7 ms·

The ones that really get my gripe are the ones that are flagged for being off topic.. Off what topic? This is a place where technical questions are asked and an

by corobo 10y ago

The ones that really get my gripe are the ones that are flagged for being off topic.. Off what topic? This is a place where technical questions are asked and answered and this is a technical question that needs answering - Why is it closed?

dhimes 10y ago
Exactly. Double frustration if it was the first return from google.
- corobo 10y ago
  That's the only way visit SO. It's double frustration all the time.
wyldfire 10y ago
I don't necessarily agree with the logic, but SO's "topic" is software development. Many questions that are technical but not regarding software are closed for being off topic. Some/many are migrated to sibling stackexchange sites. Some questions are closed because they require opinion-based answers ("What's the best ...?", e.g.).
- corobo 10y ago
  What's stopping them setting up an opinions.stackoverflow then if they've already got sibling sites? Somewhere to contain all of the opinion-based questions.
  - initram 10y ago
    They do have some. For example the Software Recommendations Stack Exchange: http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com
- dionidium 10y ago
  > Some questions are closed because they require opinion-based answers ("What's the best ...?", e.g.). The problem with this is that there are opinions and preferences and biases (and so on) hiding all throughout even the most (seemingly) objective questions and answers. The SO folks think they're making a more meaningful distinction here than they actually are.
  - warbiscuit 10y ago
    Not to mention "what's the best <X> library" can frequently be answered in an objective fashion, if the answers give a breakdown of why. Things like "lib A requires excessive boilerplate compared to lib B, see example", or "lib A can't be installed under the following platforms", etc. What should be voted down on those types of questions isn't the question, but poor answers. It's really frustrating, because getting the opinion of experts who have tried a bunch of alternatives, and know the pros and cons that matter, is exactly why I go to SO frequently.
- dcosson 10y ago
  What's kind of interesting is a lot of the target SO questions are implicitly opinion-based. For any "How do you do X" there might be multiple ways to do it so the question is actually "what's the best way to do X" which is up for anyone to interpret "best". And this tends to work out nicely, you'll often see multiple answers where the top upvoted one is not the selected one, or some answers build off of other ones and describe why they think it needed updating. This kind of nuance and seeing multiple, competing answers is often pretty helpful while you're learning. Plus some of the best, most interesting questions on there are "community wikis" which often tell you they should have been flagged as opinion based but are preserved for historical significance. Because of that I really don't see the point in being so dogmatic about closing opinion based questions. Even something like "emacs or vim" I can imaging being a useful question, with a highly upvoted, thought provoking answer arguing each side.
  - d0mine 10y ago
    "how to do X" has an objective answer: "here's how". Whether it is "the best" is subjective. That is why multiple answers are allowed on Stack Overflow (instead of a single article as on Wikipedia modulo different languages). The accepted tick on the answer says that "here's how" might have worked for the question author. The most upvoted/popular answer works as a rule (there are exceptions). Popularity contest is not the best way to get the truth on a technical subject but it works more often than not (you can read the answer in the chronological order if you like).
  - deong 10y ago
    The historical significance thing is particularly annoying. It's an explicit statement of "We want this type of content, but the system of rules that we created and can change any time we like does not allow this type of content, and what do you mean, 'that seems like something we should do something about'?"
wheaties 10y ago
I have flagged many questions for being off topic. You could say I'm part of the "problem" but from my standpoint, someone will ask a question that can be answered so many ways that the scope is too broad. Many times the person asking doesn't know enough to understand just how broad the question they've asked is. That's why I also leave a comment telling them _why_ I just voted to close. This is, unfortunately, an unsolvable problem. They're asking the question precisely because they don't understand what they're asking enough to get a meaningful answer.
- corobo 10y ago
  > You could say I'm part of the "problem" And I do! With lots of swearing! :) The only time I'm on SO is from a Google search result. They should at least make the danged site noindex itself for that page if it's the question has been closed. You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've been searching for a solution and found a SO link and thought I had the answer coming my way only to see the thing was closed before anyone could answer the question. In all honesty, I don't give a rats why a question was closed. It was either closed and is now useless or open and has answers. The solution is to make the closed question not appear in Google search results. If the same question keeps appearing the solution is to let someone answer it.
  - coryfklein 10y ago
    > The solution is to make the closed question not appear in Google search results. If the same question keeps appearing the solution is to let someone answer it. This is a great idea. Have you considered discussing it on the Meta site? The solution would definitely have to be more nuanced - sometimes "closed" questions have useful answers on them so you wouldn't want to remove those from Google. But removing "closed" questions that provide no value would probably be an improvement.
    - corobo 10y ago
      Well that's the other side of the problematic coin. The majority of my experience with SO is closed questions. I generally consider myself a dumbass and not smart enough to figure out the rules to avoid getting topics closed, so I stick to reddit and HN (and it took years of lurking here before I started posting too!)
coryfklein 10y ago
> This is a place where technical questions are asked and answered I think this is a great reflection of one of the largest problems that Stack Overflow has to solve, and that is user education. The definition of what is on topic for Stack Overflow is much more specific than just being "technical", but most users don't even know that. This results in many new questions being closed. The community is constantly trying to reword these "closed" messages to be as friendly and helpful as possible, but to the newcomer it just feels like rejection. In many ways, Stack Overflow has solved all it's "technology" problems, and now is left with a lot of psychology and communication problems. The site could definitely use a professional communications specialist. (FWIW, for those curious, "on topic" is defined here: http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic)
- sanderjd 10y ago
  It may be true that most users don't know how narrowly the topic is defined, but it's also true that many users do know, and simply think it is defined far too narrowly. Sometimes, if you just can't seem to communicate some policy concept to your target audience, it's a problem with the policy, not the communication.
  - coryfklein 10y ago
    > Sometimes, if you just can't seem to communicate some policy concept to your target audience, it's a problem with the policy, not the communication. I agree 100%. If you were to claim that the "on topic" policy for Stack Overflow is too narrow, I would respectfully disagree.
    - sanderjd 10y ago
      Yep, I think it's too narrow. I'm more than happy to agree to disagree! I'm curious though, since you're certain this is the correct policy, why do you think it has been so hard to communicate?
      - coryfklein 10y ago

