

The War of the Closes - UweSchmidt
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/06/the-war-of-the-closes/
1. “On hold” will replace “closed” on newly closed posts<p>2. New close reasons are nicer and clearer<p>3. Questions edited by the original poster automatically go to the re-open queue
======
SeanDav
The changes are a step in the right direction, however I see no mention of the
situation where questions with many upvotes are closed. I find it incredibly
arrogant that a mod can come close a topic that has many upvotes. It is
basically saying to the community that all their opinions count for nothing,
which is pretty disrespectful to a community that prides itself (rightly so)
on its high number of domain experts.

The other truly irritating thing about SO/SE is their propensity for closing
opinion based questions. I am sure that I am not the only one that finds
domain experts arguing about for example, the merits of 1 library over
another, or language A over Language B, rather useful (I often use their
answers as a basis for further research to see if I agree or can find
supporting evidence). Allow the community to vote up the opinion based answers
they like and downvote the trolling/flaming answers.

~~~
jaydles
DISCLOSURE: I wrote that blog post, I work for SE, I AM biased.

Thanks for the general support.

You raise two concerns, though:

1\. Upvotes - this is tricky. The problem with never allowing questions with
lots of upvotes to be closed is twofold:

\- Sometimes, what's allowed changes over time. Communities start out allowing
almost anything "What's a good snack to help programmers stay awake?", but
eventually decide that they need to limit things to a narrower focus. If
communities who do that can't close those questions, they'll attract more like
them. \- Some popular things are way off base to start with. You might be able
to attract a ton of upvotes for an xkcd post, but you really wouldn't wan't
the site full of them just because they're broadly loved.

2\. opinion based questions - the changes are designed to help a little with
what you're worried about: "primarily opinion based" now explicitly
acknowledges that many good answers incorporate _some_ expert opinion. But you
still want some limit, no? "Which is better, Ruby or PHP?" isn't good for
anybody, and the new reasons are designed to make it clearer that some opinion
is ok, if it comes from expert experience or can be supported by facts,
references, etc. Where that line belongs is for each community to decide.

~~~
angersock
I'll flat-out disagree with you about the opinion-based questions.

We're in a young-enough industry and practice that opinions are really the
coin of the realm--there is not the same standard accept methodology you'd see
in, say, mechanical engineering.

To pretend that opinions aren't somehow a useful component of learning here is
absurd--all the more so because beginners need opinions to start. Once they
learn more, once they get exposed to other ideas, then they can form their own
opinions. But to pretend that this happens in a vacuum is quite wrong.

Your example "Which is better, Ruby or PHP?" is _exactly_ where opinions,
properly backed-up, are useful: a good answer will say "Well, Ruby has these
great metaprogramming features, but PHP has a much larger developer pool, and
so on". Bad answers will of course just be "ruby is teh 1337 n00b". If only
there was some kind of way that Stack Overflow let users filter good answers
from bad answers...

At the end of the day, opinions and their debate are what are most useful to a
beginner, especially when they don't know what questions to ask or issues to
consider. The big failing right now is that you aren't trusting your community
enough to filter out the garbage.

~~~
andrewflnr
No one is saying that opinions aren't important. What they're saying is that
their place isn't StackOverflow. Why do people find this so hard to
understand? Just because SO/SE is big doesn't obligate them to become big
enough to encompass all the useful questions in their domain. Let them do
their thing.

~~~
joelthelion
> No one is saying that opinions aren't important. What they're saying is that
> their place isn't StackOverflow

And that's where you wrong, they would fit perfectly if you made an effort to
accommodate them instead of being dogmatic about them.

~~~
thedufer
If SO decides that SO isn't the place for opinions, then they're right. It's
their site. I don't see why this is such a difficult concept.

~~~
joelthelion
It's not a difficult concept, it's just a stupid viewpoint.

Just because they can legally ignore user feedback doesn't mean that they
should.

~~~
thedufer
If it's such a stupid viewpoint, then why aren't they being ousted by Q&A
sites that don't hold that viewpoint? It's not like this is something they
haven't heard before - people have been making the same complaint since day 1.

------
archon
> All dupes now must point to an answered question, and the new language
> focuses on getting you answers

This one is the most useful, I think. I've stumbled across closed-for-
duplication answers before via google searches and found myself wondering what
the question duplicated.

