

Topics deleted from StackOverflow - ranit8
http://www.stackprinter.com/deleted

======
ErrantX
I started contributing to the Literature Stack Exchange when it launched last
year - which quickly became _not fun_. Most of the decent questions were
closed as off topic, answer quality declined because the remaining questions
were too narrow, new users were put off by the attitude of mods.

It was explained to me, in detail, that this was to preserve the focus and
quality of the site.

So I left. It says a lot that 6 months later I am still the #6 user by all-
time karma.

The few trickle of questions they have left deal mostly with trivia.

I think SO/SE's moderation policy has gone a step too far. Once it lightly
highlighted quality. Now it stamps on most questions.

~~~
joelthelion
I think there may be a space for a friendlier version of Stack Exchange.

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Tangurena
The mods on the StackOverflow sites seem to be trigger-happy deleting and
locking posts. Most of my major upvoted answers are on threads now closed as
off-topic - so this tells me that the StackOverflows have changed to be a
place that I'm not welcome at anymore.

~~~
betageek
The rise of the "opinions are not wanted here" attitude on SO is disappointing
- I understand the motive but they may be kicking out the baby with the bath
water.

~~~
DanBC
Stack Overflow has a vigorous moderating policy. That's usually a good thing.
It helps form a community, and keeps stuff out.

The problem comes with a huge site like SO, because there are so many "not
welcome here" topics which get closed, with no suggestions about where to put
those questions, and without great explanations about why those topics aren't
welcome.

It's not as thoroughly toxic as some[1] aspects of wikipedia are, but it's not
pleasant for some people.

[1] for various values of some, including "all" for a few users.

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chris_wot
Wow, some of these questions actually seem pretty reasonable - like this one:
<http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9033/hidden-features-of-c>

Any ideas why they were closed so early?

~~~
SecretofMana
Disclaimer: Stack Exchange moderator(mind you, on one of the other sites, not
SO).

The main reason this was closed is because determining what or what does not
constitute a hidden feature is highly subjective. Depending on the audience,
some features that are considered common knowledge could be considered hidden
features. We generally want to focus on the domain of questions that have
solid, objective answers, or rather, that solve a clear problem that people
have, whereas this question is more focused on trivia.

Furthermore, "List of <X>" questions, as we dub them, generally aren't well-
suited for the Stack Exchange format, especially when the question is as
popular as this one. Note that navigating the list without OP's quick-link
breakdown is a pain because of the way that each individual's answer is
separated.

~~~
dionidium
I can accept that questions of this type are a little messy, but there's
absolutely no need to apply real-world metaphors of messiness to the web. We
don't need to clean these things up. They're fine just sitting there. We're
not running out of bits.

I'm sure there's some personally type that experiences a deep need to organize
and delete (and it's probably over-represented in the SO community), but
that's all this is. I find it highly unlikely that deleting these posts is
having any effect on the quality of new questions asked.

~~~
cruise02
This isn't about running out of bits. The primary reason for creating Stack
Overflow was to increase the signal/noise ratio for programming information on
the Web. If we don't reduce the noise, then search engines have a harder time
trying to find the signal. So in this sense, the metaphor of messiness does
apply to the Web.

Also, this particular post is locked, not deleted. Google will still find it.

~~~
henrikschroder
> If we don't reduce the noise, then search engines have a harder time trying
> to find the signal.

Let the search engines figure that out! It's their job!

Is there _any_ evidence whatsoever that deleting/closing questions like these
make SO a better place and improves the rate with which people can find
answers through search engines?

I suspect there's none.

~~~
cruise02
> Let the search engines figure that out! It's their job!

Ummm... right. You go ahead and keep posting noise to your site and let the
search engines figure it out. Let us know how that works.

~~~
dpark
Search engines tend to place Wikipedia high for almost every relevant query.
This happens despite the amount of useless crap on Wikipedia. Hell, how often
is Yahoo Answers on the first page of results. "Noise" won't stop you from
getting listed if you've got enough page rank.

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stcredzero
I posted this idea elsewhere, but I think it is worth considering, so I'll
repost it here.

What about a series of "Stack Exhume" sites where the "deleted" information
gets moved to? (Trash can?) Even though they are "noise" when trying to find
specific answers to concrete questions, they are still interesting information
in their own right, in much the same way queries are interesting.

------
Smudge
Strange suggestion: Mods should be required to view and consider search engine
traffic when locking or deleting topics.

I've noticed lately that a Google search brings me to SO as the top result,
but then the post itself is locked and marked off-topic or (the one I find
more puzzling sometimes) "not a real question." If it's not a real question,
why does it have a real answer which seems to answer my own question? Can't we
just edit the question to make more sense, if it wasn't clear to the mod?

I'm not saying that locking or deleting posts isn't appropriate. But crippling
or removing SO questions that appear high for particular search queries seems
like a silly way to run a website, unless the question and answers really
wouldn't be helpful to the incoming search traffic. (In which case, better to
not show up at all than to appear but be unhelpful or incorrect.)

~~~
cruise02
We do look at number of views and links to a post before deleting it. That's
why a lot of questions that aren't really on-topic for Stack Overflow are
simply locked instead of deleted. We're trying to clean up the site without
breaking the rest of the Internet in the process.

> Can't we just edit the question to make more sense, if it wasn't clear to
> the mod?

Yes, of course. Anyone can suggest an edit to a question, whether it's open or
closed. If you find a question and its answers helpful, go ahead and edit it.
Flag it for a moderator to consider reopening when you're done.

Also, if you found a Stack Overflow question through a Google search, then
it's not deleted. Deleted content isn't visible to search engines.

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ghewgill
Here is another deleted question archive that's not over its quota:
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/124850/unofficial-
st...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/124850/unofficial-stack-
overflow-deleted-question-archive-now-available)

~~~
ranit8
Nice, it's much better looking than the one I posted.

I wonder if I should have posted a Google cache link instead of the original,
to prevent exceeding their quota.

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billforsternz
I was excited to see this and find some damn good content (tm) I contributed
to stackoverflow that was deleted by the over-exuberant moderators there.
Please stackoverflow moderators, you're killing a great site. Stop. Just stop.

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sparknlaunch12
Nice. Thanks for sharing. Looks like hacker news crashed your site.

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huskyr
'Over Quota

This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again
later.'

Pity.

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steventruong
Site could use search, especially if it expands

~~~
obituary_latte
It has search.

It also searches for similar questions when you enter the title to a question.

You can also use google (e.g. google.com/search?q=site:stackoverflow.com
variables) which is what the founders had in mind.

