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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 answe

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!)
ythl 10y ago
"How do I convert a JSON object to CSV?" is a common broad question I see all the time. There is no standard conversion because they are completely different data structures.
- sanderjd 10y ago
  And yet, answers with demonstrations of the many ways to do so are extremely useful! Sometimes I think the side of this debate you land on is something of a personality test: do you seek order above all else or do you embrace and try to grapple with chaos?
  - Kalium 10y ago
    Such a question is best addressed in a personalized way, starting from what capabilities the asker has and what they are trying to accomplish. Offering multiple viable technical solutions to a person who asks such a question is quite likely to leave them confused and adrift as most of the answers are not comprehended. So, you're absolutely correct. Demonstrations of the many ways to do so are extremely useful to many people! It is, however, highly likely that few - if any - will be useful to the person asking the question. You're very right - this is a personality test. Do you try to jump directly to trying to answer an apparently-simple question, or do you cautiously consider if the simple question hides complex depths (deeply nested structures, arrays of variable length, etc.) that make a simple and straightforward answer difficult?
lloeki 10y ago
Maybe some questions are just not "too broad" but simply broad, and that one may wish to have a number of possible solutions to a problem and pick the one that fits one's case best ("one" being possibly someone else in the future that has a not precisely similar but close enough problem that the set of proposed solutions can help in finding the right path). So maybe, just maybe a slightly broad question with a couple answers may be better that an theoretically ideal set of a thousand (question, answer) tuples each trying to fit a very restricted case. Unfortunately some mods seem hell-bent on promoting the latter, possibly in hope of writing bots that solve-by-Google (see stacksort[0]). [0]: https://gkoberger.github.io/stacksort/ https://gkoberger.github.io/stacksort/
- Kalium 10y ago
  My personal experience with such questions is that very often, the process of engaging in dialogue to determine what kind of answer(s) the asker actually wants is difficult and time-consuming. This typically complicated by askers who don't actually show up to the dialogue, leaving people who want to be helpful with no way to figure out what specific answers are helpful. There tends to be no adequate way to helpfully answer such questions, so people try to filter them out as poor uses of time. The scenario you describe is somewhat different, in which the asker is well aware they have a broad question. Such people are advised to make clear that they know full well it is a broad question and are seeking broad comment on multiple viable approaches.
- coryfklein 10y ago
  > Maybe some questions are just not "too broad" but simply broad, and that one may wish to have a number of possible solutions to a problem and pick the one that fits one's case best I think there are two kinds of "broad": 1. There are multiple ways to solve a specific problem with a specific expected outcome. "How do I sort an array?", for example, is a broad question in that it can be solved in many ways, but you can definitively say whether any given solution is correct or not. 2. The problem is not specific, and there is no clear way to determine whether any given answer is actually a "solution". For example, a single question with only the text, "How do you write a game?" Most "broad" questions fall on some spectrum between these two, but the closer a question is to the latter category, the less likely it is to generate any sort of helpful feedback. The community does sometimes label the former as "too broad", but 95% of the time the given close reasons are correct, and when they are wrong the site provides documentation on how to get your question re-opened. It's hard to maintain a proper balance between moderating the inundation of terrible questions and avoiding the false-negative closing of legitimate questions.
Hoasi 10y ago
The thing is: many times the question is harder than the answer. If only we could phrase the question right, then the answer is actually the easy part.
- TheCapn 10y ago
  This has been a big part of my experience. I think the last 3 times I've gone to SO to write a question I spend an hour finding the right code samples, explaining what the problem is and why I need to solve it. Why I've chosen this route and after all that has been put down on the page I see what the real issue is and solve it before its even submitted. It's almost become another tool to use, "How would I structure this problem if I needed help from the community?" It forces you to think through the problem into the route cause, almost like debugging your thoughts and removing the bloat
mr_pink 10y ago
Yes, sir, you're definitely part of the problem. No other way to put it :)
lloyd-christmas 10y ago
Leaving a comment is more than enough. Question/answers that are ridiculous and "don't contribute" tend to disappear into the bowels of the internet anyway. There's no reason to force it away when it will disappear naturally.

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!)

ythl 10y ago

"How do I convert a JSON object to CSV?" is a common broad question I see all the time. There is no standard conversion because they are completely different data structures.

sanderjd 10y ago
And yet, answers with demonstrations of the many ways to do so are extremely useful! Sometimes I think the side of this debate you land on is something of a personality test: do you seek order above all else or do you embrace and try to grapple with chaos?
- Kalium 10y ago
  Such a question is best addressed in a personalized way, starting from what capabilities the asker has and what they are trying to accomplish. Offering multiple viable technical solutions to a person who asks such a question is quite likely to leave them confused and adrift as most of the answers are not comprehended. So, you're absolutely correct. Demonstrations of the many ways to do so are extremely useful to many people! It is, however, highly likely that few - if any - will be useful to the person asking the question. You're very right - this is a personality test. Do you try to jump directly to trying to answer an apparently-simple question, or do you cautiously consider if the simple question hides complex depths (deeply nested structures, arrays of variable length, etc.) that make a simple and straightforward answer difficult?

lloeki 10y ago

Maybe some questions are just not "too broad" but simply broad, and that one may wish to have a number of possible solutions to a problem and pick the one that fits one's case best ("one" being possibly someone else in the future that has a not precisely similar but close enough problem that the set of proposed solutions can help in finding the right path). So maybe, just maybe a slightly broad question with a couple answers may be better that an theoretically ideal set of a thousand (question, answer) tuples each trying to fit a very restricted case. Unfortunately some mods seem hell-bent on promoting the latter, possibly in hope of writing bots that solve-by-Google (see stacksort[0]). [0]: https://gkoberger.github.io/stacksort/ https://gkoberger.github.io/stacksort/

Kalium 10y ago
My personal experience with such questions is that very often, the process of engaging in dialogue to determine what kind of answer(s) the asker actually wants is difficult and time-consuming. This typically complicated by askers who don't actually show up to the dialogue, leaving people who want to be helpful with no way to figure out what specific answers are helpful. There tends to be no adequate way to helpfully answer such questions, so people try to filter them out as poor uses of time. The scenario you describe is somewhat different, in which the asker is well aware they have a broad question. Such people are advised to make clear that they know full well it is a broad question and are seeking broad comment on multiple viable approaches.
coryfklein 10y ago
> Maybe some questions are just not "too broad" but simply broad, and that one may wish to have a number of possible solutions to a problem and pick the one that fits one's case best I think there are two kinds of "broad": 1. There are multiple ways to solve a specific problem with a specific expected outcome. "How do I sort an array?", for example, is a broad question in that it can be solved in many ways, but you can definitively say whether any given solution is correct or not. 2. The problem is not specific, and there is no clear way to determine whether any given answer is actually a "solution". For example, a single question with only the text, "How do you write a game?" Most "broad" questions fall on some spectrum between these two, but the closer a question is to the latter category, the less likely it is to generate any sort of helpful feedback. The community does sometimes label the former as "too broad", but 95% of the time the given close reasons are correct, and when they are wrong the site provides documentation on how to get your question re-opened. It's hard to maintain a proper balance between moderating the inundation of terrible questions and avoiding the false-negative closing of legitimate questions.

Hoasi 10y ago

The thing is: many times the question is harder than the answer. If only we could phrase the question right, then the answer is actually the easy part.

TheCapn 10y ago
This has been a big part of my experience. I think the last 3 times I've gone to SO to write a question I spend an hour finding the right code samples, explaining what the problem is and why I need to solve it. Why I've chosen this route and after all that has been put down on the page I see what the real issue is and solve it before its even submitted. It's almost become another tool to use, "How would I structure this problem if I needed help from the community?" It forces you to think through the problem into the route cause, almost like debugging your thoughts and removing the bloat

mr_pink 10y ago

Yes, sir, you're definitely part of the problem. No other way to put it :)

lloyd-christmas 10y ago

Leaving a comment is more than enough. Question/answers that are ridiculous and "don't contribute" tend to disappear into the bowels of the internet anyway. There's no reason to force it away when it will disappear naturally.