~~~
cruise02
Answers are never closed as duplicates. Only questions are closed as
duplicates of other questions that ask the same thing. The change is that now
the original question should have an answer.

------
Goladus
Nearly all of the cases where I've found myself annoyed at someone closing a
question are the "off-topic" variety. Most commonly, they are questions asked,
answered, upvoted, and google-indexed on StackOverflow and then closed because
some mod decided it wasn't programmy enough and should have been asked at
ServerFault. Due to the large overlap between programming and system
administration, the same question asked at both SO and SF may generate
different _but equally useful_ responses tailored to their own communities.
It's far too easy for an over-zealous moderator to fail to consider this and
close out a question for no good reason.

I'll be interested to see if the new "close reasons" will actually improve
this problem. My guess is that it won't and there will still be overly
draconian closures of edge-case topics that are relevant to multiple
communities.

~~~
cruise02
Can you share some links to those questions that were wrongly closed? As a
general policy, questions that are on topic on Stack Overflow _shouldn 't_ be
closed just because they might also be on topic on another site. We're aware
of the overlap, and we're supposed to allow for it.

~~~
Goladus
This is the most recent question I was thinking of:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/62222/centos-or-debian-
as...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/62222/centos-or-debian-as-a-server-
os)

But looking through my history, I was slightly incorrect-- at least one was
closed as "not constructive" rather than "off-topic." (I remembered
incorrectly because it's true the question is not about programming
specifically)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3630506/benefits-of-
ebs-v...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3630506/benefits-of-ebs-vs-
instance-store-and-vice-versa)

The question resulted in answers based on facts and expertise that I found
extremely helpful. It was almost exactly what I was looking for when I put the
search into google. The question got 161 upvotes and the best answer got 150.
The most upvoted answer included 6 factual statements, 1 assertive opinion,
and 1 testimonial.

Here's an example of a question closed as off-topic from serverfault. I
honestly have no idea why, or where such a question should be asked:

[http://serverfault.com/questions/5111/how-to-test-real-
netwo...](http://serverfault.com/questions/5111/how-to-test-real-network-
throughput-between-two-points)

Once again, I found it on a google search and the first answer had exactly
what I was looking for. Minutes later I had downloaded iperf and had used it
to run the tests I wanted to run. Yet the question is locked with a disclaimer
about how it's only preserved for legacy reasons and it's not on-topic for the
site.

To be clear, I don't have a strong preference for where these questions get
asked and answered so long as the answers are high-quality and an itinerant
surfer like me can find them and active+fruitful discussions don't get
permanently squashed because the question caused a red-flag in some moderators
pruning algorithm.

~~~
cruise02
The first one is off-topic, but it could have been closed as "not
constructive" as well. Shopping recommendations aren't encouraged, which is
the same issue with the Server Fault question.

~~~
Goladus
That's great but the fact is, these communities are better than anyone else at
answering those questions. Why close a good question with good, relevant
answers when a better forum doesn't exist?

~~~
cruise02
A better forum does exist. [http://www.slant.co/](http://www.slant.co/)

~~~
Goladus
Arguable. Personally, that site has not yet provided me with an answer to a
question I've actually had. Maybe someday.

~~~
StuieK
Give us some time :) We are working as hard as we can and the amount of
content is growing at a really good rate each month. That said, we are missing
the vast majority of the content we need so probabilistically you're not going
to find a specific query on Slant right now. Could you let me know what
question you had? I'd love to research it for you.

~~~
Goladus
If I could make one suggestion-- allow question details. The serverfault
question I linked had two components:

Subject: _How to test real network throughput between two points?_

Body: _What are some of the better tools /utilities for testing real bandwidth
across a link? In my case I am testing the real throughput across a wifi
bridge._

The question body is what turns it into a conversation, personalized with
subtle details and information less likely to emerge from a highly-organized,
more-generic and less organic "shopping list" presentation.

~~~
StuieK
100% agreed and this feature is already nearly ready to be shipped :)

------
smackfu
Off-topic closes were definitely unfriendly before. It would show all five or
six users who had voted to close, which felt excessive and like being ganged
up on, and just had a generic message "Questions on Stack Overflow are
expected to relate to programming or software development within the scope
defined in the FAQ." Where that FAQ link is to the whole FAQ, which had dozens
of questions.

I hope the new approach helps, but strict arbitrary off-topic lines are still
going to come across as hostile, IMHO. Especially when there is no
StackExchange site that the question is on-topic for.

