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> While there are many possibly helpful questions that could be asked, not all of them are a fit for the format. That was a design choice made on day 1 and is b

> While there are many possibly helpful questions that could be asked, not all of them are a fit for the format. That was a design choice made on day 1 and is backed deeply into how the software works and the way people interact with it. The issue I and I guess many of us here is talking about is that it seems the Stack Overflow community - or rather a vocal minority in the community I guess - are downvoting and flagging questions that where ok for the format.

shagie 7y ago
For example?
- Const-me 7y ago
  Examples: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56843086 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56843086 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57064879 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57064879 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57323981 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57323981
  - shagie 7y ago
    Of those three, only the last one is one that I can view. Consider the original question: https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/57323981/1 https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/57323981/1 which... really is "design an entire system for me" type question. The refinement, while better is still getting into discussions in the comments. While its from a different site on the SE network, consider: Green fields, blue skies, and the white board - what is too broad? -- https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6961/ https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions... The structure of Stack Overflow wants a question that has a problem that has some code that isn't behaving correctly and can be solved. The list of "any better ways" is without bound or qualification as to what "better" is. That type of question would probably be better suited to a higher density communication medium such as chat or a true forum (with threads). Stack Overflow was intentionally designed to make that type of question hard to answer. Its not that it isn't a good question - just that it isn't a question that fits well into the SO format. That should be ok, there are many other places where such questions can be asked.
    - Const-me 7y ago
      > only the last one is one that I can view. That’s the point. The site automatically deletes question with negative score. They disappear for most users, they even disappear from “my answers” section of my profile, despite I have enough reputation to view them if I have a link. > which... really is "design an entire system for me" type question. For a professional working with multimedia stack on Windows, the original question is clear. The question received two good answers before these edits. The 4 web developers who closevoted the question are obviously incompetent in the domain, but for some reason unclear to me they decided to closevote. > is still getting into discussions in the comments. No it’s not. All the comments were written before I’ve edited the question. > The structure of Stack Overflow wants a question that has a problem that has some code that isn't behaving correctly and can be solved. Only a minority of the highest voted questions have some code: https://stackoverflow.com/questions?sort=votes https://stackoverflow.com/questions?sort=votes
    - eitland 7y ago
      > That should be ok, there are many other places where such questions can be asked. Won't say "citation needed", but I will say that outside of reddit I do not frequently visit any such places. And reddit has its own problems and also hardly counts as "many".
      - shagie 7y ago
        Consider then having people ask the questions that are 'interesting' here, on HN. There's Metafilter. There is IRC, slack and discord channels, twitter, GitHub issues, mailing lists. People have fairly consistently tried to do spin offs of Stack Overflow (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062876 is one such example - it didn't work, it is rather challenging to get enough people active to keep it active - see https://www.askquestions.tech https://www.askquestions.tech as another). There are even people still posting on usenet ( https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.lang.javascript https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.lang.javascript ) There are lots of them out there. They're not as big as Stack Overflow, but that's part of what allows them to have a less focused mission... and many of the other formats support the interesting questions better than Stack Overflow can.

shagie 7y ago

For example?

Const-me 7y ago
Examples: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56843086 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56843086 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57064879 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57064879 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57323981 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57323981
- shagie 7y ago
  Of those three, only the last one is one that I can view. Consider the original question: https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/57323981/1 https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/57323981/1 which... really is "design an entire system for me" type question. The refinement, while better is still getting into discussions in the comments. While its from a different site on the SE network, consider: Green fields, blue skies, and the white board - what is too broad? -- https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6961/ https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions... The structure of Stack Overflow wants a question that has a problem that has some code that isn't behaving correctly and can be solved. The list of "any better ways" is without bound or qualification as to what "better" is. That type of question would probably be better suited to a higher density communication medium such as chat or a true forum (with threads). Stack Overflow was intentionally designed to make that type of question hard to answer. Its not that it isn't a good question - just that it isn't a question that fits well into the SO format. That should be ok, there are many other places where such questions can be asked.
  - Const-me 7y ago
    > only the last one is one that I can view. That’s the point. The site automatically deletes question with negative score. They disappear for most users, they even disappear from “my answers” section of my profile, despite I have enough reputation to view them if I have a link. > which... really is "design an entire system for me" type question. For a professional working with multimedia stack on Windows, the original question is clear. The question received two good answers before these edits. The 4 web developers who closevoted the question are obviously incompetent in the domain, but for some reason unclear to me they decided to closevote. > is still getting into discussions in the comments. No it’s not. All the comments were written before I’ve edited the question. > The structure of Stack Overflow wants a question that has a problem that has some code that isn't behaving correctly and can be solved. Only a minority of the highest voted questions have some code: https://stackoverflow.com/questions?sort=votes https://stackoverflow.com/questions?sort=votes
  - eitland 7y ago
    > That should be ok, there are many other places where such questions can be asked. Won't say "citation needed", but I will say that outside of reddit I do not frequently visit any such places. And reddit has its own problems and also hardly counts as "many".
    - shagie 7y ago
      Consider then having people ask the questions that are 'interesting' here, on HN. There's Metafilter. There is IRC, slack and discord channels, twitter, GitHub issues, mailing lists. People have fairly consistently tried to do spin offs of Stack Overflow (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6062876 is one such example - it didn't work, it is rather challenging to get enough people active to keep it active - see https://www.askquestions.tech https://www.askquestions.tech as another). There are even people still posting on usenet ( https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.lang.javascript https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/comp.lang.javascript ) There are lots of them out there. They're not as big as Stack Overflow, but that's part of what allows them to have a less focused mission... and many of the other formats support the interesting questions better than Stack Overflow can.