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This is a rambling discussion, which Stack Exchange is not really intended for. There are lots of good places to have rambling discussions. We focus on answerab

by spolsky 14y ago

This is a rambling discussion, which Stack Exchange is not really intended for. There are lots of good places to have rambling discussions. We focus on answerable questions with specific answers, not long-winded, open-ended conversation starters. There are plenty of other sites for long-winded, open-ended conversation starters, including Reddit and Hacker News. After a decade or so of operating sites for programmers on the Internet, I've learned that, left by themselves, ALL programmer online sites will rapidly deteriorate into: * I hate my job, woe is me ("I hate my job too!") * I'm not productive any more, oh dear ("Oh my god you took the words right out of my mouth!") * And some nonsense about H1B visas. These kinds of conversations are endless because, I'm sad to say, they represent a common problem among programmers. Discussing it as a means of therapy is a wonderful thing, but DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE, because Stack Exchange is 100% focused on questions with specific factual answers. This hard and fast rule is actually WHY you love stack overflow so much. It's WHY the network works. It's WHY you click on the stackoverflow.com link in the Google results even if it's third. If we weren't strict about this stuff we wouldn't have such consistently high quality ANSWERS. Just because "moderators" (actually, users) have deemed to close a question on Stack Exchange, doesn't mean it's a bad question, or that the person who asked it is bad. It just means that Stack Exchange is an edited, curated environment, not your livejournal. The very moderation that people complain about every time a popular question is closed is what has been making the site work so well.

