what the OP really meant. And for questions which make us play guessing ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
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