by corobo 10y ago

dhimes 10y ago

Exactly. Double frustration if it was the first return from google.

corobo 10y ago
That's the only way visit SO. It's double frustration all the time.

wyldfire 10y ago

I don't necessarily agree with the logic, but SO's "topic" is software development. Many questions that are technical but not regarding software are closed for being off topic. Some/many are migrated to sibling stackexchange sites. Some questions are closed because they require opinion-based answers ("What's the best ...?", e.g.).

corobo 10y ago
What's stopping them setting up an opinions.stackoverflow then if they've already got sibling sites? Somewhere to contain all of the opinion-based questions.
- initram 10y ago
  They do have some. For example the Software Recommendations Stack Exchange: http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com
dionidium 10y ago
> Some questions are closed because they require opinion-based answers ("What's the best ...?", e.g.). The problem with this is that there are opinions and preferences and biases (and so on) hiding all throughout even the most (seemingly) objective questions and answers. The SO folks think they're making a more meaningful distinction here than they actually are.
- warbiscuit 10y ago
  Not to mention "what's the best <X> library" can frequently be answered in an objective fashion, if the answers give a breakdown of why. Things like "lib A requires excessive boilerplate compared to lib B, see example", or "lib A can't be installed under the following platforms", etc. What should be voted down on those types of questions isn't the question, but poor answers. It's really frustrating, because getting the opinion of experts who have tried a bunch of alternatives, and know the pros and cons that matter, is exactly why I go to SO frequently.
dcosson 10y ago
What's kind of interesting is a lot of the target SO questions are implicitly opinion-based. For any "How do you do X" there might be multiple ways to do it so the question is actually "what's the best way to do X" which is up for anyone to interpret "best". And this tends to work out nicely, you'll often see multiple answers where the top upvoted one is not the selected one, or some answers build off of other ones and describe why they think it needed updating. This kind of nuance and seeing multiple, competing answers is often pretty helpful while you're learning. Plus some of the best, most interesting questions on there are "community wikis" which often tell you they should have been flagged as opinion based but are preserved for historical significance. Because of that I really don't see the point in being so dogmatic about closing opinion based questions. Even something like "emacs or vim" I can imaging being a useful question, with a highly upvoted, thought provoking answer arguing each side.
- d0mine 10y ago
  "how to do X" has an objective answer: "here's how". Whether it is "the best" is subjective. That is why multiple answers are allowed on Stack Overflow (instead of a single article as on Wikipedia modulo different languages). The accepted tick on the answer says that "here's how" might have worked for the question author. The most upvoted/popular answer works as a rule (there are exceptions). Popularity contest is not the best way to get the truth on a technical subject but it works more often than not (you can read the answer in the chronological order if you like).
- deong 10y ago
  The historical significance thing is particularly annoying. It's an explicit statement of "We want this type of content, but the system of rules that we created and can change any time we like does not allow this type of content, and what do you mean, 'that seems like something we should do something about'?"

