37 votes

I get more and better attention on Stackoverflow

It looks like the questions you've asked lie in the overlap between SO and PSE. Both sites could answer them, but they would give different kinds of answers, and since SO is bigger its answers will ...
  • 27.5k
34 votes

Am I being selfish by asking on-topic, yet very specific questions?

32 votes
Accepted

Am I being selfish by asking on-topic, yet very specific questions?

The questions which are most welcome here are those which come from real software projects, related to real problems which arise inside the project. It does not matter if it is a commercial project, ...
  • 194k
23 votes

Am I being selfish by asking on-topic, yet very specific questions?

Of your 9 non-deleted questions, all of them have a net positive score and none of them are closed. Two of them are also marked as a favorite question by at least 1 person, with one being marked as a ...
  • 79k
20 votes

So many bad questions

The best thing to clarify things for new users would be to rename this site. I am relatively new here and I understand the distinction between Programmers.SE and StackOverflow, but I think many new ...
  • 649
15 votes
Accepted

Should we edit "recommend a design pattern" questions so they don't use the phrase "design pattern"?

I would appreciate it if everyone, before over-hastily voting to close any question with the buzzword "design pattern" in it as being a dupe of Choosing the right design pattern, would first take a ...
  • 194k
13 votes

I get more and better attention on Stackoverflow

In addition to the excellent answer by @lxrec, Programmers is so much smaller than StackOverflow that you just have to have a bit more patience. It is not uncommon to only receive answers after ...
10 votes

Open letter to students with homework problems

This letter is missing something. Software engineers enjoy solving problems and building things with computers. If a typical homework problem seems like a boring drudge, or 'too hard' for you, you'...
10 votes
Accepted

How bad are "Shopping for Patterns"-type questions?

What's the best screw driver to use on a nail? A hammer. Some of the best answers on this site reject the premise of the question. I completely agree that "give me the pattern" questions can be ...
9 votes

So many bad questions

I've only been an active SE user for a couple of weeks, and since PSE is my favorite one I've been mulling this question over pretty much the entire time (not to mention reading far too many meta ...
  • 27.5k
9 votes

Should we discourage questions that are overly abstracted, with unrealistic examples?

IMHO it depends. Someone once told me, there is nothing so bad it cannot serve as a bad example, at least. Take, for example, the question you were referring to in yours. I agree very much too you ...
  • 194k
8 votes

Should we discourage questions that are overly abstracted, with unrealistic examples?

If you think the question is unclear then vote or flag to close with the "unclear what you are asking" reason. If you think the question can be salvaged, then leave a comment pointing out the ...
  • 38.9k
7 votes

Unclear question is clarified in comment, later comment is deleted and contradictory clarification added to question

Before editing the question, I would probably edit the answer, and explain why it answers a slightly different question than the one which was asked (refering to the deleted comment and the edit). It ...
  • 194k
6 votes

Why are answers almost always upvoted more than the question

IANAP(I am not a psychologist), but I think this is driven by perceived value. Questions may not have as high a perceived value, because on their own, they don't accomplish much. When you are ...
  • 1,775
6 votes

Why have I reached question limit? My questions were not downvoted

You can't ask because you have a number of deleted, down-voted questions which are also taken into account when the system calculates whether you can post or not. If you go to your profile and click ...
  • 38.9k
6 votes

Negatively scored questions should be more aggressively hidden from the homepage

Thomas, I think you are barking the wrong tree. We have a problem on our site, and that problem lies clearly in our community: It has become almost impossible to ask a question without getting one or ...
  • 194k
5 votes

Is this the correct community to ask questions on style and procedure, rather than specific questions begging as specific answer?

We have the same rules as Stack Overflow as to the types of questions that we don't allow here - no chatty, open-ended questions; no questions that require a book to answer; no discussions; no poll ...
  • 79k
5 votes
Accepted

Is this a question with answers or should I look elsewhere

This question would not be permitted. It would likely be closed as off-topic as it relates to your career and workplace or as opinion-based as we cannot tell you why you need access to GitHub in order ...
  • 79k
5 votes

Unclear question is clarified in comment, later comment is deleted and contradictory clarification added to question

This is a tough one. One option would be to edit the question after getting the clarification in a comment. You can even use the edit description to note that the clarification edits were derived from ...
  • 79k
5 votes

Is a question about git wrapping scripting adequate in this forum?

No, this question would most likely be downvoted, closed, and deleted here on this site. I can spot four "real" questions in that post (the last four bullet points). These questions are, ...
  • 194k
4 votes

So many bad questions

This has already come up several times before. Here are the related questions that I found quickly: Are we closing too many good questions now? (December 2010) Why are so many questions closed? (...
  • 79k
4 votes

Where can I ask for word suggestions?

Chat is probably a good place. You will find a ton of opinions and perspectives there and perhaps quickly see why they are not great fits for the main site :)
  • 12.1k
4 votes
Accepted

Question on role duties

This question would not be a good fit for the site. The answers are highly dependent on company and opinion. There is no general rulebook on titles in the IT field. Apart from that we generally ...
  • 26.3k
4 votes

Is this something that we can learn from Stack Overflow?

Those two questions would most likely have been caught by the question quality filters on SO. They would have seen one of those red popups that asks them to improve their question. Rather than ...

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible