
Ask HN: Is StackOverflow being ruined by its mods? - genwin
See http://i.imgur.com/cGtm5.png. I'm not the question's author; I recently searched for this question, specifically pros/cons. Seems nowadays that about 5% of the questions on SO I look up and are perfectly legitimate to me are found to be locked, with a warning to others to knock it off. This is up from ~0% when I started using the site. Every forum I've loved eventually gets lock-happy mods. What does HN think? Am <i>I</i> the unreasonable one? I don't see how this question is unworthy according to the FAQ that SO refers to.
======
dbecker
StackOverflow seems to think that these types of questions cause the community
to sink to a lower level of discourse. I'd be inclined to disagree, except
that the quality of responses their remains the highest I've seen on the
internet. So, they appear to know what they are doing.

Quora is happy to host this type of question. Quora responses aren't usually
as well-informed as SO responses... but I don't find that a compelling
argument for SO to allow these questions.

~~~
genwin
Thanks. To me it's simply a matter of whether the question is on-topic for
programming. If so, don't lock it for being off-topic. It seems so simple,
especially when the question gets 400+ net votes and 50+ responses. They
should let their users decide, with their votes, whether a question is off-
topic.

SO _is_ good, but it could be much better without so many locked on-topic
questions. I don't want to ask a question there, even if it's clearly not a
duplicate, with lock-happy mods there. I don't like having my time wasted.

~~~
dbecker
I could be wrong, but I don't think it was closed for off-topic (non-
programming). I would guess it was locked for "not having an answer."

They say you should be soliciting answers rather than opinions... and, for
better or for worse, that is probably why this was locked.

~~~
genwin
Clearly _for worse_ , considering that the lock reason is (in boldface): "it
is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site".

A question asking for pros/cons of storing images in a database (vs. links to
files) is not too subjective in my book. It's a typical programmer question.

~~~
MattBelanger
The goal of SO is to have questions with ONE correct answer, and to have that
answer there.

Any question - such as this one - where the answer is "it depends" better be a
work of art, or have an answer that explores all the considerations in
exquisite detail, or it's going to get closed. Because there's no "one right
answer" to this question.

It's "on topic", but not a good question.

~~~
genwin
If that's SO's goal then I would say they've left a big hole in their strategy
for a competitor.

That goal sounds good in principle. In practice, very specific programming
questions often (if not _usually_ ) have multiple correct answers, with the
best choice for a particular scenario being made by evaluating pros/cons just
like the question I referred to. Some languages embrace multiple ways of doing
things. For example, Perl's motto is "there's more than one way to do it".

~~~
icebraining
The "competitor" is Programmers.SE: the other site of the same network for
more subjective, high level QA.

<http://programmers.stackexchange.com/>

~~~
codeka
It kind of annoys me that we've got all these "kind-of, sort-of" related stack
exchange sites for programming and whether one question belongs on Stack
Overflow, or Programmers.SE or cstheory.SE or whatever is often quite hit-and-
miss.

But then, on the other hand, you have tags on Stack Overflow that are almost
separate sites in and of themselves. Usually this happens when companies start
using Stack Overflow as the defacto support forum for their product (a lot of
Google stuff uses this, e.g.
<http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/google-apps-script> or
<http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/android> etc)

------
sedev
I call Betteridge's Law on this. [
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines> ]

Stack Overflow has a fairly specific rubric for judging questions, and a
central part of it is the requirement that they have a single verifiably
correct answer. The example question does not, and it runs afoul of the
guidelines in multiple other ways. The example question is something for a
conventional discussion board or mailing list - it's not a good Stack Overflow
question.

~~~
genwin
In my experience there's rarely a single verifiable correct answer for a
programming question that one can't easily find the answer to without asking
(outside of SO).

Also, whereas you're like the fourth person here to say the questions must
have a single answer, that requirement is not called out in the SO guidelines
at <http://stackoverflow.com/faq>. The closest I see there is "You should only
ask practical, answerable questions". A question asking for pros/cons of
storing images in a database (vs. links to files) meets that criterion in my
book.

~~~
Spooky23
If you really care enough about this to understand the background, check out
the old Stackoverflow podcasts: <https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/?W4>

(They have decent transcripts there)

Jeff & Joel talk about the concept of what makes a good question a few times
-- the way they got to there is interesting and worth listening too. Actually,
the whole series of podcasts is an interesting view into the thoughts of
founders starting a company.

------
Spooky23
I think they made the right call on this example -- the whole point of SO is
to get specific answers to specific questions. This question is vague and
without the context that a reasonable person would need to give a specific
answer.

There are plenty of examples of good questions being closed because they are
perceived as generating too much discussion (esp. on the "programmers" se
site). IMO, you've given us an example of SO moderation working.

~~~
genwin
Please elaborate. If I want to know the pros/cons of storing images in a
database, vs. (say) storing only the links to images in the database, what
more specific question should I look for? How is that question too general or
vague? Apparently at least 400 people thought it was reasonable, than thought
it was unreasonable. 50+ people thought it was reasonable enough to respond
to.

~~~
recursive
It doesn't have a specific verifiable answer. It's an invitation to
discussion.

~~~
genwin
That seems to be the consensus here. I disagree with it. A clear invitation to
discussion would be "What would you do?" not "What are the pros/cons?". There
are plenty of valuable programming questions I can think of that can possibly
devolve to _some_ level of discussion. Banning all such questions greatly
degrades the site and makes me not want to ask any questions there. If I ask
"What is the function parameter in this particular language that I use to do
this particular thing?" there could still be differing opinions and so the
question could be locked.

------
LocalPCGuy
To the vast majority of the people using StackOverflow, it is a site for
getting information about programming. The mods and superusers may know that
it is a site for getting specific 1-to-1 answers to questions, but I'll
guarantee that the average user browsing the site does not know that. You have
to click to the FAQs to find that out, and many people will not do that. Even
if you go to the About page, you see this: "Stack Overflow is a programming Q
& A site that’s free. Free to ask questions, free to answer questions..." No
mention of the types of questions that are acceptable.

The above plus SO's popularity (and prominence in search engine results) are
the very reasons I find the moderation a bit over the top. IMO, it should be
up to the community, not a handful of mods to decide which questions are
valuable and appropriate. Some questions, while they don't have a specific
answer, are extremely valuable to gather opinions, particularly for those who
don't have as much experience in a given subject.

So yes, I find the moderation disturbing and over-zealous, but will continue
to put up with it since it is the best resource for finding quick answers to
questions.

~~~
lumberjack
It's mentioned the first time you post a question. It's also mentioned every
time a subjective question is locked by a moderator. Heck, they even have some
sort of real time NLP that detects and warns you if you try using a subjective
title.

------
phwd
This is an old topic that was discussed in many different questions on
meta.stackoverflow.com. All questions such as these have been given a special
archive status where the question is locked, voting is removed and they are
popped off the question list.

That lock-happy mod is the one of many fighting to keep these questions
somewhere for people like you who push these silly conspiracy theories.

Stop it. It's annoying.

~~~
genwin
This topic isn't about the age of the SO question. It's about whether the SO
mods calling such questions invalid and locking them is ruining SO. The SO mod
says it's locked because it's not a good, on-topic question. I don't see how
the mod fights to keep the question somewhere, by locking it and calling it an
off-topic question.

~~~
phwd
1\. It's not a valid question _for_ Stack Overflow under the current _scope_.
The question was made in 2008. Of course it's a valid question, "Is the sky
blue?" is a valid question as well. Doesn't mean it's within scope for Stack
Overflow (see more below)

2\. The mod took action but all mods took chances putting historical locks on
question. There were many questions to clean up. So the mod didn't say squat,
it was action by the mod which displayed a message by the system. Get it
right.

3\. Placing a question with a historical lock instead of closing and deleting
_is_ fighting to keep it in the system as much that is hard for you to believe
seeing your extreme bias to mods of which you don't really what they do and
why goes in the background. You really need to understand how this works
instead of these claims. Mods see them, Stack Overflow users see them and they
know it's false.

So straight to it,

_Why is it not a valid _Stack Overflow_ question?_

Because it's not _definitively_ answerable. Keyword: definitively.

That's all there is to it. A 1-to-1 relationship with a question and
acceptable (to the author) answer. Yes it's a programming question, it's a
great question, it's an interesting question, it's a popular question _but_
there is no way to make an answer for it that can be acceptable without
clumping it into one answer for the author. Everyone can have their opinion
for the pros/cons. Stack Overflow is for definite Qs&As not discussions.

Once again if this wasn't realized this question and those like it aren't
going anywhere. It's archived. Please re-read the notice and stop calling out
mods, they do a lot (and by a lot, I mean enough that they should be paid for
doing it) of moderation work for free. They don't need unfounded claims.

See more at [http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/126420/what-to-do-
wi...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/126420/what-to-do-with-the-
question-storing-images-in-db-yea-or-nay) and
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/126587/what-is-a-
his...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/126587/what-is-a-historical-
lock-and-what-is-it-used-for)

~~~
genwin
I understand the mods there are volunteers, and appreciate that.

On your #2, it seems you're saying the mod has to call it an off-topic
question even if he/she is locking it for another reason. If so, then it
wouldn't be the mods' fault, it'd be the SO developers'. It's still a path to
ruination.

I disagree that a valid on-topic question for SO should be limited to
definitely answerable questions (in this case, where a pro or con can be
_proven_ ). If that's the case they should make that clear in their FAQ; I
don't think they do that. While that can be their unwritten rule if they want,
it makes SO much less valuable for _programming_ questions for me, because not
all programming questions I find valuable are definitely answerable, like the
one I referred to. 400+ people (on net) found that question to be valuable. I
don't think a question asking about pros/cons for a programming design
decision is a discussion question. A discussion question would be more like
"Would you store images in the database, or just links to files?" Even someone
who prefers the former could potentially list out pros/cons for both choices.

------
Shog9
You might like some data. See: [http://stackoverflow.com/annotated-
posts?tab=locked&filt...](http://stackoverflow.com/annotated-
posts?tab=locked&filter=all)

1900 locked questions, out of which just over 1700 are locked because they
were merged into duplicates, or migrated to other Stack Exchange sites.

< 200 locked questions out of 3.3 million doesn't seem so bad.

~~~
genwin
That's great info. If accurate I must be unlucky to hit so many locked
questions. I just scrolled through all 38 pages but didn't see the question I
referred to in the OP.

~~~
waiwai933
It's on page 17, or if you hit the "noticed" tab, it's there on the very first
page.

~~~
genwin
Okay, I see it. Maybe the extent of this issue is my imagination then.

------
j45
I noticed the same and I'm not sure if there's a commentary as to why this
trend has continued to increase.

Programming isn't a syntax only problem and has many steps before, and after
it that are relevant in software engineering.

Maybe the mods are taking too much of a narrow programming syntax only
approach. To me, that may exacerbate the issues of poor software because
people are only searching for a means to the ends instead of understanding why
to do things a certain way.

~~~
genwin
> Maybe the mods are taking too much of a narrow programming syntax only
> approach.

With the 400+ vote count for that question, and 50+ people taking the time to
reply, I say yes indeed they are. It is definitely a programming question in
my book, one whose answers could save me & others a lot of work/time.

~~~
j45
Looking back at my own SO account (5000 karma earned well over a year or two
ago) which I've let idle, I noticed questions that have been closed as off-
topic continue to earn karma -- indicating the mods are off on the soul of the
place :P

------
Flimm
I, for one, am happy with StackOverflow's moderation.

------
foxhop
I left stack overflow about a year ago when they banned my account for a week
for spamming. I posted a similar answer to a few similar question (like 3
honest) and they banned me. I was so outraged I quit the site completely.

That being said I thought about building a site to compete, but stackoverflow
basically owns the market. I have no way of collecting users like they do.

~~~
CamperBob2
Stackoverflow took their market directly out of the hands of expertsexchange.
They're a lot better than expertsexchange in every respect I can think of
offhand, but they do have weaknesses, and I agree with the submitter that one
of those is the moderation culture. I'm surprised more users aren't bothered
by it.

The Internet is not going to run out of space. Just as with Wikipedia,
"deletionism" is inevitably an attempt to fix some other problem that could
better be addressed some other way. If there's a problem with duplication of
questions, that's because the UI doesn't do enough to make the older questions
easier to find. (Hint: let users vote on tags, and give karma to users who
surf through the suite adding good tags to existing questions.)

Marginally-offtopic questions are especially harmless; if there's a problem
with those, let the users police the site by downvoting. If that isn't enough,
again, it's indicative of some other problem, such as the lack of some sort of
gateway between different Stack Exchange sites.

Ultimately, the mere fact that a site like stackoverflow _needs_ third-party
moderation means there is room for improvement at the design level. It may
seem that stackoverflow is the craigslist of Q&A sites, but I don't think so.
It will be easier to dislodge than Facebook, I think.

~~~
recursive
The internet running out of space is a red herring. The concern is a dilution
of focus of Stack Overflow.

~~~
CamperBob2
_The internet running out of space is a red herring. The concern is a dilution
of focus of Stack Overflow._

I see you have the same bad habit I do, which is to hit 'Reply' and start
typing after having read the first third of a comment.

~~~
recursive
I am often guilty of that. In this case, I actually read the whole comment.
Apparently I'm not comprehending something.

~~~
CamperBob2
I followed the red-herring comment with a couple of attempts at identifying
the underlying issue and correcting it without engaging in excessive
censorship.

------
freditup
Moderating any online community is extremely difficult. Rules are generally
guidelines and not always set in stone. So, this leaves things up to the
discretion of moderators. It can be quite difficult to determine if something
is or is not within rules. Was this locking a mistake? Probably, but one
question locked means nothing. Moderators always have to watch out for 'rules
creep' where the rules are stretched just a little bit over and over again
until they are virtually non-existent.

In the SO case, can the moderators be a bit strict sometimes? Sure, in my
opinion. But I don't think this is indicative of any broad problem on SO.

~~~
genwin
Agreed, except I think it's probably indicative of a broad problem on SO (I'm
seeing it too much, and I've seen other forums ruined by it). I think what
happens is, a mod becomes overly sensitive to controversy (difference of
opinion in the answers). Having only one way to end the controversy, they
incorrectly declare the question to be off-topic.

~~~
mikescar
This is not an example of a controversial issue.

The consensus for years has been to store a path in the DB to a file resource,
and if you store images in the DB you should have a really compelling, edge-
case reason to do so.

------
michaelt
If you enjoyed this question about "Storing Images in DB - Yea or Nay?" posted
on Nov 28 '08 at [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3748/storing-images-in-
db...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3748/storing-images-in-db-yea-or-
nay) here are some other questions you might enjoy:

Storing images on a database - Jul 1 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1071636/storing-images-
on...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1071636/storing-images-on-a-
database)

Save image in database? - Apr 30 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/805519/save-image-in-
data...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/805519/save-image-in-database)

store image in database or in a system file? - Apr 19 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/766048/store-image-in-
dat...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/766048/store-image-in-database-or-
in-a-system-file)

Where should I store photos? File system or the database? - Oct 9 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1546485/where-should-i-
st...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1546485/where-should-i-store-photos-
file-system-or-the-database)

To Do or Not to Do: Store Images in a Database - May 2 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/815626/to-do-or-not-to-
do...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/815626/to-do-or-not-to-do-store-
images-in-a-database)

Store images in database or on file system - Dec 28 '10 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4550197/store-images-
in-d...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4550197/store-images-in-database-
or-on-file-system)

Store pictures as files or in the database for a web app? - Feb 18 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/561447/store-pictures-
as-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/561447/store-pictures-as-files-or-
in-the-database-for-a-web-app)

Storing a small number of images: blob or fs? - Nov 28 '08 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/325126/storing-a-small-
nu...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/325126/storing-a-small-number-of-
images-blob-or-fs)

How to store images in your filesystem - Oct 7 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/191845/how-to-store-
image...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/191845/how-to-store-images-in-
your-filesystem)

User images - database vs. filesystem storage - Feb 25 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/585224/user-images-
databa...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/585224/user-images-database-vs-
filesystem-storage)

Should I store my images in the database or folders? - Apr 3 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/713243/should-i-store-
my-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/713243/should-i-store-my-images-in-
the-database-or-folders)

Would you store binary data in database or in file system? - Mar 19 '09 -
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/662488/would-you-store-
bi...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/662488/would-you-store-binary-data-
in-database-or-in-file-system)

storing uploaded photos and documents - filesystem vs database blob - Jul 9
'09 - [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1105429/storing-
uploaded-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1105429/storing-uploaded-
photos-and-documents-filesystem-vs-database-blob)

I came in here prepared to write an impassioned criticism of StackOverflow's
aggressive moderation, but frankly you've made me understand exactly why they
do it.

~~~
genwin
If the question was locked because it's a duplicate, I understand and agree
with that. But it wasn't locked for being a duplicate; it was locked for being
an off-topic question. I don't see how you've addressed that.

