
Not Constructive, a place for the discussions not allowed on Stack Overflow - andrewstuart
http://www.notconstructive.com
======
neya
I don't know who you are. But if you are the creator of this site, you have my
respect from the bottom of my heart.

Stackoverflow was wonderful when it was started the way it was. The moderated
content was extremely useful. But later, they decided to screw everything up
by doing some stupid things like assigning too much power to moderators.

I always used to assume SO was more like the real world democracy; if
something isn't right, you could fix it yourself being an ordinary citizen.
However, on SO, that's not the case anymore. There is a moderator on top of
the users who decides what's right and what's wrong. And he goes into a 'rage
mode ON' by flagging genuinely useful questions as 'inappropriate' or 'not
suitable for SO', as he pleases.

How can you challenge his decision? God knows. I've searched round the site to
report moderators. Good luck with reporting some rogue moderator. I like the
fact that you can flag something offensive easily, but I don't like the fact
that it's not as easy for the reverse.

Forget the moderators. Let's say you want to ask something about security with
sessions in PHP. Good luck finding answers on SO. Your question will be
migrated to some weird subdomain.stakcoverflow.com for which you need a
separate account to maintain and collect your badges from scratch, again.

That's why I knew there would be a day when someone would start something like
this. Nonconstructive nails it for me. And hopefully for other disappointed SO
fans too.

Thanks for creating this.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
I apologize in advance for sounding like an elitist prick, but in my mind,
community-driven sites like StackOverflow, Reddit, Wikipedia, are prone to the
noise of do-nothing armchair experts (especially in this economy with the
unemployment rate) who have nothing better to do than stir philosophical
debates over nothing.

As a person with a job who actually needs answers rather than reading through
pages upon pages of discourse that goes absolutely nowhere, I appreciate
StackOverflow's approach to moderation. StackOverflow is a place for specific
questions and specific answers, not subjective nonsense questions like "how
secure are sessions in PHP?" that, on this "Not Constructive" website, I
imagine will be flooded with answers ranging from "PHP SUXXX LOL GO PYTHON" to
"In my opinion, sessions are inherently broken blah blah blah". While the
moderators may be able to mitigate these issues a little bit, the problem
isn't so much with the answers as the _question itself_ , which has no
"correct" answer.

So, while I can see why people with a lot of free time might want to go to
NotConstructive as a diversion, I foresee this site as little more than an
informational black hole of back-and-forth BS.

~~~
nostraspamus
Before assuming it's just going to be things like "PHP SUXXX LOL GO PYTHON"
check out some of the questions that have been closed. Here's one I came
across this morning on open source face recognition libraries:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/953714/face-
recognition-l...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/953714/face-recognition-
library)

The original question was asked in June of 2009. It was marked as "protected"
in June of 2010. Then it was closed as off topic in April 2013.

While it may be true that the question itself is not framed particularly well,
the answers are really useful, including one from November, 2011 that was
posted more than two years after the original question.

If the original question was considered off topic in 2013, then it was
presumably also off topic in 2009 when it was originally asked. If it had been
marked that way at that time, some very useful answers would never have
appeared.

~~~
mhurron
That is your example of a good question on StackOverflow that was closed?

That question exemplifies why SO needs moderators. The question is "I want
this GIVE IT TO ME. I refuse to do any research on the subject."

It should have been closed in 2009, but SO hadn't been inundated with horrible
questions like that yet. The current moderation, while having gone a little
too far I agree, came into being because of questions like that.

You're conflating 'Is this useful?' with 'Does this belong here?' I suppose
someone else doing your work is always useful to you, but it doesn't belong on
SO.

There are questions that get closed where people have done their work and have
asked in a good way. Current SO moderation has gone too far in cases. However,
this is not one of those cases.

~~~
Quarrelsome
What the hell is up with that attitude? You're completely missing the point of
a welcoming community by closing the door with an RTFM sign. He's writing his
own shit but is wondering if there is a library out there already that is
better/already does it.

The point of a community is to be helped and then help. You make it sound like
you got to where you are by yourself and that's the only _correct_ way. To be
frank this attitude has no place in a community.

"Does thing belong here?"

NO. "Are we helping each other?" That's should always be the purpose of any
community site and the reciprocation of help is something that has driven
every newsgroup, irc channel and community dev sites for DECADES.

~~~
mhurron
Do it for me is not a question. It is a demand and a lazy one.