~~~
cruise02
You left out half the message.

> Questions on Stack Overflow are expected to relate to programming or
> software development within the scope defined in the FAQ. Consider editing
> the question or leaving comments for improvement if you believe the question
> can be reworded to fit within the scope. Read more about closed questions
> here.

The second part links to a section of the FAQ (now the Help Center) that
explains why questions are closed.

[http://stackoverflow.com/help/closed-
questions](http://stackoverflow.com/help/closed-questions)

The off-topic bullet links to a detailed section on what kinds of questions
you can and cannot ask.

[http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic](http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-
topic)

~~~
smackfu
It's tough because I think those bullets in the last link are way too fuzzy to
actually be useful guidelines to someone who isn't already very familiar with
the all the sites.

------
dmschulman
So will StackOverflow reinstate my account which was banned after asking 1
question?

I love the fact that such a service exists but their moderation policies are
(were?) not the least bit friendly

~~~
gortok
I'm a moderator on Stack Overflow (
[http://stackoverflow.com/users/16587](http://stackoverflow.com/users/16587)
). If you can post on Meta (
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com](http://meta.stackoverflow.com) ), we can take
a look and let you know why you're question banned. However, I can tell you
from experience that no one is post banned after one question (also, you can't
see your deleted questions on your profile, which may lead you to believe
you've only had one post).

~~~
smackfu
I know you have good intentions, but consider that your response reads as: "I
can help you. However, you are lying or incorrect."

~~~
gortok
I never claimed the OP lied; nor would I even try to imply it. I've long had
issues with the policy that users can't see their own deleted questions (
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/2645/show-all-of-
my-...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/2645/show-all-of-my-question-
answers-to-me-even-if-they-are-deleted) ), and I brought that up to say that I
can understand if there's confusion there. No one is ever post banned for one
post (it's a system imposed ban that takes into account a number of things:
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/86997/what-can-i-
do-...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/86997/what-can-i-do-when-
getting-sorry-we-are-no-longer-accepting-questions-answers) ). It's our fault
(moderators and members of the Stack Overflow community) if there isn't clear
enough feedback regarding that cycle. That was my intention. I'm sorry. I'll
try to communicate more clearly on this topic in the future.

~~~
smackfu
Yeah, I think it's just a natural response to being in a very strictly ruled
culture like Stack Overflow. The focus falls on the details ("banned after
asking 1 question") rather than the general premise ("banned unfairly"). When
you point out the details don't sound right, that is absolutely correct, but
that doesn't help the person, since the rules are just arbitrary from their
viewpoint anyways. It's a hard problem.

(And I apologize if my response came off overly harsh. I tried to soften it.)

------
simonsarris
"All dupes now must point to an answered question" is a good new rule.

But you know what would be a better rule? Questions with over 50 upvotes
_cannot_ be closed as "irrelevant" unless they are moved to a different
StackExchange site.

~~~
nine_k
No. The question might be a good text, but a poor question, and a bad
flamebait. SO is not a general discussion site.

Closed questions are not deleted, still appear in search results, and
sometimes are helpful at that role.

------
StuieK
For those who find the closed subjective questions useful, we are trying to
build a home for them at slant.co, would love to hear any feedback.

~~~
cruise02
Stack Overflow moderator here. I love Slant for so many reasons! I'm glad
there's a place where people can ask subjective questions. It sucked when
people used to ask where they could ask their question and we basically had to
respond "not here, try reddit." I also think the design of Slant reinforces
the argument that Stack Overflow just isn't built for that kind of question.
Well done!

~~~
StuieK
Thanks mate :)

------
jere
Are you notified when your questions are closed?

I had a question about about alternatives to Amazon's Product Advertising API
that was there for a long time. I felt like it was fairly useful to people. It
had 20+ upvotes and a dozen favorites. Then one day it disappeared without
warning and leaving no trace it ever existed.

~~~
loumf
I had a question closed on Cooking and was notified. There's a notification
area to check (usually gives some signal in the upper-left to look).

------
joelthelion
Unfortunately they still haven't understood that "primarily opinion based"
questions are valid, very useful and a perfect fit for Stack Overflow.