bozho 14y ago
I don't think leaving the few doznes of fun questions hurts. Now some of the most linked funny "threads" are gone, and we hope someone has a backup. Apart from that, I agree - it's Q&A, not /r/funny, not a discussion forum. Though I haven't seen that many questions that aim to ignite such discussions.
- bp_ 14y ago
  "Fun" questions are bumped over and over again; thus, they accrue ALL the votes and farm ALL the badges. They're just constant noise on the homepage.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    It's not like there's some limited quantity of votes or badges. Or that there's too much fun in the world. So the only reasonable complaint there is that the home page shouldn't have them. Gosh, could there be a technical solution for that?
    - bp_ 14y ago
      Time however is a finite resource and it is effectively wasted on 'fun' questions. Every 'fun' question steals time off the actual Q&A content that is the whole point of SE. Hiding stuff that doesn't below under the rug doesn't make the problem go away, fixing the problem does. In a gamification environment moreover you need to make sure that the rewards are given for activities you want users to do more of. Participation in 'fun' questions is not one such thing. Since they get ALL the votes etc. they naturally attract more of the same 'fun' questions. No, those 'fun' questions just have to go.
      - wpietri 14y ago
        Time is not a finite resource in this context. Time is variable with participation. By driving me off through closing and deleting things that don't fit your personal vision, you have reduced the amount of total work time available. Not just for the fun things, but for all things. Gamification points are also not finite. But if you are really concerned with over-rewarding things that are too gosh-darned fun, just stop rewarding them. It's an easy fix. E.g., instead of marking a question closed, you mark it as just-for-fun; points stop accruing. I guess what you could be saying is that time is finite for some particular group of people. In which case, you've introduced an us-vs-them dynamic, and are basically declaring that the system is about serving the desires of the in group, rather than all participants or all readers. In which case: have fun with your bat and ball.
      - JohnMcG 14y ago
        This is the fallacy that's driving this -- the assumption that people have two choices about how to spend their time and energy: 1. "Fun" SO / SE questions. 2. Serious SO /SE questions. Given this, of course you want to encourage people to choose Option 2 as much as possible. But there's also... 3. Do something else completely unrelated to SO / SE.
pablosanta 14y ago
Agree. 100%.
praptak 14y ago
Stack Exchange in general - yes, definitely, couldn't agree more, please keep it that way! But Programmers? Programmers is and always was an exception. Seriously, almost none of the questions are answerable with specific answers. It is a pit of vague non-answerable questions that don't degrade into flamewars only because they are boring. What kind of fabric is best for covering programmers' chairs?
- yrizos 14y ago
  I don't think you really now what Programmers is about ;) "What kind of fabric is best for covering programmers' chairs?" would be closed in seconds...
  - praptak 14y ago
    I was being sarcastic. Front page, scored +5: "Is hiring a “chief intern” a good idea?". Answerable with specific answers? Not really. Edit: Another one, +28 votes, front page: "Is there a viable alternative to the agile philosophy?". I'm not making this up.
    - yrizos 14y ago
      Hm... The titles seem awful, but at least the "Is hiring a “chief intern” a good idea?" one has a very specific set of parameters. It can be answerable with specific answers, and sufficiently answered by a very small set of answers. That said, the answers so far are... The "Is there a viable alternative to the agile philosophy?" one is from Nov 2010, a more relaxed era, when the site's scope wasn't as well defined as it is today. It was bumped on the front page by a minor edit (argh). I'm on the fence on this one, and I'd prefer it be closed by five regular users.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- spolsky 14y ago
  although programmers.SE was originally meant to be the "anything goes" dumping ground for subjective conversations to get them off of Stack Overflow, that is not its current mission. See the FAQ (http://programmers.stackexchange.com/faq http://programmers.stackexchange.com/faq)
mossplix 14y ago
doesn't that call for a new stack exchange site instead like programmer-therapy.stackexchange.com
fennecfoxen 14y ago
If there's a meta.stackoverflow.com, have you considered some sort of socialization.stackoverflow.com? Then you can not only say "buzz off" but specifically give someone a place to buzz off to. It'd be one of those pragmatic concessions that keeps the idealism moving along and whatnot :)
- praptak 14y ago
  Intentionally or not, Programmers is the de facto "buzz off" site for StackOverflow.
- JohnMcG 14y ago
  Well, it was, but now the moderation there is even more draconian.
  - yrizos 14y ago
    Hey, thanks for noticing!
- tikhonj 14y ago
  That's what the chat rooms are for[1]. [1]: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/04/do-trilogy-sites-need-a-third-place/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/04/do-trilogy-sites-need-... I really like the "third place" idea, but I don't think the chat rooms have been successful in realizing it. Unfortunately, people just don't use them very much--even the StackOverflow rooms rarely have anybody to talk to. I think the fundamental problem is that discussion in other parts of the site is asynchronous, like email, while the chat rooms aren't. The comments and posts stick around and allow people to talk about something across a longer period of time, which also allows more people to join the discussion. On the other hand, chat happens immediately--it only works for the people who are there at the moment and only works while everybody is on. There is, of course, nothing wrong with chat in general. I just don't think it's the best match for the SE format.
  - JohnMcG 14y ago
    Speaking for myself, clicking on a "chat" link crosses a threshold for me from "I'm taking a break and checking stuff out" to "I'm goofing off." Maybe I'm kidding myself that my checking out SE threads isn't goofing off, but once I enter something called "chat" there's no way I can suspend my disbelief, so I don't do it.
JohnMcG 14y ago
What percentage of closed questions are translated to one of the above bullet points?
philoushka 14y ago
I often see soft discussion on consumery sites like apple.SE and DIY.SE. My instincts are to vote to close, but there are just too many. Kind of makes me sad when I go to their metas, and the mods there are most definitely StackOverflow users. It seems the same standards aren't applied across the SE board. Myabe this is not a bad thing because building community, etc.
JohnMcG 14y ago
