7 ms·

The changes are a step in the right direction, however I see no mention of the situation where questions with many upvotes are closed. I find it incredibly arro

by SeanDav 13y ago

The changes are a step in the right direction, however I see no mention of the situation where questions with many upvotes are closed. I find it incredibly arrogant that a mod can come close a topic that has many upvotes. It is basically saying to the community that all their opinions count for nothing, which is pretty disrespectful to a community that prides itself (rightly so) on its high number of domain experts. The other truly irritating thing about SO/SE is their propensity for closing opinion based questions. I am sure that I am not the only one that finds domain experts arguing about for example, the merits of 1 library over another, or language A over Language B, rather useful (I often use their answers as a basis for further research to see if I agree or can find supporting evidence). Allow the community to vote up the opinion based answers they like and downvote the trolling/flaming answers.

rhizome 13y ago
One of the changes they describe is about reformulating questions to better fit their "model." I didn't see any indication that people would be getting any indication or explanation of what their "model" is, but it's pretty much just another "closed...FU."
- cruise02 13y ago
  The explanation of what the "model" is has always been there, linked in the close reason.
jaydles 13y ago
DISCLOSURE: I wrote that blog post, I work for SE, I AM biased. Thanks for the general support. You raise two concerns, though: 1. Upvotes - this is tricky. The problem with never allowing questions with lots of upvotes to be closed is twofold: - Sometimes, what's allowed changes over time. Communities start out allowing almost anything "What's a good snack to help programmers stay awake?", but eventually decide that they need to limit things to a narrower focus. If communities who do that can't close those questions, they'll attract more like them. - Some popular things are way off base to start with. You might be able to attract a ton of upvotes for an xkcd post, but you really wouldn't wan't the site full of them just because they're broadly loved. 2. opinion based questions - the changes are designed to help a little with what you're worried about: "primarily opinion based" now explicitly acknowledges that many good answers incorporate some expert opinion. But you still want some limit, no? "Which is better, Ruby or PHP?" isn't good for anybody, and the new reasons are designed to make it clearer that some opinion is ok, if it comes from expert experience or can be supported by facts, references, etc. Where that line belongs is for each community to decide.
- SeanDav 13y ago
  OT: Love your style of writing - I am a fan. Back On Topic: 1. With the examples you gave I can see there are going to be issues, however I have seen many, more focused examples with sometimes a very large number of upvotes, get closed. Typically a question along these lines will be closed - "What is the best book to learn C++ if I already know Java?" In this case there is no correct answer and the answers will be completely opinion based, but there are still many good answers (and books) that will be relevant. 2. I agree with you that such a broad based question should be closed but even more focused questions are also closed, very similar to the one I used above where there can be quite a few valid - and completely different opinions. I realise that it is a balancing act and for sure you are moving in the right direction. I am hoping that opinion based questions/answers will be given more leeway going forward.
- angersock 13y ago
  I'll flat-out disagree with you about the opinion-based questions. We're in a young-enough industry and practice that opinions are really the coin of the realm--there is not the same standard accept methodology you'd see in, say, mechanical engineering. To pretend that opinions aren't somehow a useful component of learning here is absurd--all the more so because beginners need opinions to start. Once they learn more, once they get exposed to other ideas, then they can form their own opinions. But to pretend that this happens in a vacuum is quite wrong. Your example "Which is better, Ruby or PHP?" is exactly where opinions, properly backed-up, are useful: a good answer will say "Well, Ruby has these great metaprogramming features, but PHP has a much larger developer pool, and so on". Bad answers will of course just be "ruby is teh 1337 n00b". If only there was some kind of way that Stack Overflow let users filter good answers from bad answers... At the end of the day, opinions and their debate are what are most useful to a beginner, especially when they don't know what questions to ask or issues to consider. The big failing right now is that you aren't trusting your community enough to filter out the garbage.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - andrewflnr 13y ago
enraged_camel 13y ago
With regards to opinions, I think SO's stance is that they want the site to be a medium to exchange mostly facts, and as little opinion as possible. The problem with opinions is that, to someone who is not knowledgeable, it may not be immediately clear which opinion holds more weight. In turn, this may end up confusing the reader even more, or worse yet, it may mislead them. This is especially true because even when an opinion is correct, its correctness may be context-sensitive, and this may cause the reader to make the wrong decision based on the correct opinion.
- ebrenes 13y ago
  More often than not the voting is based on opinion in addition to fact. Often the top answer is not only correct but cleaner, more elegant or adheres to some aesthetic quality that's valued by those people voting up the answer. In software there's many ways to achieve a goal, not a single unique factual answer, thus many answers are context-sensitive and not absolute truths. Sure we can determine to some extent the correctness of the answers, but many of them are contextual and based on factors that are based on opinion/experience. The voting system in and of itself encourages users to infuse answers with opinion.
- angersock 13y ago
  The problem with opinions is that, to someone who is not knowledgeable, it may not be immediately clear which opinion holds more weight If only there was some facility in Stack Overflow to let users add weight to an opinion, either by signaling agreement or explicitly rounding it out with comments--man, that'd be really useful, wouldn't it? Opinions aren't something that are bad. Facts, especially to somebody that doesn't know what they don't know, are often less useful. If you punish opinions, you also discourage people from answering with extra background on a topic and creating useful discussion.
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    >>creating useful discussion They have said several times that the site is not for discussions. I don't know what is so difficult to understand about that.
thedufer 13y ago
> I find it incredibly arrogant that a mod can come close a topic that has many upvotes. Is this actually true? My understanding was that no one could directly close a question, but rather that you can cast close votes (and 5 of them closes a question).
rlpb 13y ago
> I find it incredibly arrogant that a mod can come close a topic that has many upvotes. It is basically saying to the community that all their opinions count for nothing What is the distribution of those upvotes against reputation, though? Anybody can upvote. Only users with significant reputations can issue votes to close a question. If domain experts think that a question should be closed, but an overwhelming number of beginners, non-participants (eg. people viewing the HN front page) or ill-informed think otherwise, then what should happen?