~~~
jackmaney
They are not. Take a look at: [http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/gorilla-
vs-shark/](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/gorilla-vs-shark/)

~~~
joelthelion
Straw man. Some "primarily opinion based" questions are bad, that doesn't mean
that they all are. As long as they are precise, they can be useful.

Of course, they should be handled properly. They should be tagged as such, and
managed differently from the other questions. For example, they could expire
after a while, at least if they are not renewed.

~~~
jackmaney
Primarily opinion-based questions aren't necessarily bad. They just aren't a
fit in Stack Overflow. If you wish to create your own Q&A site based upon
primarily opinion-based questions, please feel free.

------
sergiotapia
I'm still kind of pissed off that useful questions are closed on Stackoverflow
because it doesn't 'fit the Q&A style of the site.'

[http://i.imgur.com/VcqqSN9.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/VcqqSN9.jpg)

You see questions with 400 upvotes closed by some user who has been on the
site for 6 months and is autistic about earning internet points.

~~~
Afforess
I wish those questions would be moved to the relevant StackExchange site.
Often times it's just a case of misplaced question, where it might fit better
in superuser or it. It should be moved in those cases.

~~~
cruise02
Stack Overflow has had problems in the past where unclear or otherwise low-
quality questions get migrated to sites where they don't really belong. If a
question is clear and you know for sure where it belongs, you can flag it for
a moderator to migrate.

------
autoreverse
Would it be an improvement if unanswered questions (or ones with no replies)
were hidden from Google?

I find it pretty frustrating when searching a topic and SO's unanswered or
closed questions are at top the of SERPs.

~~~
Shog9
We do try to remove unanswered questions after a while, though in the meantime
it's important that they're able to be found - after all, someone out there
might have an answer.

We're stepping up efforts to remove _closed_ unanswered questions more
promptly though, since those won't be answered and just end up being noise in
the search results.

For details, see: [http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/78048/enable-
automat...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/78048/enable-automatic-
deletion-of-old-unanswered-zero-score-questions-after-a-year/92006#92006)

------
trotsky
If you need that much detail to explain some of the new answers to current
users, why such a focus on brevity when the actual ( responses || closes ) are
generated? Also in the news today is the NSA FOIA response in which they took
one bureaucratic statement "DENIED - CLASSIFIED" and softened it considerably
by including a bunch of explanation in the response itself.

------
dionidium
These are good changes, but if they insist on closing perfectly valid opinion-
based questions, then the text should emphasize that that's _their_ problem,
not mine. I didn't do anything wrong. They're the ones making a mistake.

------
likeclockwork
What do they mean by 'programming questions you'd solve on a whiteboard'?

Theoretical questions/design questions or..?

I'm confused.

~~~
cruise02
Programmers is more for design questions. There's a detailed list of
guidelines on the Help Center. [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/help/on-
topic](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic)

There's also a Computer Science site for more theoretical questions
([http://cs.stackexchange.com/](http://cs.stackexchange.com/)), and
Theoretical Computer Science for research-level CS questions
([http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/](http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/)).

------
antman
There goes my foolproof method of finding computing answers on Google:
questionhere "closed as not constructive"

------
dinkumthinkum
This comes up now and again on HN. Essentially, StackOverflow is a great site.
It's premise was a free, frictionless, focused Q&A site and it was made
possible by the wide audiences of Atwood and Spolsky. Atwood focused more on
something that went between obscene OCD and just dogma. I think what wasn't
realized after the beginning of SO was that SO became a success despite
Atwood's ideology, not because of it. I think Joel realized it, just based on
the podcasts, but since Atwood was doing most of the work, "whatever." The big
problem came in with the ideology becoming enmeshed with the culture and the
high council of Meta being sort of a sycophantic keeper of the faith.
Basically, any question or answer or anything that might, some day, remotely
look like a "discussion" (gasp) on SO is rigidly stamped out by the religious
police. You could say this is hyperbole, but just use it for awhile. Heck,
google any technical question and probably SO will be the first hit but that
question will be marked "Closed, not conforming to the ideology of Atwood" or
something like that to the point of being comical.

It's even more farcical when you consider the abject snobbery SO has toward
the "other Q&A sites." That has been there from the beginning, and to be sure
many of the criticism of those sites are well deserved. But, SO has deeper
problems, in some ways, particularly with the zealotry, but it is masked by
the fact that there are so many technical people still on SO or, even if many
have left, they have gathered such a large corpus that they will remain the
big kid on the block.

But at least they are trying to address it, if only at a surface level.

