4 ms·

Hi, I'm a Stack Overflow user with close privileges[1]. I've answered a lot of questions. I've also closed a fair number of questions. If you write a good quest

Hi, I'm a Stack Overflow user with close privileges[1]. I've answered a lot of questions. I've also closed a fair number of questions. If you write a good question, it won't be closed. A lot of questions that I end up closing are questions that don't have enough information to be answered, or that already have answers (i.e. are duplicates). Also, closed questions can be improved by the original poster by editing them, and then they can be re-opened. Edit: Regarding migrating questions, I've also wondered why it's not possible to migrate them to the appropriate Stack Exchange site. When you flag a question as being more appropriate for a different site, you're only given a few possible sites to migrate it to (I think it's currently only like 3 or 5 of the other SE sites). It's kind of annoying when you know that a question would be perfect for a different SE site, but you can't migrate it to there through the currently available tools. I do know, however, that some questions won't be migrated because their quality is not high enough, even on the SE site where they would be a better fit. [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/users/456814/cupcake http://stackoverflow.com/users/456814/cupcake

VikingCoder 13y ago
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/152480/python-blogs-that-you-regularly-follow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/152480/python-blogs-that-... That was "What Python blogs do you regularly follow?" That's a good question. It wasn't just closed, it was redacted from existence. Now, I happen to agree that it's not a good Stack Overflow question, but it could easily have been shuffled over to another Stack Exchange.
- ColdHawaiian 13y ago
  Which SE site though? That question is totally open-ended, it could generate answers forever. One of the key philosophies of the Stack Exchange sites is to suppress extended discussion.
- alialkhatib 13y ago
  That reads like a question I'd see on Quora. It's open-ended, has virtually no right or wrong answer, and calls for people to evangelize their favorites and perhaps even their own blogs (I realize this sentence might sound like an unequivocal criticism of Quora, which was not intended). On cursory glance, a similar question actually is on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Computer-Programming/What-are-the-best-blogs-to-follow-for-coding-enthusiasts http://www.quora.com/Computer-Programming/What-are-the-best-...
EpicEng 13y ago
I'm also an SO user with close privileges[1]. As long as we're linking profiles, I was a beta user, have been around pretty much since day 1, and am in the top 0.2% of users. This statement is simply not true. > If you write a good question, it won't be closed. How about this one, with 1419 upvotes (and hey; I'm in the list too!): http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9033/hidden-features-of-c http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9033/hidden-features-of-c Or this one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-ava... Or: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2245196/c-urban-myths http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2245196/c-urban-myths Or perhaps: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/81584/what-ide-to-use-for-python http://stackoverflow.com/questions/81584/what-ide-to-use-for... Or, my favorite example, this insanely interesting question with an awesome, enlightening response: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators-work-and-how-are-they-written http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators-w... That question was closed as "Off Topic." What?! The implementation of an emulator is "off topic" on a programming QA site? WTF? I can go on. Hell, here's an aggregated list of great questions, almost all of which are closed: http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-interesting-Stack-Overflow-questions http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-interesting-Stack-Ove... All of those questions have a massive amount of upvotes, i.e., the community thought they were interesting, well written, and, mots importantly, useful. All closed as "off-topic" or "not constructive." Give me a break. This is the crap I'm talking about. A bunch of self-important people with nothing better to do than enforce the rules in as strict a manner as possible regardless of whether or not what they are doing is actually making the site a better place. [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/users/1053/ed-s http://stackoverflow.com/users/1053/ed-s
- ColdHawaiian 12y ago
  > All of those questions have a massive amount of upvotes, i.e., the community thought they were interesting, well written, and, mots importantly, useful. All closed as "off-topic" or "not constructive." Give me a break. This is the crap I'm talking about. A bunch of self-important people with nothing better to do than enforce the rules in as strict a manner as possible regardless of whether or not what they are doing is actually making the site a better place. Don't have time to look through all of your examples, but I took a look at the first one. It's an open-ended question that doesn't have a single, definitive answer. It will generate discussion forever. That's the reason that it was closed (emphasis mine): > As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit...polling, or extended discussion. Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood have a very strict and specific philosophy/opinion regarding what kind of questions and answers make for a "good" Questions & Answers site. There are numerous blog and Meta StackOverflow posts talking about this philosophy. The idea behind suppressing extended discussion is that it makes it harder to find practical answers to actual, real-world problems when they're buried underneath a sea of un-focused discussion. EDIT: I think the generalization of community moderators on StackOverflow as "self-important" isn't entirely correct, nor am I convinced that it's even relevant either. Are there self-important people moderating StackOverflow? Probably, but that doesn't address the fact that people are following strict guidelines for usage of the site that were agreed upon over time by the site's founders, together with the most active participants of the site (or at least, those who most actively chose to participate in Meta). These guidelines were put in place to "make the site better", at least in the opinion of the founders and the aforementioned participants of Meta. They weren't made up so that a bunch of "self-important" people could feel "self-important".