> You make it sound like you got to where you are by yourself

Hardly. I ask questions. RTFM doesn't answer everything, nor does it explain,
but you actually ask intelligent questions and are in a position to understand
answers if you did some work before hand. Of course the referenced post wasn't
looking for an answer to understand, they wanted 'use libfoo.'

> "Are we helping each other?" That's should always be the purpose of any
> community site

I have to write a script to install this thing here at work, would you mind
doing it for me? That would be a BIG HELP to me.

See the problem yet? Technically it is a question, it would be a help to me. I
suppose a community site would be more than happy to go about that then.

Oh and the response on any newsgroup for decades would be "Do your own damn
homework, come back when you have a question."

~~~
Quarrelsome
I know what you're talking about but I think you just failed to read the
second paragraph of the post.

> I'm using OpenCV for detecting the faces and a rough Eigenfaces Algorithm
> for the recognition now. But I thought there should be something out there
> with a better performance then a self written Eigenfaces Algorithm.

Does this sound like a "plz send me teh codez" to you?

~~~
mhurron
Yes, I did read the whole thing. He asked, tell me what library to use. That
was the whole question. It was very much a 'do my research for me' question.

"I want to do this. Tell me what library to use."

"What is better ..." questions are closed on SO for the same reason.

~~~
Quarrelsome
I think it was more a:

"There are probably people out there who already know all of this information
and are willing to share it" question.

I find it curious that you don't see asking peers for their opinion as a valid
form of research.

------
andrewstuart
Hey there, Andrew here, I'm the OP.

I want to be clear that I have the greatest respect for Stack Overflow. I
think there has been nothing ever that has increased programmer productivity
more than Stack Overflow. (quoting wikipedia
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet))
Fred Brooks said that "there is no single development, in either technology or
management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude
[tenfold] improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in
simplicity." But Stack Overflow hadn't been born at that time. No language,
operating system or compiler could ever have more impact on developer
productivity than an effective global Q&A site for programmers - that's what
Stack Overflow is and it is damn fine.

It's just that Stack Overflow would be diluted and weakened by allowing open
ended discussion on software technology and development. People go to SO with
questions for which they want a specific answer.

Not Constructive is intended to facilitate the valuable discussions about
software that don't fit into that strict Q&A format. Not Constructive is for
broader questions, and welcomes subjective opinion. It's not in conflict with
SO, it's a complement to SO.

Please do sign up at
[http://signup.notconstructive.com](http://signup.notconstructive.com) if
you're interested in hearing when we launch.

~~~
laurent123456
It seems it's directly related to Stack Overflow but I wonder how both will be
"connected"? Are you going to go to closed questions on SO and post a link to
your website? Directly contacting authors of closed questions might also prove
difficult since many users don't display their email address. Overall, I don't
quite understand how it's going to work out. If there's no connection to SO
(beside the questions being imported from there) then it's like any other
forum.

~~~
andrewstuart
There will be no direct connection with SO. Not Constructive is just a place
to come to ask open ended questions about software development, where opinions
and subjective answers are considered relevant and valid.

We won't be importing questions from SO.

~~~
icebraining
How do you distinguish Not Constructive from Programmers.SE?

~~~
m_myers
Programmers.SE originally took "not constructive" questions, but that turned
out to be a mess, so they had to refine their scope multiple times until a
viable model appeared. Now their scope is more or less "whiteboard" questions,
which can be partially opinion based (just like almost every question on SO),
but that is not the focus. The FAQ says:

    
    
        > Specific issues with software development, for instance:  
          - algorithm and data structure concepts  
          - testing and quality assurance  
          - development methodologies  
        > freelancing and business concerns  
        > software architecture, engineering, or licensing

------
jerrya
What can I say? Like many people, I believe, I find the questions that have
been closed, usually as "Not Constructive" to be the most helpful.

I don't understand Stack Overflow, but the weird negativity over there
certainly keeps me from asking or answering questions there or at most of the
stack exchange sites.

~~~
bane
Agreed, whenever I happen across a closed question, I always sit there and
scratch my head "but that's a great question!". I think it's a similar
phenomenon to the over deletionist problem on Wikipedia.

There's certainly questions on SO that should be moderated away, and WP
articles that should be deleted. But there's so many of both kinds that are
obviously genuinely good one has to wonder at the motivations of the people
closing them.

~~~
maaaats
> whenever I happen across a closed question, I always sit there and scratch
> my head "but that's a great question!"

So you're saying that _every_ question ever closed that you have seen, should
not have been closed? Then I think SO's moderators and users are not the
problem.