wheaties 10y ago

I have flagged many questions for being off topic. You could say I'm part of the "problem" but from my standpoint, someone will ask a question that can be answered so many ways that the scope is too broad. Many times the person asking doesn't know enough to understand just how broad the question they've asked is. That's why I also leave a comment telling them _why_ I just voted to close. This is, unfortunately, an unsolvable problem. They're asking the question precisely because they don't understand what they're asking enough to get a meaningful answer.

corobo 10y ago
> You could say I'm part of the "problem" And I do! With lots of swearing! :) The only time I'm on SO is from a Google search result. They should at least make the danged site noindex itself for that page if it's the question has been closed. You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've been searching for a solution and found a SO link and thought I had the answer coming my way only to see the thing was closed before anyone could answer the question. In all honesty, I don't give a rats why a question was closed. It was either closed and is now useless or open and has answers. The solution is to make the closed question not appear in Google search results. If the same question keeps appearing the solution is to let someone answer it.
- coryfklein 10y ago
  > The solution is to make the closed question not appear in Google search results. If the same question keeps appearing the solution is to let someone answer it. This is a great idea. Have you considered discussing it on the Meta site? The solution would definitely have to be more nuanced - sometimes "closed" questions have useful answers on them so you wouldn't want to remove those from Google. But removing "closed" questions that provide no value would probably be an improvement.
  - corobo 10y ago
    Well that's the other side of the problematic coin. The majority of my experience with SO is closed questions. I generally consider myself a dumbass and not smart enough to figure out the rules to avoid getting topics closed, so I stick to reddit and HN (and it took years of lurking here before I started posting too!)

coryfklein 10y ago

> This is a place where technical questions are asked and answered I think this is a great reflection of one of the largest problems that Stack Overflow has to solve, and that is user education. The definition of what is on topic for Stack Overflow is much more specific than just being "technical", but most users don't even know that. This results in many new questions being closed. The community is constantly trying to reword these "closed" messages to be as friendly and helpful as possible, but to the newcomer it just feels like rejection. In many ways, Stack Overflow has solved all it's "technology" problems, and now is left with a lot of psychology and communication problems. The site could definitely use a professional communications specialist. (FWIW, for those curious, "on topic" is defined here: http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic)

sanderjd 10y ago
It may be true that most users don't know how narrowly the topic is defined, but it's also true that many users do know, and simply think it is defined far too narrowly. Sometimes, if you just can't seem to communicate some policy concept to your target audience, it's a problem with the policy, not the communication.
- coryfklein 10y ago
  > Sometimes, if you just can't seem to communicate some policy concept to your target audience, it's a problem with the policy, not the communication. I agree 100%. If you were to claim that the "on topic" policy for Stack Overflow is too narrow, I would respectfully disagree.
  - sanderjd 10y ago
    Yep, I think it's too narrow. I'm more than happy to agree to disagree! I'm curious though, since you're certain this is the correct policy, why do you think it has been so hard to communicate?
    - coryfklein 10y ago