~~~
viraptor
There's a subtle problem with closing questions - basically there's a list to
choose from and you can't always express exactly why you made that choice.
Even when people agree on closing a question I can often see a wide spread of
chosen options.

If you read into the FAQs / standards for questions, this one may not be off-
topic, but is definitely low quality. Seeing the expression "is not considered
a good, on-topic question", I would have to agree. If there's no specific
option for "it's written in a bad way", then this would be the next natural
choice. There's no initial research, no specific list of questions, silly
title and a tone that would get edited pretty quickly these days.

~~~
ericb
If being a duplicate is why it is being closed, a search must have been done.
Could not a link to the other offerings be given instead? Failing that, saying
it is because of duplication?

~~~
viraptor
That's not the reason. All the posts listed above were actually created later
('09, '10) than the one from the main thread ('08). It's just a question that
doesn't match the SO guidelines. It's not really bad, but it could be phrased
better. Still - locked is probably better than closed here.

------
lispm
That's a extremely vague question which can't simply be answered on a Q&A
site.

There are lots of other places where such questions can be discussed.

Stackoverflow is not the place to discuss all kinds of philosophical
questions.

If you have a specific question, best with source code, then go ahead. But
please don't make stackoverflow a copy of Hackernews, Reddit, comp.db.advocacy
or similar.

I like Stackoverflow most when it can give real direct support for a practical
problem.

------
maximveksler
2 of my favorite questions are locked:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-
ava...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-
programming-books)

[http://serverfault.com/questions/68883/linux-command-line-
be...](http://serverfault.com/questions/68883/linux-command-line-best-
practices-and-tips)

Recently I've stumbled on question which I would be thrilled to continue the
discussion on them had they not being set to "Locked". So yes, I really think
SO is killing a healthy discussion from that perspective.

off-topic: In Hebrew there is a children song which in loose translation
means: "It's not so pleasant to see a closed kindergarten"[1]. I guess this
feeling applies to stack overflow discussions as well. It's not that fun to
find an interesting question being locked.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnRCI8aLt_Q>

------
lnanek2
Often my favorite questions get killed, like the best ways to make money on
Android. I'm very interested in which ads to run, in-app payments, etc.. The
mod wanted it moved to some bullshit spin off site with no traffic. ;/ The
sort of cut and dry questions they do allow on the site are often just the
sort of thing you can find in the documentation anyway. Not very useful. Not
to mention that stupid score system encouraging people to post bullshit crappy
answers even when they aren't sure.

~~~
icebraining
They have no traffic because everyone wants to shove everything onto SO.

And how does the score system encourage that? You often see people with
negative score for wrong answers, how is that encouraging?

------
metoosorta
Well, its mods sure, and all the rest of its users.

But no, AFAICS it's a programming technique memoizer. The important questions
have mostly been answered. There will be new important questions, and they
will be asked and answered. But between now and then it will mostly be black
noise. The color illiteracy and aspiration. Asking how to reverse a linked
list?

------
damian2000
I mainly get upset by popular questions that get completely deleted. Someone
put up an unofficial deleted question archive here though which is a big help:
<http://stackoverflow.hewgill.com/>

------
taylodl
Yes it is. That's the simple answer to your question. The SO community has had
a different "feel" lately, and I don't like it and I think the mods are
something to do with it. That's a subjective statement of course. You might
love it. YMMV.

------
facorreia
For conceptual questions like these, StackExchange has
<http://programmers.stackexchange.com>

~~~
genwin
Thanks. Looking at both their FAQs, I see clear overlap in what's on-topic.
The question in the OP seems on-topic for either site, but better for
programmers.stackexchange.com.

~~~
facorreia
Indeed, the FAQs are not very clear. I nowadays go to programmers for
conceptual questions, e.g. about architecture. But there's overlap, and I've
been referred to SO from a "programmers" question before. IMHO it would be
less confusing to just merge the two and let the community vote on the
answers.