~~~
eitland
Now you are jumping to conclusions.

It depends a while lot on your search skills I guess.

~~~
maaaats
Am I? Read my quote, it's exactly what's being said.

~~~
bane
No it's not. You even quoted me.

------
lubos
What's the point submitting project that hasn't launched?

Not to mention there is
[http://programmers.stackexchange.com](http://programmers.stackexchange.com)
which is exactly "a place for the discussions not allowed on Stack Overflow"
so really, what's the point?

~~~
ciex
Testing the waters, getting valuable feedback, starting a conversation. What's
the point of working on such a project if nobody is interested?

~~~
andrewstuart
So true. I have launched many projects to the sound of chirping crickets.
There's a great deal to be said for building the momentum in advance of
opening the doors.

------
jjindev
Who among us has not googled a problem, found the top hit at Stack Overflow,
got our solution, and noticed also that the question was closed as not-
something?

IMHO the whole thing can be handled by upvotes (as HN demonstrates, you don't
even need downvotes)

~~~
finnw
Can you give some examples?

My experience has been slightly different. I have often found stackoverflow
questions (closed as NC or NaRQ) from google searches and thought "This is
interesting, but I would be embarrassed if my boss saw me reading it."

------
smegel
Thankyou.

I detest stack exchange sites with a peculiar passion (I'm usually pretty
relaxed about most things). Seeing incredibly useful and important questions
closed for this very reason, and others mutilated by "gods" who have the right
to alter questions as they see fit fills me with rage. I only end up on SO as
a result of a google search, and I haven't bothered contributing for years.

Even worse is superuser ~ a couple of down voted questions and comments and
you get _banned for life_ , with no recourse. I don't know what kind of Nazis
run that shop.

My 2c * avoid badges/karma/superpowers. It just creates an ego cult that is
responsible for much of the problem. Wikipedia has this problem with elitist
editors who think consensus amongst themselves trumps wikipedia's own rules. *
Have a system of encouragement to improve poorly worded or duplicate
questions. But any changes/closes/holds must be approved by the question
owner. * Maybe think of a different name for the launch site. I'm not sure its
possible to "reclaim" a word with so many bad memories attached.

------
worldsayshi
I feel like Discourse ([http://www.discourse.org/](http://www.discourse.org/))
would have been a good fit for a site like this.

~~~
lnanek2
Isn't the from the same creator? You can imagine the same bad moderation
practices that squelch useful discussion will be baked in an encouraged.

~~~
ajanuary
SO is a community, Discourse is a platform.

------
mbesto
> _Not Constructive is the place for open, subjective, opinionated, extended
> discussion about software development._

So...Quora?

~~~
eksith
Quora is a walled garden (behind FB) which I sincerely hope this won't end up
as.

~~~
Lapsa
And you must be "at least 13 years old". Unchecked that bullshit just to see
what would happen and I got a notice, that I won't be able to retry till
tomorrow. Impressive.

~~~
eksith
I'm curious about that checkbox. The whole reason for it, I'm guessing, is
because of COPPA ( Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), but then that
applies only when you collect a significant amount of personal information
from someone 13 or younger and/or directing them to behave a certain way.

Which leads the question, why _would_ Quora need that much information about
me in the first place? I don't recall getting an "I'm over 13" checkbox when I
signed up for HN and we're ostensibly doing the same thing: Discussing.

------
willvarfar
Judging by the points by time by rank in the front page, I 'd say this has
some flags. Which would be a shame, as that kind of censure is exactly what
the site is against.

Every time there is any criticism of SO here, however constructive, the
flaggers come out in force :(

~~~
andrewstuart
Can you explain what "points by time by rank in the front page" means please?

~~~
willvarfar
This post right now has 130pts after 3 hours. And its way below 3 hour stories
with 50pts on the front page.

------
wodow
Background from 2011: "Why does Stack Overflow sometimes seem so eager to
close “off-topic” that happen to be VERY relevant to the programming
community?"

[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/188405/why-does-
stac...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/188405/why-does-stack-
overflow-sometimes-seem-so-eager-to-close-off-topic-that-happen)

------
mgav
I do generally like Stack's focus because I know exactly what I'll find when I
get there: super-smart and helpful users (even if I do sometimes have
questions beyond its scope).

------
ronaldx
The problem is that the ideal place to host these discussions is... Stack
Overflow.