by SeanDav 13y ago

rhizome 13y ago

One of the changes they describe is about reformulating questions to better fit their "model." I didn't see any indication that people would be getting any indication or explanation of what their "model" is, but it's pretty much just another "closed...FU."

cruise02 13y ago
The explanation of what the "model" is has always been there, linked in the close reason.

jaydles 13y ago

DISCLOSURE: I wrote that blog post, I work for SE, I AM biased. Thanks for the general support. You raise two concerns, though: 1. Upvotes - this is tricky. The problem with never allowing questions with lots of upvotes to be closed is twofold: - Sometimes, what's allowed changes over time. Communities start out allowing almost anything "What's a good snack to help programmers stay awake?", but eventually decide that they need to limit things to a narrower focus. If communities who do that can't close those questions, they'll attract more like them. - Some popular things are way off base to start with. You might be able to attract a ton of upvotes for an xkcd post, but you really wouldn't wan't the site full of them just because they're broadly loved. 2. opinion based questions - the changes are designed to help a little with what you're worried about: "primarily opinion based" now explicitly acknowledges that many good answers incorporate some expert opinion. But you still want some limit, no? "Which is better, Ruby or PHP?" isn't good for anybody, and the new reasons are designed to make it clearer that some opinion is ok, if it comes from expert experience or can be supported by facts, references, etc. Where that line belongs is for each community to decide.

SeanDav 13y ago
OT: Love your style of writing - I am a fan. Back On Topic: 1. With the examples you gave I can see there are going to be issues, however I have seen many, more focused examples with sometimes a very large number of upvotes, get closed. Typically a question along these lines will be closed - "What is the best book to learn C++ if I already know Java?" In this case there is no correct answer and the answers will be completely opinion based, but there are still many good answers (and books) that will be relevant. 2. I agree with you that such a broad based question should be closed but even more focused questions are also closed, very similar to the one I used above where there can be quite a few valid - and completely different opinions. I realise that it is a balancing act and for sure you are moving in the right direction. I am hoping that opinion based questions/answers will be given more leeway going forward.
angersock 13y ago
I'll flat-out disagree with you about the opinion-based questions. We're in a young-enough industry and practice that opinions are really the coin of the realm--there is not the same standard accept methodology you'd see in, say, mechanical engineering. To pretend that opinions aren't somehow a useful component of learning here is absurd--all the more so because beginners need opinions to start. Once they learn more, once they get exposed to other ideas, then they can form their own opinions. But to pretend that this happens in a vacuum is quite wrong. Your example "Which is better, Ruby or PHP?" is exactly where opinions, properly backed-up, are useful: a good answer will say "Well, Ruby has these great metaprogramming features, but PHP has a much larger developer pool, and so on". Bad answers will of course just be "ruby is teh 1337 n00b". If only there was some kind of way that Stack Overflow let users filter good answers from bad answers... At the end of the day, opinions and their debate are what are most useful to a beginner, especially when they don't know what questions to ask or issues to consider. The big failing right now is that you aren't trusting your community enough to filter out the garbage.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- andrewflnr 13y ago

enraged_camel 13y ago

With regards to opinions, I think SO's stance is that they want the site to be a medium to exchange mostly facts, and as little opinion as possible. The problem with opinions is that, to someone who is not knowledgeable, it may not be immediately clear which opinion holds more weight. In turn, this may end up confusing the reader even more, or worse yet, it may mislead them. This is especially true because even when an opinion is correct, its correctness may be context-sensitive, and this may cause the reader to make the wrong decision based on the correct opinion.

ebrenes 13y ago
More often than not the voting is based on opinion in addition to fact. Often the top answer is not only correct but cleaner, more elegant or adheres to some aesthetic quality that's valued by those people voting up the answer. In software there's many ways to achieve a goal, not a single unique factual answer, thus many answers are context-sensitive and not absolute truths. Sure we can determine to some extent the correctness of the answers, but many of them are contextual and based on factors that are based on opinion/experience. The voting system in and of itself encourages users to infuse answers with opinion.
angersock 13y ago
The problem with opinions is that, to someone who is not knowledgeable, it may not be immediately clear which opinion holds more weight If only there was some facility in Stack Overflow to let users add weight to an opinion, either by signaling agreement or explicitly rounding it out with comments--man, that'd be really useful, wouldn't it? Opinions aren't something that are bad. Facts, especially to somebody that doesn't know what they don't know, are often less useful. If you punish opinions, you also discourage people from answering with extra background on a topic and creating useful discussion.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  >>creating useful discussion They have said several times that the site is not for discussions. I don't know what is so difficult to understand about that.

thedufer 13y ago

> I find it incredibly arrogant that a mod can come close a topic that has many upvotes. Is this actually true? My understanding was that no one could directly close a question, but rather that you can cast close votes (and 5 of them closes a question).

rlpb 13y ago

> I find it incredibly arrogant that a mod can come close a topic that has many upvotes. It is basically saying to the community that all their opinions count for nothing What is the distribution of those upvotes against reputation, though? Anybody can upvote. Only users with significant reputations can issue votes to close a question. If domain experts think that a question should be closed, but an overwhelming number of beginners, non-participants (eg. people viewing the HN front page) or ill-informed think otherwise, then what should happen?