I think the reason I find myself resisting this is that what you are saying is that you don't want us as whole people, you just want the specific parts of us that "make Stack Overflow great." This desire is understandable. I sure would like to pick and choose the aspects of people's personalities that I had to deal with. But, in most cases, life doesn't work that way. In some cases, asking us to leave behind parts of our personalities is a reasonable request. An obvious example is our employers. They want our coding ability, and would prefer we leave our sports fandom, musical choices, political opinions, relationship issues, etc. at the door before we come into the office. And since they're paying us, they get to make that request. If, say, a significant other told me to go be a sports fan somewhere else, I would probably take her up on that request, and also take along the aspects of my personality she does like. But Stack Exchange is not paying us. Our rewards are the good feeling of helping someone out, and being part of something. Heck, you wanted to charge us money to leverage our SE work into employment opportunities. That being the case, by locking us down like this, you are opening yourself up to competition from another site that welcomes us as whole people, not just the parts that help your site be awesome. I want to be in places where I can be myself, which might include chuckling at the same old jokes or discussing how much my job sucks. The more SO/SE is a place where I cannot be myself, the less desirable a place it is for me to be. One of the things SE/SO claims to be about is building a community. Well, guess what. Communities are groups of people not just their expertise in a given subject.
- bp_ 14y ago
  "I want to be in places where I can be myself, which might include chuckling at the same old jokes or discussing how much my job sucks. The more SO/SE is a place where I cannot be myself, the less desirable a place it is for me to be." There's nothing stopping you from being your whole self on chat, but it's the relentless focus on signal that makes Stack Overflow what's wholly Stack Overflow. You can't just build communities by randomly amassing people together. Communities need to have a common goal; in our case it's the building of the best goddamn Q&A sites we can possibly make out of the SE engine. That's what leads us to be "all business" on the site while wholly goofing off on chat :)
  - 14y ago
frankc 14y ago
I agree with you as it pertains to stackoverflow. I vote to close non-technical stuff all the time there I appreciate that is kept technical q/a. I do not agree about programmers. This particular question was long-winded but it boils down to "What are effective strategies for countering analysis-paralysis"? If that is not a relevant question for programmers than I don't what is. I'd rather just ignore that particular stackexchange and stick to stackoverflow then.
wpietri 14y ago
I get your perspective, but that hard-and-fast rules thing is a trap. One that Wikipedia cleverly avoided: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IAR I can't tell if your claim is that a) You just don't want to run a site that has some good content that doesn't follow the rules, or b) you don't know how to run a site with some good content that doesn't follow the rules. But you're definitely throwing out good content and driving away good contributors because of your inflexibility.
sdstuber 14y ago
>> It's not quite as hostile an approach to community building as experts-exchange, but it's close. I understand there is a tradition of slamming EE when discussing SO/SE, but "hostile" seems a stretch, at least in my experience. I've found few technical forums online or in "real-life" that were as welcoming and community focused as Experts-Exchange. Beyond the obvious in-question discussions, EE members communicate directly through email, instant messaging, phone calls and face-to-face meetings. EE corporate sponsors periodic meetups between administrative staff and members. I've participated fairly regularly over the past few years and people have contacted me directly, off-site for assistance with confidential issues that couldn't be easily posted in the form of a public question. I've been made job offers, did a little contract work and simply chatted about UFC, scuba diving, beer, kids, photography, work, movies, etc. I've had the opportunity to meet a few of the members face-to-face and, while I don't know them all well, I can honestly say they've been consistently friendly and helpful online and in-person. Also, beyond just the "warm-fuzzy" of good-people. EE is a commercial site. The only way it can pay for its servers, employees, bandwidth, storage, etc. is through its community of customers. Sure, some people have been unhappy and left but that will be true of any service. By and large though, people come to EE and stay. If EE was truly a hostile environment it's membership base would have shriveled up years ago and the company would be gone. Going back to SE/SO or any other Q&A forum the fundamental design of all of them is ask about something fairly specific and get answers about your topic. Comments that don't address the topic itself, no matter how insightful, true and possibly helpful they are are, by definition, off-topic and don't belong in that thread. If I ask how to change the belts on my car and you give me an awesome recipe for apple pie, it's just not helpful and your comment should be deleted, voted down, masked, moved to new thread or otherwise discouraged/eliminated (the specific action will depend on the forum.) The forum, as a whole, may be open to any and all discussions, but within the context of any one thread there is either implicitly (by nature of the asker's intent) or explicitly (in member agreement for a particular forum) a rule established that comments stick to the topic of that thread. Community can actually be self-destructive somewhat in this regard. As members become familiar with each other there is often less inhibition to interject side-comments for humor or nostalgia of past discussions. Strangers, without that sense of familiarity, may refrain from joining the peanut gallery and instead stay more formal. All Q&A forums want to stay close to the top of the Google lists. Maintaining good signal-to-noise ratios is the only way to do that. If that means truncating a few tangents in order to keep threads in line, that's good for all. As others have mentioned, the members are at the site because they like it. If they can't police themselves in such a way that the site can prosper then others must do it for them. That's not just SE/SO or EE or similar sites. The same applies to all information providers. Keep the content useful and on-point and it'll rise in popularity. Let it drift an so will the rankings.
tlianza 14y ago
> This is a rambling discussion, which Stack Exchange is not really intended for. Right, that's what the Stack Exchange podcast is for. (ducks)
daivd 14y ago
I agree that you need to keep a direction for SE, but there is one type of open-ended conversation starters that often works really well there - the list. E.g "What feature would you like to see in C++15 (or whatever the next one will be called)?", "What is your favourite bit twiddling trick?", "What is your favourite language outside the TIOBE top-20 and why?", etc. With one list item per answer and the help of the voting structure, those tend to produce interesting reading.

