6 ms·

An interesting question on a relevant topic? Let's close it. Thanks, SO mods.

eckyptang 14y ago
Yes it's annoying. Perhaps there needs to be another alternative on the web which actually values users. People with useful information don't bother with it any more. Its also incredibly fragmented - its impossible to pick the right instance for a question without getting in trouble. its a proper power struggle.
- jwarzech 14y ago
  I think thats why Quora is doing as well as it is. At first I didn't get how they were differentiating but I find myself going there more and more for hight quality answers from people who know what they are talking about.
gizzlon 14y ago
It's right there in the closing message: We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion Seems to be according to the SO "rules".. no? Edit: davidlumley points out that this is not SO, and he might have a point.. Anyway, I don't think ppl should be mad at SO for not being what they expect or want it to be.
tikhonj 14y ago
There are already far too many answers to the question--more wouldn't really help anything. Any new answers--even really good ones--would just get lost in the noise. Apart from posting answers, there really isn't much else restricted by the question's being closed. I really think it is not a big deal.
- yrizos 14y ago
  And a few deleted ones. "Sounds like your friend is a bit of a dick. Noone wants to work for him." is one of them (yeap, just that), the whole thread was turning to crap. Closing is only meant to prevent further answers, and this one was deteriorating fast.
billswift 14y ago
>Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions. - - Jerry E Pournelle Any large enough organization tends towards bureaucracy, and the tendency is even stronger on the Web, where direct person-to-person interaction is more limited. And the evolution to "iron law" conditions tends to be faster there also, once the bureaucratic (rule-following and rule-enforcing) mindset is formed. Wikipedia, Google, and Amazon are other examples, they have all been getting worse to use over the last few years. Web-based organizations probably need to remain smaller than similar real-world organizations, if they want to avoid the effect.
- pc86 14y ago
  "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."
megablast 14y ago
Maybe http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/ is a better place for this sort of question.
- bunderbunder 14y ago
  It's a sad day for nerds everywhere when we have to start thinking of Reddit as a better place than Stack Exchange to ask this sort of question.
  - k3n 14y ago
    I think that's unfair, just because you may have some axe to grind with Reddit doesn't mean that it's not a good source of information and discussion. SO works great for some formats, but as a discussion board, it sucks. The question that was posed had no clear answer, we could all wax poetic on the pathology and prognosis and cure of the OP's problem, but there's only 1 big green checkmark to go around -- and when it's been doled out, there's no going back. Essentially, every answer to the OP's question in that thread is an opinion and, by definition, is impossible to accurately score.
    - bunderbunder 14y ago
      You're right, as a discussion board it does suck. But as a place to ask advice from other experts and get a feel for how they're inclined to think about the issue, it's absolutely fantastic. And the reason why it's such a great platform for that kind of thing is that the interface goes to such great lengths to discourage drawn-out discussion. By making it hard for argumentative people to dominate the topic, it makes it possible to get a feel for what everyone's really thinking in a way that, to my knowledge, is unprecedented. It's true that there is one little detail, the green checkbox, that isn't a good match for this use case. At least not if you think of it as a way to pick the one Objectively True[tm] answer. But to think of it that way is absurd. Even with concrete programming issues there's often more than one way to do it, and everyone knows that in those cases and many others the green checkbox really just indicates which option the question asker liked best. And beyond that, it's just plain wrongheaded to suggest that there shouldn't be room for opinion at a place like SE. It's tantamount to saying that there's no room for discussing the difficult, nebulous problems that real professionals have to deal with on a daily basis, and that the site's really only intended for helping people with the one case in which we can always expect a single objective answer: Homework help.
k3n 14y ago
Well, it wasn't a _programming_ question. There's an untold number of other industries which face this same problem.

Yes it's annoying. Perhaps there needs to be another alternative on the web which actually values users. People with useful information don't bother with it any more. Its also incredibly fragmented - its impossible to pick the right instance for a question without getting in trouble. its a proper power struggle.

jwarzech 14y ago
I think thats why Quora is doing as well as it is. At first I didn't get how they were differentiating but I find myself going there more and more for hight quality answers from people who know what they are talking about.

gizzlon 14y ago

It's right there in the closing message: We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion Seems to be according to the SO "rules".. no? Edit: davidlumley points out that this is not SO, and he might have a point.. Anyway, I don't think ppl should be mad at SO for not being what they expect or want it to be.

tikhonj 14y ago

There are already far too many answers to the question--more wouldn't really help anything. Any new answers--even really good ones--would just get lost in the noise. Apart from posting answers, there really isn't much else restricted by the question's being closed. I really think it is not a big deal.

yrizos 14y ago
And a few deleted ones. "Sounds like your friend is a bit of a dick. Noone wants to work for him." is one of them (yeap, just that), the whole thread was turning to crap. Closing is only meant to prevent further answers, and this one was deteriorating fast.

billswift 14y ago

>Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions. - - Jerry E Pournelle Any large enough organization tends towards bureaucracy, and the tendency is even stronger on the Web, where direct person-to-person interaction is more limited. And the evolution to "iron law" conditions tends to be faster there also, once the bureaucratic (rule-following and rule-enforcing) mindset is formed. Wikipedia, Google, and Amazon are other examples, they have all been getting worse to use over the last few years. Web-based organizations probably need to remain smaller than similar real-world organizations, if they want to avoid the effect.

pc86 14y ago
"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."

megablast 14y ago

Maybe http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/ is a better place for this sort of question.

bunderbunder 14y ago
It's a sad day for nerds everywhere when we have to start thinking of Reddit as a better place than Stack Exchange to ask this sort of question.
- k3n 14y ago
  I think that's unfair, just because you may have some axe to grind with Reddit doesn't mean that it's not a good source of information and discussion. SO works great for some formats, but as a discussion board, it sucks. The question that was posed had no clear answer, we could all wax poetic on the pathology and prognosis and cure of the OP's problem, but there's only 1 big green checkmark to go around -- and when it's been doled out, there's no going back. Essentially, every answer to the OP's question in that thread is an opinion and, by definition, is impossible to accurately score.
  - bunderbunder 14y ago
    You're right, as a discussion board it does suck. But as a place to ask advice from other experts and get a feel for how they're inclined to think about the issue, it's absolutely fantastic. And the reason why it's such a great platform for that kind of thing is that the interface goes to such great lengths to discourage drawn-out discussion. By making it hard for argumentative people to dominate the topic, it makes it possible to get a feel for what everyone's really thinking in a way that, to my knowledge, is unprecedented. It's true that there is one little detail, the green checkbox, that isn't a good match for this use case. At least not if you think of it as a way to pick the one Objectively True[tm] answer. But to think of it that way is absurd. Even with concrete programming issues there's often more than one way to do it, and everyone knows that in those cases and many others the green checkbox really just indicates which option the question asker liked best. And beyond that, it's just plain wrongheaded to suggest that there shouldn't be room for opinion at a place like SE. It's tantamount to saying that there's no room for discussing the difficult, nebulous problems that real professionals have to deal with on a daily basis, and that the site's really only intended for helping people with the one case in which we can always expect a single objective answer: Homework help.

k3n 14y ago

Well, it wasn't a _programming_ question. There's an untold number of other industries which face this same problem.