35 votes

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

candied_orange's user avatar
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, ...
Doc Brown's user avatar
  • 203k
29 votes

Why was "Why aren't young programmers interested in mainframes?" re-opened?

Thus, questions that are not answerable -- discussions, debates, opinions -- should be closed as subjective. By and large this is true, but do you ever stop long enough to consider if there is ...
Robert Cartaino's user avatar
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 ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
16 votes

Could we delete these old opinionated, chatty, discussion questions?

After 12 up / 0 down votes to this answer and no answers expressing a problem, I applied a historical lock to both questions. This should make it clear that these questions aren't acceptable here ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
13 votes

Why was "Why aren't young programmers interested in mainframes?" re-opened?

Something came up in the comments on Robert's answer that I'd like to address... But why should it remain open? Curation of existing content for questions that are off topic, primarily opinion, or ...
Shog9's user avatar
  • 8,131
12 votes

Regarding the "one return only" question

I see no reason to do anything about it.
yannis's user avatar
  • 39.6k
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 Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
10 votes

Question marked as opinion-based—I'm seeking facts and references

There are several reasons why this question is not a good fit. First, we do not accept research or resource request questions. We are not a search engine. We are not librarians. We, as a community, ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
9 votes

Re-evaluate the historical lock on 'What are some easter eggs that went wrong'

I'm going to give the community a chance to disagree, but I think it should be deleted. I don't think that the low view count warrants the historical lock. The net score of the question and top ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
9 votes

Should a question about older code being updated to use newer language constructs be closed as a duplicate?

I hit up this question in the review queue and reopened it. Even though there may be mostly an answer in the "duplicate", it's hard to find and doesn't focus on the particular problem at hand. ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
9 votes

What is spam, according to Stack Exchange and Software Engineering.SE?

In addition to Glorfindel's answer, there's also something called a "spam seed". This is a question used to elicit spam answers. I treat spam seeds the same way as spam - flag it as spam. As ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
8 votes
Accepted

Historical locked trash, please delete

I don't see a purpose in deleting this question. I removed the low quality tag of junior-programmers and deleted all of the negatively scored answers. I've also removed the mod notice about long ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
7 votes

Why would my question asked yesterday (+75), with a great answer (+95), be closed?

If you click on the close button, all four close votes are "duplicate", with a pointer to this question. This is indicating that everyone thinks the answers to the other question directly answer your ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
7 votes
Accepted

Delete/Unlock the "Historically Locked" How and where do you store your private work/sourcecode?

The answers were...abysmal. Yes, it had a lot of views, but I don't see how it can serve as a useful reference based on the answers there.
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
7 votes

Why the question got deleted?

Thank you for pointing out that the question was deleted without a visible reason. Usually, questions are first closed with a reason before they are deleted. In the meanwhile, this has been rectified. ...
amon's user avatar
  • 133k
7 votes

What is spam, according to Stack Exchange and Software Engineering.SE?

Yes, that might be confusing. Even though it does contain disclosure, it's such a textbook "only exists to promote a website" that the second part is waived. The same holds for pharmacy spam ...
Glorfindel's user avatar
  • 3,137
6 votes

Reconsider historical lock on "How many monitors do you use? Why? How they are used?"

As someone who answered this question in 2011, I agree with you on both points: In its current form, it shouldn't exist: it's a poll and most answers are less than constructive. The lock makes it ...
Arseni Mourzenko's user avatar
6 votes
Accepted

Will removing link to author's own research paper be enough to make this question not spam?

Would such edits make it not spam? Yes. Make it suitable for undeletion and reopening? It's still an off-topic question. Aside from the title, I don't see any questions, on- or off-topic. Even if you ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
5 votes
Accepted

Asking about the programming industry, and does it fit my personality is acceptable?

No - career advice is not on-topic here and it will get closed. This kind of question is very unique to you and not generally helpful to the broader community of software developers. I'm not sure how ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
5 votes
Accepted

Reevaluate historical lock on "Is Java “dead in the water” ..."

Deleted. The low view count was more than enough to me.
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 80.4k
5 votes

What questions recently closed can be salvaged?

So I finally got around to looking at all 70 questions and writing down how I feel about them. Obviously, I'm one of the active close/down/delete voters who feels that >50% of our questions having ...
Ixrec's user avatar
  • 27.7k
5 votes
Accepted

What's up with this 10K+ views question, is it useful or interesting?

The terribly flawed premise of the question is something that I've heard numerous times (in one form or another) from newer developers. The content may not be interesting to a seasoned developer, but ...
yannis's user avatar
  • 39.6k
5 votes
Accepted

Understanding the guidelines

You are correct, the tag info could have have been interpreted that way when taking it literally. However, I am very sure the community here does not want an interpretation like Questions about the ...
Doc Brown's user avatar
  • 203k

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