VikingCoder 13y ago

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/152480/python-blogs-that-you-regularly-follow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/152480/python-blogs-that-... That was "What Python blogs do you regularly follow?" That's a good question. It wasn't just closed, it was redacted from existence. Now, I happen to agree that it's not a good Stack Overflow question, but it could easily have been shuffled over to another Stack Exchange.

ColdHawaiian 13y ago
Which SE site though? That question is totally open-ended, it could generate answers forever. One of the key philosophies of the Stack Exchange sites is to suppress extended discussion.
alialkhatib 13y ago
That reads like a question I'd see on Quora. It's open-ended, has virtually no right or wrong answer, and calls for people to evangelize their favorites and perhaps even their own blogs (I realize this sentence might sound like an unequivocal criticism of Quora, which was not intended). On cursory glance, a similar question actually is on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Computer-Programming/What-are-the-best-blogs-to-follow-for-coding-enthusiasts http://www.quora.com/Computer-Programming/What-are-the-best-...

EpicEng 13y ago

I'm also an SO user with close privileges[1]. As long as we're linking profiles, I was a beta user, have been around pretty much since day 1, and am in the top 0.2% of users. This statement is simply not true. > If you write a good question, it won't be closed. How about this one, with 1419 upvotes (and hey; I'm in the list too!): http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9033/hidden-features-of-c http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9033/hidden-features-of-c Or this one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-ava... Or: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2245196/c-urban-myths http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2245196/c-urban-myths Or perhaps: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/81584/what-ide-to-use-for-python http://stackoverflow.com/questions/81584/what-ide-to-use-for... Or, my favorite example, this insanely interesting question with an awesome, enlightening response: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators-work-and-how-are-they-written http://stackoverflow.com/questions/448673/how-do-emulators-w... That question was closed as "Off Topic." What?! The implementation of an emulator is "off topic" on a programming QA site? WTF? I can go on. Hell, here's an aggregated list of great questions, almost all of which are closed: http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-interesting-Stack-Overflow-questions http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-interesting-Stack-Ove... All of those questions have a massive amount of upvotes, i.e., the community thought they were interesting, well written, and, mots importantly, useful. All closed as "off-topic" or "not constructive." Give me a break. This is the crap I'm talking about. A bunch of self-important people with nothing better to do than enforce the rules in as strict a manner as possible regardless of whether or not what they are doing is actually making the site a better place. [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/users/1053/ed-s http://stackoverflow.com/users/1053/ed-s

ColdHawaiian 12y ago
> All of those questions have a massive amount of upvotes, i.e., the community thought they were interesting, well written, and, mots importantly, useful. All closed as "off-topic" or "not constructive." Give me a break. This is the crap I'm talking about. A bunch of self-important people with nothing better to do than enforce the rules in as strict a manner as possible regardless of whether or not what they are doing is actually making the site a better place. Don't have time to look through all of your examples, but I took a look at the first one. It's an open-ended question that doesn't have a single, definitive answer. It will generate discussion forever. That's the reason that it was closed (emphasis mine): > As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit...polling, or extended discussion. Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood have a very strict and specific philosophy/opinion regarding what kind of questions and answers make for a "good" Questions & Answers site. There are numerous blog and Meta StackOverflow posts talking about this philosophy. The idea behind suppressing extended discussion is that it makes it harder to find practical answers to actual, real-world problems when they're buried underneath a sea of un-focused discussion. EDIT: I think the generalization of community moderators on StackOverflow as "self-important" isn't entirely correct, nor am I convinced that it's even relevant either. Are there self-important people moderating StackOverflow? Probably, but that doesn't address the fact that people are following strict guidelines for usage of the site that were agreed upon over time by the site's founders, together with the most active participants of the site (or at least, those who most actively chose to participate in Meta). These guidelines were put in place to "make the site better", at least in the opinion of the founders and the aforementioned participants of Meta. They weren't made up so that a bunch of "self-important" people could feel "self-important".