Their policy on open questions is dead wrong.

~~~
brazzy
No, it's not. They have a clear purpose: they want the site to be _useful_.
The definitive go-to site for programmers that have a question they need
answered in a way that solves their problem.

Lengthy discussions can be interesting, but they don't solve problems. They're
not useful. Therefore, Stack Overflow is not the right place for them.

Actually they even _have_ a place for discussions: a chat feature that can be
linked to from any question.

~~~
rantanplan
"They have a clear purpose: they want the site to be useful"

Hmmm, you might want to re-think that one. I can't see how 200,000
questions(and answers) about how to do a for-loop in python(or insert here
your fav language) is considered useful.

Don't try to sell me the "report as duplicate" functionality. It is
rarely(compared to the content) used. And the reason is simple, look at the
people who answer these questions! Some have a reputation in the hundred
thousands. Rep farming at work!

SO is a great tool, but I think it's prime time is well behind us. Right now
it has become a substitute for Google, by Javascript(mostly) kiddies, that
somehow can't find the time to google their trivial questions - let alone read
the documentation.

IMO unless they begin to "punish" such behavior, the quality of SO will
continue to decline and people like me will begin to distance themselves even
more, from this excellent(at some point) site.

EDIT: typo

~~~
Cederfjard
> And the reason is simple, look at the people who answer these questions!
> Some have a reputation in the hundreds. Rep farming at work!

I was confused by this statement. Doesn't a reputation in the hundreds put you
distinctively in the lower end of reasonably active users?

You'll need to go page 1300 or so before you see users with three-digit rep:
[http://stackoverflow.com/users?tab=reputation&filter=all](http://stackoverflow.com/users?tab=reputation&filter=all)

~~~
rantanplan
True. I meant hundred thousands! Sorry.

------
petercooper
Haha, I've joked with a few people there needs to be a 'CrapOverflow' as a
sort of cesspit of programming 'debate' so it's good to see someone following
through. (Funnily enough, I just checked and Stack Exchange owns
crapoverflow.com :-))

~~~
andrewstuart
Hopefully it's not a cesspit, rather a good place to ask questions such as
"which language is best for building applications such as...etc" or "which is
the best of the current crop of JavaScript MVC frameworks in late 2012" or
other stuff that isn't strictly technical questions with well defined
technical answers.

~~~
mbesto
Honest question - do you genuinely believe someone (or a group of people)
without 100% understanding of your project will be able to definitively tell
you what language/framework is best for building your application? These types
of subjects have been debated to death with the general conclusion ending up
with "use the tool you are most comfortable with".

~~~
andrewstuart
There's value in the debate. Doesn't mean there will be a "right" answer, but
there will be valuable information coming out of the discussion.

------
recursive
Stack Overflow blog entry on why they stopped using "Not Constructive"
[http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/06/the-war-of-the-
closes/](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/06/the-war-of-the-closes/)

------
DanBC
This is a great idea. I think. There's not much to go on from the minimal
page.

Please would you consider changing the font colour for the email registration
box? The text was very pale, and so it was very low contrast.

May I ask how moderation is going to be handled? Is there going to be some
form of user voting?

What will you do with obvious trolls? Some people like engaging with trolls,
and that can be harmful to the site.

How are you going to handle the 'hot button' topics that attract inflammatory
responses?

~~~
andrewstuart
We're hoping people might choose to become moderators. We really don't want a
nasty negative trollfest. The idea is not to allow open ended mud slinging
matches. Rather to allow discussion about topics that aren't strict questions
with one valid answer. Free flowing discussion about software technology and
software development.

------
hermanschaaf
No one here has mentioned Slant? I think it solves a similar problem quite
well [http://www.slant.co/](http://www.slant.co/)

~~~
bjourne
+1! Slant.co works great because many "not constructive" questions are on the
format "which alternative among $x is best for $y?" However, the site seem to
be lacking in polish. For example, it doesn't remember your login and the
procedure for updating and commenting on viewpoints is convoluted. Plus, there
is no timestamps anywhere so it's hard to see what is going on on the site.
Stackoverflow is much better from a usability perspective.

------
tome
I recently submitted a question to unix.stackexchange, and the next day (after
it had been answered) a moderator came along and "improved" the layout of my
question. Objectively the result was no worse than my original, and perhaps it
was indeed better, but I can't help feeling like my private space was violated
by that.

~~~
maaaats
Your questions and answers aren't really "yours" on SE. That's the way it
works. A bit unusual, but nothing wrong per se. Like Wikipedia, but that you
still get credit for what you started.