by spolsky 14y ago

bozho 14y ago

I don't think leaving the few doznes of fun questions hurts. Now some of the most linked funny "threads" are gone, and we hope someone has a backup. Apart from that, I agree - it's Q&A, not /r/funny, not a discussion forum. Though I haven't seen that many questions that aim to ignite such discussions.

bp_ 14y ago
"Fun" questions are bumped over and over again; thus, they accrue ALL the votes and farm ALL the badges. They're just constant noise on the homepage.
- wpietri 14y ago
  It's not like there's some limited quantity of votes or badges. Or that there's too much fun in the world. So the only reasonable complaint there is that the home page shouldn't have them. Gosh, could there be a technical solution for that?
  - bp_ 14y ago
    Time however is a finite resource and it is effectively wasted on 'fun' questions. Every 'fun' question steals time off the actual Q&A content that is the whole point of SE. Hiding stuff that doesn't below under the rug doesn't make the problem go away, fixing the problem does. In a gamification environment moreover you need to make sure that the rewards are given for activities you want users to do more of. Participation in 'fun' questions is not one such thing. Since they get ALL the votes etc. they naturally attract more of the same 'fun' questions. No, those 'fun' questions just have to go.
    - wpietri 14y ago
      Time is not a finite resource in this context. Time is variable with participation. By driving me off through closing and deleting things that don't fit your personal vision, you have reduced the amount of total work time available. Not just for the fun things, but for all things. Gamification points are also not finite. But if you are really concerned with over-rewarding things that are too gosh-darned fun, just stop rewarding them. It's an easy fix. E.g., instead of marking a question closed, you mark it as just-for-fun; points stop accruing. I guess what you could be saying is that time is finite for some particular group of people. In which case, you've introduced an us-vs-them dynamic, and are basically declaring that the system is about serving the desires of the in group, rather than all participants or all readers. In which case: have fun with your bat and ball.
    - JohnMcG 14y ago
      This is the fallacy that's driving this -- the assumption that people have two choices about how to spend their time and energy: 1. "Fun" SO / SE questions. 2. Serious SO /SE questions. Given this, of course you want to encourage people to choose Option 2 as much as possible. But there's also... 3. Do something else completely unrelated to SO / SE.

pablosanta 14y ago

Agree. 100%.

praptak 14y ago

Stack Exchange in general - yes, definitely, couldn't agree more, please keep it that way! But Programmers? Programmers is and always was an exception. Seriously, almost none of the questions are answerable with specific answers. It is a pit of vague non-answerable questions that don't degrade into flamewars only because they are boring. What kind of fabric is best for covering programmers' chairs?

yrizos 14y ago
I don't think you really now what Programmers is about ;) "What kind of fabric is best for covering programmers' chairs?" would be closed in seconds...
- praptak 14y ago
  I was being sarcastic. Front page, scored +5: "Is hiring a “chief intern” a good idea?". Answerable with specific answers? Not really. Edit: Another one, +28 votes, front page: "Is there a viable alternative to the agile philosophy?". I'm not making this up.
  - yrizos 14y ago
    Hm... The titles seem awful, but at least the "Is hiring a “chief intern” a good idea?" one has a very specific set of parameters. It can be answerable with specific answers, and sufficiently answered by a very small set of answers. That said, the answers so far are... The "Is there a viable alternative to the agile philosophy?" one is from Nov 2010, a more relaxed era, when the site's scope wasn't as well defined as it is today. It was bumped on the front page by a minor edit (argh). I'm on the fence on this one, and I'd prefer it be closed by five regular users.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
spolsky 14y ago
although programmers.SE was originally meant to be the "anything goes" dumping ground for subjective conversations to get them off of Stack Overflow, that is not its current mission. See the FAQ (http://programmers.stackexchange.com/faq http://programmers.stackexchange.com/faq)

