Why not have a 'request move' flag on SO posts? Keeping a discussion alive and having it moved to the right place seems more useful and friendly than just shutting it down.
People with enough reputation can do exactly that.
StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
121–130 of 139 posts
Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
#122After seeing a couple of posts like this, I'd like to provide an alternative perspective: I no longer actively answer questions on StackOverflow, because it is too hard to find worthwhile questions between all the noise. If someone specifically asks me to answer something, I will do it, but trying to find interesting questions on StackOverflow has become impossible due to the high influx of very low quality material.…
What is SO "noise" for you? E.g. would the question debated here be "noise", and why? (To me, it appears to be clear what information the person asking wants, and it isn't already answered elsewhere) I don't think many people are arguing against moderation of questions in general.
I wouldn't consider that particular question to be noise, even though it does not really fit the SO format. By "noise" I'm mainly referring to exceedingly simple questions, which could have been solved by even minimal research or debugging. Questions that have already been asked many, many times and only vary in your precise code.
My point here is that, in my experience, the main problem of StackOverflow is too little or ineffective moderation, rather than the other way around.
Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is SO "noise" for you? E.g. would the question debated here be "noise", and why? (To me, it appears to be clear what information the person asking wants, and it isn't already answered elsewhere) I don't think many people are arguing against moderation of questions in general.
I wouldn't consider that particular question to be noise, even though it does not really fit the SO format. By "noise" I'm mainly referring to exceedingly simple questions, which could have been solved by even minimal research or debugging. Questions that have already been asked many, many times and only vary in your precise code. My point here is that, in my experience, the main problem of StackOverflow is too littl…
Thanks for clarifying.
Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Incorrect, you can vote on closed questions. You just can't add new answers.
I understand that SO is about building a knowledgebase but isn't it clear that a lot of people view SO as more of a Q&A + forum? When you close a question, it feels like censorship, which is frustrating because continued discussion and up to date answers are almost always expected. Anyhow, SO isn't the same site it was 5 years ago. It's actually pretty darn toxic for new userbase and seems to cater to the mods themse…
Yeah. Ha, maybe the toxic culture is a sort of game-theory equilibrium that keeps out new mods.
Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
When Google lands me there, about 80-90% of the time a SO post contains the answer I was looking for, it has tons of votes, yet is closed as being off-topic or too broad. Useful yet puzzling.
As a mere reader and non-user of SO, does it matter if the question was closed? The answer's still there, googlable, and it still gets updated regularly, no?
In programming (and many other fields) things change quickly, something that was a good idea 3-4 years ago may now be a really bad advice. Closed questions can't be updated with the improved answers, so IMHO they simply can't be trusted anymore
Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
#126Mods were never involved with this question; it was closed by regular users (https://stackoverflow.com/posts/5574241/revisions). It was also never locked – locking is significantly different from closure.
Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
#127There's nothing wrong with StackOverflow's modding system, just post a blog complaining and get it to +100 on HN and it will be undeleted.
Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
#128Totally agree. Recently I asked a specific question on ServerFault, mentioning only that I run a SaaS monitoring service to give context. My question was closed, and I was accused spam. My question didn't include a link nor even the name of the business. I was offended but mostly just disappointed I couldn't find the help I needed.
ServerFault is super aggressive against any additions and "admin panels".
My detailed question was closed because I mentioned Webmin installed.
Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
#129That is one of the main reasons to own your own data and not to trust some company with it. Just post it on your own blog and link to it instead.
Fortunately, it's still possible for the OP to do this and include all of the answers he got on Stack Overflow because the content is released under a Creative Commons license. There are many other sites where that would not be the case.
Re: StackOverflow modding itself out of existence
#130I wonder if there's an archive available. You know, for the many deleted but useful questions and answers.
http://www.stackprinter.com/deleted has an archive of many high-scoring deleted questions from Stack Exchange. (You need to click the printer icon on the left to see their copy.)
http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/224922 has previous Stack Exchange data dumps, which include many of the deleted questions. With sufficient effort somebody could use to construct a partial archive. (Provided that they follow the requirements of the Creative Commons license: http://s.tk/attribution.)