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> It was a pretty good question No, this is not a good question for StackOverflow. You simply asked for someone to write code for you, which is not what StackO

by lambda 12y ago

> It was a pretty good question No, this is not a good question for StackOverflow. You simply asked for someone to write code for you, which is not what StackOverflow is intended to be for. It is intended for help on a particular specific problem you are having with your own code.

debaserab2 12y ago
And yet there is at least one, if not two very useful answers to his supposed non-question. Thank god for these arbitrary community standards, shielding people from getting useful answers to questions that are deemed as formatted incorrectly.
melling 12y ago
It was a short well-defined question with given input and a specific output. Elisp isn't the most widely used language so coming up to speed could be time consuming. Someone else even starred it so they must have found it to be useful. If I'd just ask to "Calculate someone's age in C#", that'd be a much better question? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9/how-do-i-calculate-someones-age-in-c http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9/how-do-i-calculate-some...
- maxerickson 12y ago
  It is arguably more specific. It'd be interesting if they would just register something like shitpile.com, set up an instance of Stack Exchange on it, turn off the moderation game, and push closed and deleted questions there instead of disappearing them. That would at least sort of be an experiment on whether all of the decisions they have made about what Stack Exchange sites are 'supposed to be' actually matter or not.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    Now is it? It also asks basically to teach how subtraction works, which is something you should know when leaving primary school.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      Are you saying that you can't find a point of view where it would be a more specific question? Because that's what I meant when I said 'arguably'. Saying that you can find a point of view where it isn't more specific isn't really that interesting (to me) as a response to that. Hopefully the rest of my comment is enough to see that I was not particularly defending the SE status quo.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        If I squint hard enough... Anyway, I was just refering to the first sentence. The rest of your comment is an interesting proposal, though at this moment I don't have any thoughts on it worth sharing.
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        'arguably' still requires a reasonable position that declares it true, otherwise literally everything is arguable.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        maxerickson 12y ago
        I think reasonableness is implicit enough in "find a point of view", do you think I should recalibrate that expectation?
TeMPOraL 12y ago
And this exactly is the problem with SO. There is no good question for that site, the classification seems arbitrary and totally random. I don't participate in this site for a very simple reason - I have no idea how to ask a question that will be OK by SO rules. (the fact that you can't be in any way contributing to the site until you asked enough questions to bump up your karma is another blocker)
- olavk 12y ago
  It is not that difficult. I have asked many question and never had anyone close them. If you follow common sense and state the question clearly and specifically, you should be fine. I sometimes vote to close questions, but it is always due to pretty obvious laziness like not actually asking a specific question ("Here is my code... please help me") or overly broad questions ("I'm trying to write an e-commerce web site. Can anybody point me in the right direction?")
collyw 12y ago
I am sure you could classify a fair number of SO questions as "asking someone to write code for you". I have been down voted a number of times for "where to start with X (in order to do Y)" type questions - where I am in the same situation and don't have the time to read everything in the docs, to produce what is likely a few lines of code. The SO response is along the lines that it will generate too many answers or opinions. They are usually closed without receiving any answer whatsoever. I have pointed this out to moderators, but they just post back links to meta pages.

by lambda 12y ago

debaserab2 12y ago

And yet there is at least one, if not two very useful answers to his supposed non-question. Thank god for these arbitrary community standards, shielding people from getting useful answers to questions that are deemed as formatted incorrectly.

melling 12y ago

It was a short well-defined question with given input and a specific output. Elisp isn't the most widely used language so coming up to speed could be time consuming. Someone else even starred it so they must have found it to be useful. If I'd just ask to "Calculate someone's age in C#", that'd be a much better question? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9/how-do-i-calculate-someones-age-in-c http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9/how-do-i-calculate-some...

maxerickson 12y ago
It is arguably more specific. It'd be interesting if they would just register something like shitpile.com, set up an instance of Stack Exchange on it, turn off the moderation game, and push closed and deleted questions there instead of disappearing them. That would at least sort of be an experiment on whether all of the decisions they have made about what Stack Exchange sites are 'supposed to be' actually matter or not.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Now is it? It also asks basically to teach how subtraction works, which is something you should know when leaving primary school.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    Are you saying that you can't find a point of view where it would be a more specific question? Because that's what I meant when I said 'arguably'. Saying that you can find a point of view where it isn't more specific isn't really that interesting (to me) as a response to that. Hopefully the rest of my comment is enough to see that I was not particularly defending the SE status quo.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      If I squint hard enough... Anyway, I was just refering to the first sentence. The rest of your comment is an interesting proposal, though at this moment I don't have any thoughts on it worth sharing.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      'arguably' still requires a reasonable position that declares it true, otherwise literally everything is arguable.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        I think reasonableness is implicit enough in "find a point of view", do you think I should recalibrate that expectation?

TeMPOraL 12y ago

And this exactly is the problem with SO. There is no good question for that site, the classification seems arbitrary and totally random. I don't participate in this site for a very simple reason - I have no idea how to ask a question that will be OK by SO rules. (the fact that you can't be in any way contributing to the site until you asked enough questions to bump up your karma is another blocker)

olavk 12y ago
It is not that difficult. I have asked many question and never had anyone close them. If you follow common sense and state the question clearly and specifically, you should be fine. I sometimes vote to close questions, but it is always due to pretty obvious laziness like not actually asking a specific question ("Here is my code... please help me") or overly broad questions ("I'm trying to write an e-commerce web site. Can anybody point me in the right direction?")

collyw 12y ago

I am sure you could classify a fair number of SO questions as "asking someone to write code for you". I have been down voted a number of times for "where to start with X (in order to do Y)" type questions - where I am in the same situation and don't have the time to read everything in the docs, to produce what is likely a few lines of code. The SO response is along the lines that it will generate too many answers or opinions. They are usually closed without receiving any answer whatsoever. I have pointed this out to moderators, but they just post back links to meta pages.