4 ms·

Everything does NOT belong on StackOverflow. I wish SO highlighted http://stackexchange.com/sites http://stackexchange.com/sites so that people can participate

by cvs268 10y ago

Everything does NOT belong on StackOverflow. I wish SO highlighted http://stackexchange.com/sites http://stackexchange.com/sites so that people can participate in the respective stackexchange communities where they will be more welcome. I have seen that a lot of good questions on StackOverflow get closed/migrated simply because they are irrelevant on StackOverflow. A similar analogy would be to think of something that would be gold in the right sub-reddit but controversial/irrelevant on the main reddit page. StackOverflow encourages constructive Q&A. The SO community has always aimed to close any questions whose answers will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.

_pmf_ 10y ago
What's kind of telling is that the highest rating SO questions are those that would nowadays be closed as "primarily opinion based" or "unclear what you're asking". I know that the current tendency for those questions is that they should be posted on programmers.stackoverflow, but I found the quality there dubious at least (too much armchair architects).
rat87 10y ago
I totally disagree. Back in the day a lot of these questions fit on Stack Overflow just fine. A lot of the sites are too specific and have to few users for good answers. > The SO community has always aimed to close any questions whose answers will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise. This isn't true back in the day people gave good opinions on things with subjective answers. Frequently you'd have author of framework A saying whats pluses and minuses it has and the same for framework B and C. I didn't see any flamewars. The problem is that they started moderating questions instead of answers. If you get a bad subjective answer simply remove it with a warning.
- cvs268 10y ago
  > A lot of the sites are too specific and have too few users for good answers. Thats what! If enough people aren't interested/participating in a particular stackexchange site, then an open-ended question on StackOverflow is not likely to generate any canonical answers with proper references from the people hanging out on StackOverflow. Also such a question is likely to be too-specific i.e. "ahead of its time" to be discussed in an open forum without enough people having experienced first-hand the various nuances involved. Ergo, Fanboyism/Flamewars ensue... The strict community moderation guidelines on StackOverflow, make it a very "clean" and informative part of the internet. This is at the cost of few "borderline-acceptable" questions being closed. Right now, it appears to be a conscious decision to accept this fact on StackOverflow. It would be good to ensure that people who ARE interested in a sub-domain are aware of he relevant stackexchange sites. Discover-ability and the ease of browsing/following related tags across the various stackexchange sites could be easier, so that people can "hang-out" in the relevant sites. Is there a way to generate unified feed or search for a tag across all sites on StackExchange? (i don't know. maybe it would help improve participation in the relevant sites)
  - Drdrdrq 10y ago
    I had a schoolmate in high school who believed that every question has an objective answer. Man, what a pita it was when he set out to find it and wouldn't let go even after all the others gave up and tried to abort the discussion... Sometimes I am looking for subjective answer, because let's face it - objective one doesn't always exist (if ever). Saying SO is not the correct site for this is of course a legitimate response, but the feelings it evokes in me (especially after it replaced myriad of forums where I could have gotten a better answer) are not very friendly. I deal with it in my own way (not actively helping others), but it's a shame...

by cvs268 10y ago

_pmf_ 10y ago

What's kind of telling is that the highest rating SO questions are those that would nowadays be closed as "primarily opinion based" or "unclear what you're asking". I know that the current tendency for those questions is that they should be posted on programmers.stackoverflow, but I found the quality there dubious at least (too much armchair architects).

rat87 10y ago

I totally disagree. Back in the day a lot of these questions fit on Stack Overflow just fine. A lot of the sites are too specific and have to few users for good answers. > The SO community has always aimed to close any questions whose answers will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise. This isn't true back in the day people gave good opinions on things with subjective answers. Frequently you'd have author of framework A saying whats pluses and minuses it has and the same for framework B and C. I didn't see any flamewars. The problem is that they started moderating questions instead of answers. If you get a bad subjective answer simply remove it with a warning.

cvs268 10y ago
> A lot of the sites are too specific and have too few users for good answers. Thats what! If enough people aren't interested/participating in a particular stackexchange site, then an open-ended question on StackOverflow is not likely to generate any canonical answers with proper references from the people hanging out on StackOverflow. Also such a question is likely to be too-specific i.e. "ahead of its time" to be discussed in an open forum without enough people having experienced first-hand the various nuances involved. Ergo, Fanboyism/Flamewars ensue... The strict community moderation guidelines on StackOverflow, make it a very "clean" and informative part of the internet. This is at the cost of few "borderline-acceptable" questions being closed. Right now, it appears to be a conscious decision to accept this fact on StackOverflow. It would be good to ensure that people who ARE interested in a sub-domain are aware of he relevant stackexchange sites. Discover-ability and the ease of browsing/following related tags across the various stackexchange sites could be easier, so that people can "hang-out" in the relevant sites. Is there a way to generate unified feed or search for a tag across all sites on StackExchange? (i don't know. maybe it would help improve participation in the relevant sites)
- Drdrdrq 10y ago
  I had a schoolmate in high school who believed that every question has an objective answer. Man, what a pita it was when he set out to find it and wouldn't let go even after all the others gave up and tried to abort the discussion... Sometimes I am looking for subjective answer, because let's face it - objective one doesn't always exist (if ever). Saying SO is not the correct site for this is of course a legitimate response, but the feelings it evokes in me (especially after it replaced myriad of forums where I could have gotten a better answer) are not very friendly. I deal with it in my own way (not actively helping others), but it's a shame...