61–70 of 71 posts
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The internet running out of space is a red herring. The concern is a dilution of focus of Stack Overflow.
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.
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.
For conceptual questions like these, StackExchange has http://programmers.stackexchange.com
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.
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 exam…
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.
In the case of milk, circumstances matter. Is the person drinking the milk an infant? Lactose intolerant? Travelling? Going on a 1-week camping expedition? On a diet? Diebetic?
The details are key to the question. If you answered the question "In a glass with chocolate chip cookies on the side", the parent of an infant following that advice would have a baby vomiting everywhere because they cannot digest milk protein.
The database question is similar. Are you storing favicons or 10MB RAW files? Is the database an archive with low traffic or the next Flickr? What database platform are you using? What resources are available to the questioner?
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…
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, answera…
(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.
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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…
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?
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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.
I am often guilty of that. In this case, I actually read the whole comment. Apparently I'm not comprehending something.
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The answers and questions were both on topic and related to the sites purpose connecting common programming problems with great programming answers.
From the faq: Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.
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From the faq: Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.
If you don't like open-ended questions, software development may not be the career for you.
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…