------
murftown
I have experienced that many of the questions I am most interested in are
closed as "Not Constructive", seemingly to fulfill some artistic vision of the
moderators and how they would like to "architect" the community. Very
frustrating.

I also had a situation where I found a bug in some Python code on an accepted
SO answer, submitted an edit, and had my fix repeatedly rejected by
moderators. I tracked down one of the moderators' email and asked him about
it, found out that he does not know Python and that he rejected my edit
because it was already an accepted answer so why should I edit it? ...? In the
end, after I persuaded him that my fix was helpful by getting other developers
to testify that the existing code was broken and the fix fixed it...he posted
my edit as his own and took credit for it.

------
emddudley
ITT: wah, wah, StackOverflow doesn't work the way I want it to. I'm right and
the mods are wrong.

If you don't like StackOverflow, go somewhere else. SO is successful because
it has rules and boundaries. "Everything goes" just does not work well in
online communities.

~~~
eksith
Isn't this is project an effort to _make_ that somewhere else.

~~~
emddudley
Sure is, but there's not a whole lot you can say about a sign up page. Let me
know once the project has launched... then we can have a discussion on how
this site _actually_ works (or doesn't, as the case may be).

My bet is that the site won't form a community and take off unless they put in
some rules and boundaries. Then the complaining will start, and we'll come
full circle.

------
j7mbo
It's funny, "Not Constructive" doesn't exist any more as a reason for closing.

------
edtechdev
Great idea. Imagine seeing this on HackerNews posts, or reddit, etc., even
popular posts that got plenty of upvotes and had substantial discussions going
on:

"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 debate, arguments, polling, or extended
discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly
reopened, visit the help center for guidance. If this question can be reworded
to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question."

------
lucb1e
I was thinking about building this just yesterdaynight!

Coincidentally a community I used to really like is being flooded by noobs and
trolls in the past few months, that was the actual trigger. I was thinking of
creating a community that was more like a combination of Stackoverflow,
Hackernews, and a few older members of that other community.

Anyway, it's funny how often things I thought of appear right the next day.
I'm sure it's just coincidence or some other illusion, but it happens pretty
regularly.

------
lnanek2
Link is just a crappy sign up page, but I agree with the vast majority of
comments here that some really great questions that would have been useful to
me have been closed. So good to see some competition coming up!

As an experienced Android developer, for example, most of the questions I see
that aren't closed are simple things answered by the docs. The things I see
that are closed are things I actually myself have trouble with, like which
monetization solution to go with.

------
krmmalik
Well I signed up immediately. In the last 4 weeks alone, every single one of
my posts on any of the stackexchange sites have been marked as "not helpful" ,
"not constructive" etc.

I ask a simple question regards a web app, and i thought it was a genuine and
innocent enough question and it got closed. The watchman culture is a little
too rampant now.

I'm glad this service exists and to learn that i'm not the only person
affected by it.

Looking forward to the final product.

------
funnyshit101
Get ready for heavy traffic. I have a search filter on SO for thread with a
handy amount of votes that have been closed, mods are crazy on that site.

------
arms
Interesting idea, and even better name.

------
mgav
Another option is BOTHSIDER.COM
([http://bothsider.com](http://bothsider.com)).

Tweet-sized opinions on both sides of any issue, including "not constructive"
Stack issues.

We are up and running right now!

Disclosure: I'm a Bothsider Founder/CEO

------
_random_
...or you could've started a new community here:

[http://area51.stackexchange.com](http://area51.stackexchange.com).

\- wouldn't waste our time looking at yet another sign-up dummy page.

------
peteri
Good about time. The number of times where I have a what technologies should I
use do thing X kind of question and there isn't anywhere good to ask.

Might be worth looking at OSQA as platform.

------
mataug
I assumed this was what quora was for. But let's see how this matches up? If
this just a clone then probably its going to have a hard time.

~~~
ionforce
Quora is bad at/does not specialize in answers involving code/math.

------
jusben1369
Small nitpick but you don't need the coma after "trolling" and you have the
conjunctive "or" after that.

------
joeframbach
Might as well 301 to news.ycombinator.com

------
smegel
Oh dear good watching all the pro SO shills leap out in defence of their
kingdom is making my eyes bleed. Please, please go back home.

~~~
cruise02
Yes, everyone who disagrees with you should just go away. HN is not a place
for two-sided discussion!

You would make a great Stack Overflow moderator.

~~~
smegel
Nice strawman...let me guess you vote left?

~~~
cruise02
That's not what a strawman is.