mossplix 14y ago

doesn't that call for a new stack exchange site instead like programmer-therapy.stackexchange.com

fennecfoxen 14y ago

If there's a meta.stackoverflow.com, have you considered some sort of socialization.stackoverflow.com? Then you can not only say "buzz off" but specifically give someone a place to buzz off to. It'd be one of those pragmatic concessions that keeps the idealism moving along and whatnot :)

praptak 14y ago
Intentionally or not, Programmers is the de facto "buzz off" site for StackOverflow.
JohnMcG 14y ago
Well, it was, but now the moderation there is even more draconian.
- yrizos 14y ago
  Hey, thanks for noticing!
tikhonj 14y ago
That's what the chat rooms are for[1]. [1]: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/04/do-trilogy-sites-need-a-third-place/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/04/do-trilogy-sites-need-... I really like the "third place" idea, but I don't think the chat rooms have been successful in realizing it. Unfortunately, people just don't use them very much--even the StackOverflow rooms rarely have anybody to talk to. I think the fundamental problem is that discussion in other parts of the site is asynchronous, like email, while the chat rooms aren't. The comments and posts stick around and allow people to talk about something across a longer period of time, which also allows more people to join the discussion. On the other hand, chat happens immediately--it only works for the people who are there at the moment and only works while everybody is on. There is, of course, nothing wrong with chat in general. I just don't think it's the best match for the SE format.
- JohnMcG 14y ago
  Speaking for myself, clicking on a "chat" link crosses a threshold for me from "I'm taking a break and checking stuff out" to "I'm goofing off." Maybe I'm kidding myself that my checking out SE threads isn't goofing off, but once I enter something called "chat" there's no way I can suspend my disbelief, so I don't do it.

JohnMcG 14y ago

What percentage of closed questions are translated to one of the above bullet points?

philoushka 14y ago

I often see soft discussion on consumery sites like apple.SE and DIY.SE. My instincts are to vote to close, but there are just too many. Kind of makes me sad when I go to their metas, and the mods there are most definitely StackOverflow users. It seems the same standards aren't applied across the SE board. Myabe this is not a bad thing because building community, etc.

JohnMcG 14y ago

I think the reason I find myself resisting this is that what you are saying is that you don't want us as whole people, you just want the specific parts of us that "make Stack Overflow great." This desire is understandable. I sure would like to pick and choose the aspects of people's personalities that I had to deal with. But, in most cases, life doesn't work that way. In some cases, asking us to leave behind parts of our personalities is a reasonable request. An obvious example is our employers. They want our coding ability, and would prefer we leave our sports fandom, musical choices, political opinions, relationship issues, etc. at the door before we come into the office. And since they're paying us, they get to make that request. If, say, a significant other told me to go be a sports fan somewhere else, I would probably take her up on that request, and also take along the aspects of my personality she does like. But Stack Exchange is not paying us. Our rewards are the good feeling of helping someone out, and being part of something. Heck, you wanted to charge us money to leverage our SE work into employment opportunities. That being the case, by locking us down like this, you are opening yourself up to competition from another site that welcomes us as whole people, not just the parts that help your site be awesome. I want to be in places where I can be myself, which might include chuckling at the same old jokes or discussing how much my job sucks. The more SO/SE is a place where I cannot be myself, the less desirable a place it is for me to be. One of the things SE/SO claims to be about is building a community. Well, guess what. Communities are groups of people not just their expertise in a given subject.

