5 ms·

It's not just about discussion. It's a general stance positioning the perfect against the pretty good. Here's just one example: questions often get closed as du

It's not just about discussion. It's a general stance positioning the perfect against the pretty good. Here's just one example: questions often get closed as duplicate after good answers start rolling in. Sometimes, the new answers are better than the old ones. The mods argue that the users should move their answers over to the old question. Or that they should improve the old answers. It's a lot of should, should, should. But why are we talking about shoulds that will never get done when a really good answer is already here? You've got users actively providing good content and your response is to reprimand them and tell them that content should be over here instead? You know, we have these things called links on the world wide web. The internet isn't running out of them. Sometimes it feels like the mods are building a really tidy card catalog at the expense of the books in the collection.

dionidium 12y ago
While I'm ranting, I'll just note that the position that there's a canonical way to ask every question and a that there exists a single acceptable answer is a fairly absurd proposition that, once accepted, leads to all kinds of equally absurd behavior.
warfangle 12y ago
It's almost like there should be a mechanism when marking a question as a duplicate to automatically move the answers from the new question to the old question... along with a 301 redirect on the removed-as-duplicate URL.
- bryancinman 12y ago
  Not sure if that would work since most "duplicate" questions are similar but not identical. Therefore an answer responding to the duplicates' specific use-case would be confusing in the context of the original question. Perhaps include the duplicate question in the answer when it's merged. Hidden behind a link e.g "This answer was posted in response to a duplicate question" and a link to view the content of the duplicate question.
drewblaisdell 12y ago
This is by far the worst problem with Stack Overflow. The mods seem to leap at the chance to mark questions that are similar, but not identical, as duplicates.
- bunderbunder 12y ago
  There's one easy fix for this, and several other problems with SO: Don't close duplicate questions. Just cross-reference them. Reasons: - Gets rid of the "This was closed because of trigger-happy moderators failing to distinguish between 'similar' and 'identical'" problem by making that situation impossible. - Improves answer discovery for users: If Google gets you to almost, but not quite, the right question, cross-referencing gets you the rest of the way. - Improves answer discovery for users: Maybe the best answer today isn't the same as the best answer 5 years ago. - Improves gamification: Rewards are the lifeblood of a site like Stack Overflow. A way of dealing with duplicate questions that rewards users for cross-referencing them is infinitely more in line with SE's basic idea than one that punishes them with public shaming. - Reduces opportunity for petty bureaucrats to take root. - Represents a more thoughtful, measured way of thinking about software engineering. Many questions really can have more than one correct answer, or the correct answer can depend on subtle details. Which answer gets the green check mark may have as much to do with the situation of the asker than the quality of the answer.
  - xorcist 12y ago
    Absolutely right. And this is also the way every other bug tracker on the planet works. (Yes, I think SO looks like a bug tracker used as a discussion forum. They're certainly very close, including hostile project owners, WONTFIX's, etc.)
    - mark-r 12y ago
      Interesting observation. Recall that Joel Spolsky got his start with FogBugz, a bug tracker. Think that might have informed the design?
  - 12y ago
Perdition 12y ago
It reminds me of the Wikipedia "notability" fight from early last decade. The cost of adding an extra page to Stackoverflow/Wikipedia is beyond trivial, there is no reason to restrict additions except to please these mods who want to build a tidy card catalog.
MrPatan 12y ago
This, and a thousand times this. If a question gets asked more, maybe having more indexed landing pages for it for search engines will make it easier to find. It seems to be a popular question after all! Why limit yourself to just one answer?
- mark-r 12y ago
  A closed question isn't automatically deleted, so the search engines can still find it. You'll just need to click another link to find the answers. Theoretically it's better to have all the answers in one place instead of scattered about, so that you can compare and contrast them. In practice it's far from ideal. Often a new question will generate a fresh take on an answer, and the diversity would be welcome. If there's a subtle difference between the "duplicate" question and the older one, you can edit it to highlight the difference. Unfortunately that's hard to do, and you're unlikely to get the reopen votes even if you do a good job.

dionidium 12y ago

While I'm ranting, I'll just note that the position that there's a canonical way to ask every question and a that there exists a single acceptable answer is a fairly absurd proposition that, once accepted, leads to all kinds of equally absurd behavior.

warfangle 12y ago

It's almost like there should be a mechanism when marking a question as a duplicate to automatically move the answers from the new question to the old question... along with a 301 redirect on the removed-as-duplicate URL.

bryancinman 12y ago
Not sure if that would work since most "duplicate" questions are similar but not identical. Therefore an answer responding to the duplicates' specific use-case would be confusing in the context of the original question. Perhaps include the duplicate question in the answer when it's merged. Hidden behind a link e.g "This answer was posted in response to a duplicate question" and a link to view the content of the duplicate question.

drewblaisdell 12y ago

This is by far the worst problem with Stack Overflow. The mods seem to leap at the chance to mark questions that are similar, but not identical, as duplicates.

bunderbunder 12y ago
There's one easy fix for this, and several other problems with SO: Don't close duplicate questions. Just cross-reference them. Reasons: - Gets rid of the "This was closed because of trigger-happy moderators failing to distinguish between 'similar' and 'identical'" problem by making that situation impossible. - Improves answer discovery for users: If Google gets you to almost, but not quite, the right question, cross-referencing gets you the rest of the way. - Improves answer discovery for users: Maybe the best answer today isn't the same as the best answer 5 years ago. - Improves gamification: Rewards are the lifeblood of a site like Stack Overflow. A way of dealing with duplicate questions that rewards users for cross-referencing them is infinitely more in line with SE's basic idea than one that punishes them with public shaming. - Reduces opportunity for petty bureaucrats to take root. - Represents a more thoughtful, measured way of thinking about software engineering. Many questions really can have more than one correct answer, or the correct answer can depend on subtle details. Which answer gets the green check mark may have as much to do with the situation of the asker than the quality of the answer.
- xorcist 12y ago
  Absolutely right. And this is also the way every other bug tracker on the planet works. (Yes, I think SO looks like a bug tracker used as a discussion forum. They're certainly very close, including hostile project owners, WONTFIX's, etc.)
  - mark-r 12y ago
    Interesting observation. Recall that Joel Spolsky got his start with FogBugz, a bug tracker. Think that might have informed the design?
- 12y ago

Perdition 12y ago

It reminds me of the Wikipedia "notability" fight from early last decade. The cost of adding an extra page to Stackoverflow/Wikipedia is beyond trivial, there is no reason to restrict additions except to please these mods who want to build a tidy card catalog.

MrPatan 12y ago

This, and a thousand times this. If a question gets asked more, maybe having more indexed landing pages for it for search engines will make it easier to find. It seems to be a popular question after all! Why limit yourself to just one answer?

mark-r 12y ago
A closed question isn't automatically deleted, so the search engines can still find it. You'll just need to click another link to find the answers. Theoretically it's better to have all the answers in one place instead of scattered about, so that you can compare and contrast them. In practice it's far from ideal. Often a new question will generate a fresh take on an answer, and the diversity would be welcome. If there's a subtle difference between the "duplicate" question and the older one, you can edit it to highlight the difference. Unfortunately that's hard to do, and you're unlikely to get the reopen votes even if you do a good job.