bp_ 14y ago
"I want to be in places where I can be myself, which might include chuckling at the same old jokes or discussing how much my job sucks. The more SO/SE is a place where I cannot be myself, the less desirable a place it is for me to be." There's nothing stopping you from being your whole self on chat, but it's the relentless focus on signal that makes Stack Overflow what's wholly Stack Overflow. You can't just build communities by randomly amassing people together. Communities need to have a common goal; in our case it's the building of the best goddamn Q&A sites we can possibly make out of the SE engine. That's what leads us to be "all business" on the site while wholly goofing off on chat :)
- 14y ago

frankc 14y ago

I agree with you as it pertains to stackoverflow. I vote to close non-technical stuff all the time there I appreciate that is kept technical q/a. I do not agree about programmers. This particular question was long-winded but it boils down to "What are effective strategies for countering analysis-paralysis"? If that is not a relevant question for programmers than I don't what is. I'd rather just ignore that particular stackexchange and stick to stackoverflow then.

wpietri 14y ago

I get your perspective, but that hard-and-fast rules thing is a trap. One that Wikipedia cleverly avoided: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IAR I can't tell if your claim is that a) You just don't want to run a site that has some good content that doesn't follow the rules, or b) you don't know how to run a site with some good content that doesn't follow the rules. But you're definitely throwing out good content and driving away good contributors because of your inflexibility.

sdstuber 14y ago

>> It's not quite as hostile an approach to community building as experts-exchange, but it's close. I understand there is a tradition of slamming EE when discussing SO/SE, but "hostile" seems a stretch, at least in my experience. I've found few technical forums online or in "real-life" that were as welcoming and community focused as Experts-Exchange. Beyond the obvious in-question discussions, EE members communicate directly through email, instant messaging, phone calls and face-to-face meetings. EE corporate sponsors periodic meetups between administrative staff and members. I've participated fairly regularly over the past few years and people have contacted me directly, off-site for assistance with confidential issues that couldn't be easily posted in the form of a public question. I've been made job offers, did a little contract work and simply chatted about UFC, scuba diving, beer, kids, photography, work, movies, etc. I've had the opportunity to meet a few of the members face-to-face and, while I don't know them all well, I can honestly say they've been consistently friendly and helpful online and in-person. Also, beyond just the "warm-fuzzy" of good-people. EE is a commercial site. The only way it can pay for its servers, employees, bandwidth, storage, etc. is through its community of customers. Sure, some people have been unhappy and left but that will be true of any service. By and large though, people come to EE and stay. If EE was truly a hostile environment it's membership base would have shriveled up years ago and the company would be gone. Going back to SE/SO or any other Q&A forum the fundamental design of all of them is ask about something fairly specific and get answers about your topic. Comments that don't address the topic itself, no matter how insightful, true and possibly helpful they are are, by definition, off-topic and don't belong in that thread. If I ask how to change the belts on my car and you give me an awesome recipe for apple pie, it's just not helpful and your comment should be deleted, voted down, masked, moved to new thread or otherwise discouraged/eliminated (the specific action will depend on the forum.) The forum, as a whole, may be open to any and all discussions, but within the context of any one thread there is either implicitly (by nature of the asker's intent) or explicitly (in member agreement for a particular forum) a rule established that comments stick to the topic of that thread. Community can actually be self-destructive somewhat in this regard. As members become familiar with each other there is often less inhibition to interject side-comments for humor or nostalgia of past discussions. Strangers, without that sense of familiarity, may refrain from joining the peanut gallery and instead stay more formal. All Q&A forums want to stay close to the top of the Google lists. Maintaining good signal-to-noise ratios is the only way to do that. If that means truncating a few tangents in order to keep threads in line, that's good for all. As others have mentioned, the members are at the site because they like it. If they can't police themselves in such a way that the site can prosper then others must do it for them. That's not just SE/SO or EE or similar sites. The same applies to all information providers. Keep the content useful and on-point and it'll rise in popularity. Let it drift an so will the rankings.

tlianza 14y ago

> This is a rambling discussion, which Stack Exchange is not really intended for. Right, that's what the Stack Exchange podcast is for. (ducks)

daivd 14y ago

I agree that you need to keep a direction for SE, but there is one type of open-ended conversation starters that often works really well there - the list. E.g "What feature would you like to see in C++15 (or whatever the next one will be called)?", "What is your favourite bit twiddling trick?", "What is your favourite language outside the TIOBE top-20 and why?", etc. With one list item per answer and the help of the voting structure, those tend to produce interesting reading.